546 ANCIENT. ROCK INSCRIPTIONS IN OHIO. 
nature. The bird-track, so called, presents six varieties, none of 
which are anatomically correct. The human hand is more perfect 
than the foot. 
Dr. Salisbury finds, on comparison of these symbolical figures 
with the Oriental sign-writing, or hieroglyphical alphabets, that 
there are many characters in common. Some 800 years before 
Christ, the Chinese had a bird-track character in their syllable 
alphabet. The serpent is a symbol so common among the early 
nations, and has a significance so various, that very little use can 
be made of it in the comparison. 
These inscriptions differ materially from those made by the 
modern red man. He is unable to read that class of them which 
appears to be ancient. 
_ Lieut. Whipple has mentioned in the ‘‘Government Report on 
the Pacific Rail Road Surveys,” an instance of the bird-track 
character inscribed upon the-rocks of Arizona. Professor Kerr, 
of North Carolina, states that he has noticed similar characters 
cut in the rocks of one of the passes of the Black Mountains, at 
the head of the Tennessee river. . 
These facts indicate wide-spread universality in the use of this — 
style of inscription, and it indicates something higher than the 
present symbolical, or picture writing of the North American 
Indians. 
Professor W. C. Kerr said it may be a matter of some interest in 
this connection to state that on a recent tour among the mountains of 
North Carolina, I found, at the foot of the Black Mountain, at an elevation 
of some 2800 feet, in a gap which was doubtless traversed by an Indian 
trail, a slab of chloritic rock, about six feet by three and a half, which is 
covered all.ove x with carvings, Seite the tracks of the animals 
milar markings. These foot-prints are very distinct, and readily 
santa sition doubtless, the lines are not so sharp as when first cut. 
Professor Cope remarked that one of pay ESPR on the dia- 
ind of the 
contemporaneous existence of man and that now extinct animal, was in 
fact but a rude figure of a human head. 
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E AV NE e Sah S Es a aE 
A WN ie e E NER a A ETE AAE 
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