ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 117 



suspect, at least that the mould-builders of pre-historic times 



belonged to many and diverse stocks. With the limitations 

 thus indicated the identification of mould-building peoples 

 as distinct tribes or stocks is a legitimate study, but when 

 we consider the farther fact now established that arts extend 

 beyond the boundaries of linguistic stocks, the most funda- 

 mental divisions we are yet able to make of the peoples of 

 the globe, we may more properly conclude that this field 

 promises but a meager harvest ; but the origin and develop- 

 ment of arts and industries is in itself a vast and profoundly 

 interesting theme of stucly, and when North American ar- 

 chaeology is pursued with this end in view, the results will 

 be instructive. 



Picture Writing. 



On this subject three papers have been presented, as fol- 

 lows : 



Some Indian Pictographs ; by G. K. Gilbert. 



Indian Pictographs ; by G. K. Gilbert. 



Indian Pictographs in New Mexico; by Miles Rock. 



The pictographs of North America were made on divers 

 substances. The bark of trees, tablets of wood, the skins of 

 animals and the surfaces of rocks were all used for this pur- 

 pose ; but the great body of picture-writing as preserved to 

 us is found on rock surfaces, as these are the most enduring. 



From Dighton Rock to the cliffs that overhang the Pacific, 

 these records are found — on boulders fashioned by the waves 

 of the sea, scattered by river floods, or polished by glacial 

 ice ; on stones buried in graves and mounds ; on faces of rock 

 that appear in ledges by the streams ; on canon walls and 

 towering cliff's ; on mountain crags and the ceilings of caves — 

 wherever smooth surfaces of rock are to be found in North 

 America, there we may expect to find pictographs. So widely 

 distributed and so vast in number, it is well to know what 

 purposes they may serve in anthropologic science. 



Many of these pictographs are simply pictures, rude etch- 

 ings, or paintings, delineating natural objects, especially an- 



