122 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
lines of dark red paint, presumably a ferruginous coloring material pre- 
pared in the neighborhood, which abounds iniron compounds. The ex- 
ception is one object which appears to have been black, but is now so 
faded or eroded as to seem dark gray. 
The following account of the Tazewell county, Virginia, pictographs 
is taken from Coale’s Life, ete., of Waters: (a) 
In August, 1871, the writer went to visit Tazewell county by way of the salt- 
works. Upon this place are found those stangely painted rocks which have been a 
wonder and a mystery to all who have seen them. The grandfather of Gen. Bowen 
settled the cove in 1766, one hundred and ten years ago, and the paintings were 
there then, and as brilliant to-day as they were when first seen by a white man. 
They consist of horses, elk, deer, wolves, bows and arrows, eagles, Indians, and 
various other devices. The mountain upon which these rocks are based is about 
1,000 feet high, and they lie in a horizontal line about half way up and are perhaps 
75 feet broad upon their perpendicular face. 
When it is remembered that the rock is hard, with a smooth white surface, incapa- 
ble of absorbing paint, it is a mystery how the coloring has remained undimmed un- 
der the peltings of the elements for how much longer than a hundred years no one 
ean tell. This paint is found near the rocks, and Gen. Bowen informed the writers 
that his grandmother used it for dyeing linsey, and it was a fadeless color. 
As there was a battle fought on a neighboring mountain, between 1740 and 1750, 
between the Cherokees and Shawnees for the possession of a buffalo lick, the remains 
of the rude fortifications being still visible, it is supposed the paintings were hiero- 
glyphies conveying such intelligence to the red man as we now communicate to 
each other through newspapers. 
It was a perilous adventure tostand upon a narrow, inclined ledge without a shrub 
or a root to hold to, with from 50 to 75 feet of sheer perpendicular descent below to 
a bed of jagged bowlders and the home of innumerable rattlesnakes, but I didn’t 
make it. Icrawled far enough along that narrow slanting ledge with my fingers 
inserted in the crevices of the rocks to see most of the paintings, and then “‘ coon’d” 
it back with equal care and caution. 
Five miles east of the lastnoted locality and 7 west of Tazewell, 
high up against a vertical cliff of rock, is visible a lozenge-shaped 
group of red and black squares, known in the locality as the “‘ Hand- 
kerchief rock,” because the general appearance of the colored markings 
suggests the idea of an immense bandana handkerchief spread out. 
The pictograph is on the same range of hills as the preceding, but 
neither is visible from any place near the other. The objects can not 
be viewed upon Handkerchief rock excepting from a point opposite to 
it and across the valley, as the locality is so overgrown with large trees 
as to obscure it from any position immediately beneath. The lozenge 
or diamond-shaped figure appears to cover an area about 3 feet in 
diameter. 
WASHINGTON. 
Capt. Charles Bendire, U.S. Army, in a letter dated Fort Walla- 
walla, Washington, May 18, 1881, mentions a discovery made by Col. 
Henry C. Merriam, then lieutenant-colonel Second United States In- 
fantry, as thus quoted: . 
While encamped at the lower end of Lake Chelan, lat. 48° N., he made a trip to 
the upper end of said lake, where he found a perpendicular cliff of granite with a 
— 
as 
” 
