302 ART IN SHELL OF THE ANCIENT AMERICANS. 



knife. At the same time this doughty warrior seems to be receiving a 

 blow in the face from the right hand of the other combatant, in which is 

 clutched a savage-looking blade, with a curved point. The hands 

 are vigorously drawn, the joints are correctly placed, and the thumb 

 presses down upon the outside of the forefinger in its natural effort 

 to tighten and secure the grasp. Two bands encircle the wrists and 

 probably represent bracelets. The arms and shoulders are plain. 

 The head is decorated with a single plume, which springs from a 

 circular ornament placed over the ear; an angular figure extends 

 forward from the base of this plume and probably represents what 

 is left of the head dress proper; forward of this, on the very edge of 

 the crumbling shell, is one-half of the lozenge-shajjed eye, the dot 

 intended to represent the pupil being almost obliterated. It is cer- 

 tainly a great misfortune that both faces are completely gone ; their 

 exact character must remain conjectural. A neat pendant ornament is 

 suspended upon the well-formed breast, and a broad belt encircles the 

 waist, beneath which, covering the abdomen, is a design that suggests 

 the scales of a coat of mail. The legs are well-defined and perfectly 

 proportioned; the left knee is bent forward and the foot is planted 

 firmly on the ground, while the right is thrown gracefully back against 

 the rim at the left. Double belts encircle the knees and ankles. The 

 legs terminate in wonderfully well-drawn eagle's feet, armed with vigor- 

 ously curved talons. A very interesting feature of the design is the 

 highly conventionalized wing, which is attached to the shoiilder behind, 

 and fills the space beneath the uplifted arm. A broad many-featherd 

 tail is spread out like a fan behind the legs. The right hand figure, so 

 far as seen, is an exact dxiplicate of the left. A design of undetermined 

 significance occupies the space between the figures beneath the crossed 

 arras; it may represent conventionalized drapery, but is more probably 

 symbolic in its character. The heads have probably been a little too 

 large for good proportion, but the details of the anatomy are excellent. 

 The muscles of the shoulder, the breast and nipple, the waist, the but- 

 tock, and the calves of the legs are in excellent drawing. The whole 

 group is most graphically presented. A highly ideal design, it is made 

 to fill a given space with a directness of execution and a unity of con- 

 ception that is truly surprising. 



Let us turn for a moment from this striking efibrt of the mound-build- 

 ers to the early eflbrts of other peojiles in the engraver's art. Here are 

 the drawings of the Troglodytes of France, scintillations of paleolithic 

 genius, which appear as a flash of light in the midst of a midnight sky. 

 They are truly remarkable. The clear-cut lines that shadow forth the 

 hairy mammoth suggest the graphic and forcible work of the Parisian 

 of to-day. The rude Esquimaux of our own time engraves images of a 

 great variety of natural objects on his ornaments and implements of 

 ivory in a manner that commands our admiration. But these shell tablets 

 have designs of a much higher grade. They not only represent natural 



