28 . PICTOGRAPIIS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



cafioo, or valley, and upon volcanic rocks. They bear the marks of age and are cut in, 

 not painted, as is still doue by the Utes everywhere. They are found fora quarter 

 of a mile along the north wall of the canon, on 1 1 1 < - ranches of \V. M. Maguire and 1'. 

 T. Hudson, and consist of .ill manner of pictures, symbols, and hieroglyphics done by 

 artists whose memory even tradition does uol now preserve. The fact that these 

 are carvings, done upon such hard rock merits them with additional interest, as 

 they are quite distinct from the carvings I saw in New Mexico and Arizona on soft 

 sand stone. Though some of them are evidently of much greater antiquity than 

 others, yet all are ancient, the Utes admitting them to have been old when their 

 fathers conquered the country. 



ROCK CARVINGS IN NEW MEXICO. 



On the north wall of Canon de Chelly, one fourth of a mile east of the 

 mouth of the canon, are several groups of pictographs, consisting chiefly 

 of various grotesque forms of the human figure, and also numbers of 

 animals, circles, etc. A few of them arc painted black, the greater por- 

 tion consisting of rather shallow lines which arc in some places consid- 

 erably weathered. 



Further up the canon, in the vicinity of cliff-dwellings, are numerous 

 small groups of pictographic characters, consisting of men and animals, 

 waving or zigzag lines, and other odd and "unintelligible" figures. 



Lieut. J. II. Simpson gives several illustrations of pictographs copied 

 from rocks in the northwest part of New Mexico in his Report of an Ex- 

 pedition into the Navajo Country. (Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 64,31st Cong., 

 1st sess., 1856, PI. 23, 24, 25.) 



Inscriptions have been mentioned as occurring at El Moro, consist- 

 ing of etchings of human figures and other unintelligible characters. 

 This locality is better known as Inscription kock. Lieutenant Simp- 

 son's remarks upon it, with illustrations, are given in the work last 

 cited, on page 120. He states that most of the characters are no higher 

 than a man's head, and that some of them are undoubtedly of Indian 

 origin. 



At Arch Spring, near Zuni, figures are cut upon a rock which Lieu- 

 tenant Whipple thinks present some taint similarity to those at Rocky 

 Dell Creek. (Rep. Lac. R, I!. Exped., Vol. 111. 1856, Pfc. III. p. .:'.». 

 PI. 32.) 



Near Ojo Pescado, in the vicinity of the ruins, are pictographs, re- 

 ported in the last mentioned volume and page, Plate 31, which arc very 

 much weather-worn, and have " no trace of a modern hand about them." 



ROCK-CARVINGS IN ARIZONA. 



On a table laud near the Gila Bend is a mound of granite bowlders, 

 blackened by augite, and covered with unknown characters, the work 

 of human hands. On the ground near by were also traces of some of 



