186 Mr. Kendal’s account of the Dighton rock. 
ures, at this day as plain as if they-had been yesterday inscribed, 
others, of which it is impossible to recognize a single feature. _ ih 
comparing, as Judge Baylies was so obliging as to enable me todo, the 
copies already mentioned with the original, Professor Sewall’s appear- . 
ed to be, on the whole, the most faithful, House not the best execut- 
edicts 
It must be ES to maki who have never seen the pnt 
that these differences can appear in the draughts, without impeaching 
the veracity of the gentlemen, by whom they have been severally 
made. Nothing however is more possible. Some of the errors in- 
deed are such, as can have proceeded only from haste and inattention; — 
but a great majority are consistent with the most elaborate but ill di- 
rected endeavours. Of all others the method of procuring a copy, 
described by Mr. Winthrop, is the one most infallibly adapt 
ducing a deceitful issue. - When we are told, that rit | ter ; 
put into the lines on the rock, paper wetted and. rubbed upon them 
and an impression procured, we may believe, of course, that impres- 
sion is an indisputable copy ; but the delusion fades the moment. ‘that 
we see the rock. No such expedient can succeed. | The greater pat 
of the i inscription is so. much worn out, that the forms, of which itis 
- composed, are wholly subject to the fancy ; and in several places : 
where the figures are plain, they are made out, rather by difference - of 
colour, than by difference of surface. Figures of the latter class can 
yield no impression ; and those of the former will take any shape, ie 
which the psinters’ ink may be spread. 
Another method has been tried, with almost equal ill success. I 
is that of chalking the supposed lines of the i inscription, and then copy: 
ing from the chalk. _ It is true, that in this method the figures to be 
drawn are rendered suficiently distinct; but it does not follow, that 
these figures are the same with those, engraved upon the rock. _ The 
