AHORKilNAL PICTOGRAPIIS. 
177 
an unusual feature in glacial scratches, but there can be no doubt 
as to the entirely natural origin of them all. 
Curiously enough, it was upon this same journey that we 
discovered certain rock-markings which may represent a genuine 
aboriginal pictograph. While endeavoring to locate the site, of 
the old French settlement on French lake (of Oromocto), we. 
were told of two smooth boulders near by bearing figures carved 
by Indians. One of them has been built into the chimney of the 
neighboring mill, and cannot be seen; but the other was pointed 
out to us upon the shore of the lake, and we made a careful 
examination and photographs of it. It lies on the south beach 
of the lake, about 200 yards to the eastward of the ruins of 
Hilliard’s mill, and somewhat above the summer water-level. 
It is of fine-grained sandstone, with a smooth, slightly rounded, 
surface, some two by three feet in area. Cut into this surface 
are three distinct figures, which I went over carefully with chalk, 
and then photographed, with results shown by the accompanying 
figure. At first glance we were inclined to reject the local 
theory that these were Indian carvings, or indeed had any arti- 
ficial origin at all; but the more we studied them the more pos- 
sible did it seem that they may be of Indian origin. If so, they 
would appear to represent Indian totem or tribal signs, carved, 
perhaps, by Indian youths in moments of leisure, just as our 
young people carve their names upon prominent places, where 
the rock is soft enough to allow it. Upon the whole, however, 
I am inclined to doubt their artificial origin. Despite the remark- 
able resemblance of one of the figures to a human form, and of 
another to a stretched beaver skin,* I think it possible, or even 
probable, they are but a natural freak in the weathering of the 
rock. If a carving, the work must have been done with a very 
hard-pointed instrument struck by a heavy mallet, for the figures 
* In this connection, it is interesting to note tlie following passage in Levinge’s 
Echoes from the Backivoods, (London, 1846) I. 104. ‘The totem of the Milicete is the 
beaver, and a member of the tribe who wished to designate himself would first sketch 
the figure of the beaver, and then place beneath it his own peculiar totem or crest, such 
as the hawk, or pigeon, the mink, eel or salmon.” 
