© H ASP THR XXL. 
CONTROVERTED PICTOGRAPHS. 
No large amount of space need be occupied in the mention of 
detected pictographic frauds, their present and future importance 
being small, but much more than is now allowed would be required 
for the full discussion of controverted cases. 
There is little inducement, beyond the amusement derived from 
hoaxing, to commit actual frauds in the fabrication of petroglyphs. 
It must, however, be remembered that coloration and carving of a 
deceptive character are sometimes produced by natural causes, e. g., 
pictured rocks on the island of Monhegan, Maine, figured by School- 
craft (2), are classed in “Science” VI, No. 132, p. 124, as freaks of 
surface erosion. Mica plates were found in a mound at Lower Sandusky, 
Ohio, which, after some attempts at interpretation, proved to belong to 
the material known as graphic or hieroglyphic mica, the discolorations 
having been caused by the infiltration of mineral solution between the 
lamin. 
The instances where inscribed stones from mounds have been ascer- 
tained to be forgeries or fictitious drawings are to be explained as 
sometimes produced by simple mischief, sometimes by craving for per- 
sonal notoriety, and in other cases by schemes either to increase the 
marketable value of land supposed to contain more of the articles or 
to sell those exhibited. 
With regard to more familiar and more portable articles, such as 
engraved pipes, painted robes, and like curios, it is well known that 
the fancy prices paid for them by amateurs have stimulated their 
unlimited manufacture by Indians at agencies who make a business of 
sketching upon ordinary robes or plain pipes the characters in com- 
mon use by them, without regard to any real event or person, and 
selling them as significant records. Some enterprising traders have 
been known to furnish the unstained robes, plain pipes, paints, and 
other materials for the purpose, and simply pay a skillful Indian for 
his work, when the fresh antique or imaginary chronicle is delivered. 
As the business of making and selling archxologic frauds has become 
so extensive in Egypt and Palestine, it can be no matter of surprise 
that it has been attempted by enterprising people of the United States, 
about whom the wooden-nutmeg imputation still clings. The Bureau 
of Ethnology has discovered several centers of the manufacture of an- 
tiquities. 
It was once proclaimed that six inscribed copper plates had been 
found in a mound near Kinderhook, Pike county, Illinois, which were 
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