58 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
On the northeast angle of the mesa referred to were found the remains of an old 
camp, over which were scattered large quantities of arrowheads, knives, and flakes 
of obsidian. This in itself would be insignificant, but the fact that many of the 
specimens of this material have been lying exposed to the elements until the upper 
surface has undergone change in color, so as to become bieached and friable, in some 
instances to the depth of from one-tenth to one-fourth of an inch, warrants the infer- 
ence that the relics may have been made by the same people who made the petro- 
glyphs, as the worked relics generally differ from those of the present Indians by 
being larger and less elaborately finishea. 
At the lower end of the southeastern slope of the mesa are a number of flat rocks 
bearing mortar holes, which have no doubt been used in grinding grass seed and 
other grains. 
In general type these petroglyphs correspond very closely to those of other areas, 
in which the so-called Shoshonian types occur, the most common, apart from those 
presented in Pls. I and 11, consisting of concentric circles, rings, footprints of the 
bear and of man, and various outlines of the human form, beside numerous unintelli- 
gible forms. 
Southeastward of this locality there is a low divide leading across the Benton 
range into the broad, arid, sloping sand desert of Owens valley proper, but it is not 
until a point 12 miles south of Benton, along the line of the old stage road, is reached 
that petroglyphs of any consequence are met with. From this point southward, for 
a distance of 6 miles, large exposures and bowlders of basalt are scattered, upon 
which are great numbers of petroglyphs, pecked into the rock to depths of from half 
an inch to 14 inches, and representing circles, footprints, human forms, ete. 
The first series of illustrations, selected from numerous closely-counected bowlders, 
are here presented on Pls, 11 to vil. The designs marked « on PI. 111 resemble ser- 
pents, while that at d is obviously sucn. This device is on the horizontal surface, 
and is pecked to the depth of about Linch. The scale of the drawing is one-thir- 
tieth of the original petroglyph. The characters indicating the human form ine, g, 
and h resemble the ordinary Shoshonian type, and are like those from various locali- 
ties in Arizona and southern Utah and Colorado. 
The upper characters in A on Pl. rv represent the trail of a grizzly bear—as indi- 
eated by the immense claws—followed by a human footprint. The original seulp- 
turings are clearly cut, the toes of the man’s foot being cup-like, as if drilled with a 
blunt piece of wood and sand. The tracks average 15 inches in length and vary in 
depth from halfan inch to more than aninch. The course of direction of the tracks, 
which are cutupon a horizontal surface, is from north-northeast to south-southwest, 
In & is the semblance of an apparently two-headed snake, asalsoinaon Pl. vu. It. 
is possible that this was pecked into the rock to record the finding of such an anom- 
aly. The occurrence of double-headed serpents is not unique, five or six instances 
having been recorded, one of which is from California, and a specimen may be seen 
in the collection of the U. S. National Museum. 
In Pl. v, ¢, e, g are characters resembling some from the Canary islands [see Figs. 
144 and 145], as well as many of the cupstones and dumb-bell forms from Scotland 
{see Figs. 149 and 150]. 
An interesting specimen is presented 1n d, on Pl. v1, resembling the Ojibwa thunder 
bird, as well as etchings of Innuit workmanship to denote man [as shown in Fig. 
1159]. The figures presented in Pl. 1 are the northernmost of the series, of which 
those on Pl. vit form the southernmost examples, the distance between these two 
points being about 2 miles. 
For the space of 4 miles southward there are a few scattered petroglyphs, to which 
reference will be made below, and the greatest number of characters are not found 
until the southernmost extremity of the entire series is reached. These are over the 
surface of immense bowlders lying on the east side of the road where it passes 
through a little valley known locally as the Chalk grade, probably on account of 
