WAMPUM. 227 



old Erse, ten with the Phoenician, fourteen with the Anglo- 

 Saxon, and sixteen with the Celtiberic ; besides which pos- 

 sibly equivalents may be found in the old Hebrew. It thus 

 appears that this ingenious little stone is even more accom- 

 modating than the Dighton Rock, in adapting itself to all 

 conceivable theories of ante- Columbian colonisation." A 

 stone of such doubtful character could prove little under any 

 circumstances ; but it must also be mentioned that " Dr, 

 James W. Clemens communicated to Dr. Morton all the 

 details of the exploration of the Grave Creek Mound ; ; . 

 . without any reference to the discovery of the inscribed 

 stone. Nor was it till the excavated vault had been fitted 

 up by its proprietor for exhibition, to all who cared to pay 

 for the privilege of admission, that the marvellous inscrip- 

 tion opportunely came to light to add to the attractions of 

 the show." 



One or two other equally doubtful cases are upon record, 

 but upon the whole we may safely assert that there is no 

 reason to suppose that the nations of America had developed for 

 themselves anything corresponding to an alphabet. The art of 

 picture-writing, which they shared with the Aztecs and the 

 Quipa of the Peruvians, was supplemented among the North 

 American Indians by the " wampum." This curious substi- 

 tute for writing consisted of variously-coloured beads, gene- 

 rally worked upon leather. One very interesting example 

 is the belt of wampum " delivered by the Lenni Lenape 

 Sachems to the founder of Pennsylvania, at the Great Treaty, 

 under the elm-tree at Shachamox in 1682." It is still pre- 

 served in the collection of the Historical Society at Phila- 

 delphia, and consists of "eighteen strings of wampum formed 

 of white and violet beads worked upon leather thongs," the 

 whole forming a belt twenty-eight inches long, and two-and- 

 a-half broad. " On this five patterns are worked in violet 

 beads on a white ground, and in the centre Penn is repre- 



