732 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Britain. With the Chinese it was for untold ages a symbol of the earth. The Rey. 
Samuel Beal, 8. a., rector of Flastone, North Tyrone, professor of Chinese in Uni- 
versity College, London, writes: ‘‘ Now, the earliest symbol of the earth was a plain 
cross, denoting the four cardinal points; hence we have the word chaturanta, i. e., 
the four sides, both in Pali and Sanscrit, for the earth; and on the Nestorian tablet, 
found at Siganfu some years ago, the mode of saying ‘“‘God created the earth” is 
simply this: ‘God created the +.” 
A writer in the Edinburgh Review in an article entitled “The Pre- 
Christian Cross,” January, 1870, p. 254, remarks: “The Buddhists and 
Brahmins who together constitute nearly half the population of the 
-world, tell us that the decussated figure of the cross, whether in a 
simple or complex form, symbolizes the traditional happy abode of 
their primeval ancestors.” 
Rudolf Cronau (¢), describing Fig. 1237, says that in the Berlin 
Zeughause are swords of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, bearing 
thé marks shown in a, J, ¢, 
/ (ie) yr and d, while those having the 
G co to) a & marks eand / are from swords 
Cc . . a 
in the Historical Museum at 
b 
a ie Lee ‘ Dresden. 
é AE x penitent : 
BS CLD) The remarkable resem 
Fic. 1237.—Crosses. Sword-maker’s marks. blance of some of these char- 
acters to forms on petroglyphs in the three Americas, presented in this 
paper, will at once be noticed. 
D’Alviella (c), remarks: 
One of the most frequent forms of the cross is called the gamma cross, because its 
four arms are bent at aright angle so as to form a figure like that of four Greek 
gammas turned in the same direction and joined at the base. We meet it among 
all the peoples of the Old World, from Japan to Iceland, and it is found in the two 
Americas. There is nothing to prevent us from supposing that in the instance it 
was spontaneously conceived everywhere, like the equilateral crosses, circles, trian- 
gles, chevrons, and other geometrical ornaments so frequent in primitive decoration. 
But we see it, at least among the peoples of the Old Continent, invariably passing for 
talisman, appearing in the funeral scenes or on the tombstones of Greece, Scandi- 
navia, Numidia, and Thibet, and adorning the breasts of divine personages—of Ap- 
ollo and Buddha—without forgetting certain representations of the Good Shepherd 
in the Catacomhs. 
It is, however, impossible within the present limits, to attempt even 
a summary of the vast amount of literature on this topic. Perhaps one 
symbolic use of the form which is not commonly known is of sufficient 
interest to be noted. Travelers say that crosses are exhibited in the 
curtains of the monasteries of the Thibetan Buddhists, to mean peace 
and quietness. With the same conception the loopholes of the Japan- 
ese forts were in time of peace covered with curtains embroidered with 
crosses, which when war broke out were removed. 
It is also impossible to refrain from quoting the following, translated 
with condensation, from de Mortillet (a). The illustration referred to 
is reproduced in the present paper by Fig. 1238, the right-hand figure 
