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Show 156 PICT0GBAPH8 OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. followed. This was continued sometimes at intervals of several miles unless indistinct portions of a trail or intersections demanded a repetition at shorter distances. A knowledge of the prevalence of this custom proved very beneficial to the early prospectors and pioneers. Stone circles and stone heaps of irregular form were also met with, which to a casual observer might be misleading. These resulted from previous deposits of edible pine nuts, which had been heaped upon the ground and covered over with stones, grass, and earth to prevent their destruction by birds and rodents. These deposits were placed along the trails in the timbered regions to afford sustenance to Indians who had failed in the hunt, or who might not reach camp in time to prevent suffering from hunger. Plate LXXX ( A, B, G) represents colored pictographs found by Dr. Hoffman in 1884 on the North Fork of the San Gabriel River, also known as the Azuza Gafion, Los Angeles County, California. Its description is as follows: A and B are copies, one- sixteenth natural size, of rock painting found in the Azuza Canon, 30 miles northeast of Los Angeles, California. The bowlder upon which the paintings occur measures 8 feet long, about 4 feet high, aud the same in width. The figures occur oil the eastern side of the rock, so that the left arm of the human figure on the right points toward the north. The map ( C) at the bottom of the plate presents the topography of the immediate vicinity and the relative positions of the rocks bearing the two illustrations. The map is drawn on a scale of 1,000 yards to the inch. The stream is the North Fork of the San Gabriel River, and is hemmed in by precipitous mountains, with the exception of two points marked c, c, over which the old Indian trail passed in going from the Mojave Desert on the north to the San Gabriel Yalley below, this course being the nearest for reaching the mission settlements at San Gabriel and Los Angeles. In attempting to follow the water- course the distance would be greatly increased and a rougher trail encountered. The pictograph A, painted on the rock marked b on the map C, shows characters in pale yellow, upon a bowlder of almost white granite, which are partly obliterated by weathering and annual floods, though still enough remains to indicate that the right- hand figure is directing the observer to the northeast, although upon taking that course it would be necessary to round the point a short distance to the west. It may have been placed as a notification of direction to those Indians who might have come up the canon instead of on the regular trail. Farther west, at the spot marked a on the map, is a granite bowlder bearing a large number of paintings part of which have become almost obliterated. These were drawn with red ocher ( ferric |