CHAPTER II. 
PETROGLYPHS IN NORTH AMERICA, 
SECTION I. 
CANADA. 
The information thus far obtained about petroglyphs in Canada is 
meager. This may be partly due to the fact that through the region of 
the Dominion now most thoroughly known the tribes have generally 
resorted for their pictographic work to the bark of birch trees, which 
material is plentiful and well adapted for the purpose. Indeed the 
same fact affords an explanation of the paucity of rock-carvings or 
paintings in the lands immediately south of the boundary line sepa- 
rating the United States from the British possessions. It must also be 
considered that the country on both sides of that boundary was in 
general heavily timbered, and that even if petroglyphs are there they 
may not even yet have been noticed. But that the mere plenty of birch 
bark does not evince the actual absence of rock-pictures in regions 
where there was also an abundance of suitable rocks, and where the 
native inhabitants were known to be pictographers, is shown by the 
account given below of the multitudes of such pictures lately discovered 
in a single district of NovaScotia. Itis confidently believed that many 
petroglyphs will yet be found in the Dominion. Others may be locally 
known and possibly already described in publications which have 
escaped the researches of the present writer. In fact, from corre- 
spondence and oral narrations, there are indications of petroglyphs in 
several parts of the Dominion besides those mentioned below, but their 
descriptions are too vague for presentation here. For instance, Dr. 
Boas says that he has seen a large number of petroglyphs in British 
Columbia, of which neither he nor any other traveler has made distinct 
report. 
NOVA SCOTIA. 
The only petroglyphs yet found in the peninsula of Nova Scotia are 
in large numbers within a small district in Queens county, and they 
comprise objects unique in execution and in interest. They were ex- 
amined by the present writer in the field seasons of 1887 and 1888, and 
some were copied by him, but many more copies were taken in the last- 
mentioned year by Mr. George Creed, of South Rawdon, Nova Scotia, 
who had guided the writer to the locality. Attention was at first 
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