560 THE GEOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



[Inscriptions. Pipes. 



slight, generally not exceeding a sixteenth of an inch, and sometimes only 

 enough to leave a tracing of the designed form. The hardness of the rock 

 was a barrier to deep sculpturing with the imperfect instruments of the 

 aborigines; but it has effectually preserved the rude forms that were made. 

 The fine glacial scratches that are abundantly scattered over this quartzyte, 

 indicate the tenacity with which it retains all such impressions, and will 

 warrant the assignment of any date to these inscriptions that may be called 

 for within the human period. Yet it is probable that they date back to no 

 very great antiquity. They pertain at least to the dynasty of the present 

 Indian tribes. The totems of the turtle and the bear, which are known to 

 have been powerful among the clans of the native races in America at the 

 time of the earliest European knowledge of them, and which exist to this 

 day, are the most frequent objects represented. The "crane's foot," or 

 "turkey-foot," or "bird-track," terms which refer perhaps to the same totem- 

 sign, the snipe, is not only common on these rocks but is seen among the 

 rock inscriptions of Ohio,* and was one of the totems of the Iroquois of 

 New York.** 



The illustrations seen on plates I, J, K, L, are approximately one-fourth the size of the 

 inscriptions. They show the most conspicuous and important of the inscriptions. There are 

 others that are very indistinct, and some that are unintelligible from imperfect or designless cat- 

 ting. Figure 17 is deeply cut, and was partly hid by overgrowing turf. Figure 24, having its 

 diametral lines agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass, may be intended to express the 

 line of the horizon, and the points north, south, east and west: and it may be so recent as to have 

 been suggested by the modern compass. Figure 31 was interpreted, according to Mr. Sweet, by 

 a Sioux Indian from Flandrean, with these words, " Indian kill elk, three miles, "pointing toward 

 the south. Figure 36, which interferes with figure 37, is the earlier of the two, as indicated by 

 the difference in cutting. 



The pipestone, which has long been used by the Indians for their cal- 

 umets, or peace pipes,! has been described in its physical and chemical 

 characters, under the head of geological structure. 



It seems that many pipes were made by the mound-builders, of a "red 

 porphyritic stone."f f These were exhumed in Ohio by Messrs. Squier and 

 Davis; and others of red catlinite have been found in Iowa,:}: in each case 

 associated with implements of, copper and other objects characteristic of 

 the mound-builders. Pipes of this material are comparatively rare in the 

 mounds, even in the vicinity of the pipestone quarry. One found in Martin 



*Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1871. p. 405. 



**Morgan; Contributions to North American Ethnology. Vol. iv, p. 7. 



f'arver; page 24. 



ttAmient monuments of the Mississippi valley. 



^Proceedings of the Uavenport Academy of Natural Science, vol. i, p. 108 and p. 135. 



