MALLERY. ] IN VENEZUELA. 147 
British Guiana, by Mr. Charles B. Brown (a), gives views and details 
somewhat different from the foregoing: 
These writings or markings are visible at a greater or less distance in proportion 
to the depth of the furrows. In some instances they are distinctly visible upon the 
rocks on the banks of the river at a distance of 100 yards; in others they are so faint 
that they can only be seen in certain lights by reflected rays from their polished 
surfaces. They occur upon greenstone, granite, quartz-porphyry, gneiss, and jas- 
perous sandstone, both in a vertical and horizontal position, at various elevations 
above the water. Sometimes they can only be seen during the dry season when the 
rivers are low, as in several instances on the Berbice and Cassikytyn rivers. In one 
instance, on the Corentyn river, the markings on the rock are so much above the 
level of the river when at its greatest height, that they could only have been made 
by erecting a staging against the face of the rock, unless the river was at the time 
much above its usual level. The widths of the furrows vary from half an inch to 1 
inch, while the depth never exceeds one-fourth of an inch. * ~*~ ~* The furrows 
present the same weather-stained aspect as the rocks upon which they are cut. " 
The Indians of Guiana know nothing about the picture-writing by tradition. 
They scout the idea of their having been made by the hand of man, and ascribe them 
to the handiwork of the Makunaima, their great spirit. * 
As these figures were evidently cut with great care and at much labor by a former 
race of men, I conclude that they were made for some great purpose, probably a 
religous one, as some of the figures give indications of phallic worship. 
VENEZUELA. 
Prof. R. Hartmann (a) presented a pencil drawing of a South American 
rock, covered with sculptures, sketched by Mr. Anton Goering, a 
painter in Leipzig, which is here reproduced as Fig. 107. The rock is 
situated not far from San Esteban, a village in the vicinity of Puerto 
BSD aes 
Jak Ryo t 
Una ea 
Fig. 107.—Sculptured rock in Venezuela. 
Cabello, in Venezuela, C.F. Appun, in Unter den Tropen, I, p. 82, 
remarks as follows in reference to this ‘“‘ Piedra de los Indios” (Indians’ 
stone), a large granite block lying by the side of the road: 
These drawings, cut in the stone to a depth of half an inch, mostly represent 
snakes and other animal forms, human heads and spiral lines, and differ from those 
which I afterward saw in Guiana, on the Essequibo and Rupununi, in characters 
