| OCR Text |
Show DISTRIBUTION OF PETROGL. YPHS IN NORTH AMERICA. Etchings or paintings on rocks in North America are distributed generally. They are found throughout the extent of the continent, on bowlders formed by the sea waves or polished by ice of the glacial epoch; on the faces of rock ledges adjoining streams; on the high walls of caiions and cliffs; on the sides and roofs of caves; in short, wherever smooth surfaces of rock appear. Drawings have also been discovered on stones deposited in mounds and caves. Yet while these records are so frequent, there are localities to be distinguished in which they are especially abundant and noticeable. Also they differ markedly in character of execution and apparent subject- matter. An obvious division can be made between characters etched or pecked and those painted without incision. This division in execution coincides to a certain extent with geographic areas. So far as ascertained, painted characters prevail perhaps exclusively throughout Southern California, west and southwest of the Sierra Nevada. Pictures, either painted or incised, are found in perhaps equal frequency in the area extending eastward from the Colorado River to Georgia, northward into West Virginia, and in general along the course of the Mississippi River. In some cases the glyphs are both incised and painted. The remaining parts of the United States show rock- etchings almost exclusive of paintings. It is proposed with with the accumulation of information to portray the localities of these records upon a chart accompanied by a full descriptive text. In such chart will be designated their relative frequency^ size, height, position, color, age, and other particulars regarded as important. With such chart and list the classification and determination now merely indicated may become thorough. In the present paper a few only t> f the more important localities will be mentioned; generally those which are referred to under several appropriate heads in various parts of the paper. Notices of some of these have been published; but many of them are publicly mentioned for the first time in this paper, knowledge respecting them having been obtained by the personal researches of the officers of the Bureau of Ethnology, or by their correspondents. NORTHEASTERN ROCK CARVINGS. A large number of known and described pictographs on rocks occur in that portion of the United States and Canada at one time in the possession of the several tribes constituting the Algonkian linguistic stock. 19 |
