REVIEWS — THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AMERICA. 57 



Abbe gravely weighing the rival merits of Lybian, Touranik, or 

 Celtiberian claims for the somewhat notorious hoax of the " Grave 

 Greek inscription ;" and with corresponding gravity discussing 

 the claim to a Phoenician origin for the Indian scratchings on 

 the Dighton Rock. But we look in vain for a single original contri- 

 bution to the old familiar materials illustrative of American lithology 

 or ideography ; though the author might just as well, and with as 

 little contempt for truth, have invented for us a good Punic, Iberian, 

 cuneatic or runic inscription, as patched up the jumble he has figured 

 under the name of El Moro rock. What a pity it is that he missed the 

 famous " Holy Stone of Ohio," recently found near Newark, by Mr. 

 D. Wyrick, C. E., under one of the ancient mounds of the Ohio 

 Valley. It is graven in Hebrew, Syriac, Etruscan, and Runic charac- 

 ters, and is regarded by the savans of Newark and Cincinnatti, a3 

 affording indisputable proof that under that very mound Moses was 

 buried, and ' no man knoweth his sepulchre until this day !" 



The thin octavo volume of " Reports of reconnaisances of routes 

 from San Antonio to El Paro," in which the El Moro inscription was 

 first produced, is an official document not likely to come under the 

 notice of ordinary readers, and from which, therefore, an unscrupulous 

 author might be tempted to borrow with little fear of detection ; but 

 the " Deserts of North America," with their topography and ethno- 

 logy, are not always illustrated from such unfamiliar sources. The 

 pen and pencil of Catlin have both been called into requisi- 

 tion, though it is well known, that lively traveller had himself 

 the reputation of sometimes making the most of meagre materials, — 

 as is indeed the fashion with ingenious artists in all ages. A few 

 examples of the author's manner of appropriating others' materials — 

 " Convey the wise it call," — will best illustrate our meaning. The 

 "Dawta Chief" of the Abbe, for instance (vol. ii. p. 28,) is Catlin's 

 Sioux, Ec-ah-sa-pa, or Black Rock, whom he met and painted at 

 Fort Pierre, at the mouth of Teton River ; The " Iroquois " (p. 33,) 

 is a poor reversed copy of Catlin's Not-o-way, or the Thinker ; the 



" Mandan Chief," (p. 36) — of whom more anon, is Mah-to-toh- 



pa, or the Four Bears, second Chief of the Mandans, though with 

 scarcely a trace of the true Indian features characteristically rendered 

 by Catlin ; and the " Saliskas," at (p. 36,) is Stu-mich-o-sucks, or 

 the Buffalo's back fat, head chief of the Blackfeet, painted by the 



