226 INSCRIPTIONS. 



INSCRIPTIONS. 



There is one class of objects which I have not yet men- 

 tioned, and which yet ought not to be left entirely unnoticed. . 



The most remarkable of these is the celebrated Dighton 

 Rock on the east bank of the Taunton River. Its history, 

 and the various conclusions which have been derived from it, 

 are very amusingly given by Dr. Wilson.* In 1783, the 

 Rev. Ezra Stiles, D.D., President of Yale College, when 

 preaching before the Governor of the State of Connecticut, 

 appealed to this rock, inscribed, as he believed, with Phoeni- 

 cian characters, for a proof that the Indians were descended 

 from Canaan, and were therefore accursed. Count de 

 Gebelin regarded the inscription as Carthaginian. In the 

 eighth volume of the " Archaeologia," Colonel Vallency en- 

 deavours to prove that it is Siberian ; while certain Danish 

 antiquaries regarded it as Runic, and thought that they 

 could read the name " Thorfinn," " with an exact, though by 

 no means so manifest, enumeration of the associates who, 

 according to the Saga, accompanied Karlsefne's expedition to 

 Vinland, in A.D. 1007." Finally, Mr. Schoolcraft submitted 

 a copy of it to Chingwauk, an intelligent Indian chief, who 

 "interpreted it as the record of an Indian triumph over 

 some rival native tribe/' but without offering any opinion as 

 to its antiquity. 



In the " Grave Creek Mound" was found a small oval 

 disk of white sandstone, on which were engraved twenty-two 

 letters. Mr. Schoolcraft, who has especially studied this relic, 

 finally concludes, after corresponding with many American 

 and European archaeologists, according to Dr. Wilson, f 

 that of these twenty- two letters, four corresponded "with 

 ancient Greek, four with the Etruscan, five with the old 

 Northern Runes, six with the ancient Gaelic, seven with the 

 * Pre-historic Man, ii. p. 172. f Do. vol. ii, p. 180. 



