On the same chart a group of pictures is also given, copied from the originals on the Allegheny River, in Venango County, 5 miles south of Franklin. There are but six characters furnished in this instance, three of which are variations of the human form, while the others are undetermined.
Mr. J. Sutton Wall, of Monongahela City, describes in correspondence a rock bearing pictographs opposite the town of Millsborough, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. This rock is about 390 feet above the level of Monongahela River, and belongs to the Waynesburg stratum of sandstone. It is detached, and rests somewhat below its true horizon. It is about 6 feet in thickness, and has vertical sides; only two figures are carved on the sides, the inscriptions being on the top, and are now considerably worn. Mr. Wall mentions the outlines of animals and some other figures, formed by grooves or channels cut from an inch to a mere trace in depth. No indications of tool marks were discovered. It is presented below as Figure 147, page 224.
The resemblance between this record and the drawings on Dighton Rock is to be noted, as well as that between both of them and some in Ohio.
Mr. J. Sutton Wall also contributes a group of etchings on what is known as the “Geneva Picture Rock,” in the Monongahela Valley, near Geneva. These are foot-prints and other characters similar to those mentioned from Hamilton Farm, West Virginia, which are shown in Figure 148, page 225.
Schoolcraft (Vol. IV, pp. 172, 173, Pll. 17, 18), describes also, presenting plates, a pictograph on the Allegheny River as follows:
One of the most often noticed of these inscriptions exists on the left bank of this river [the Allegheny], about six miles below Franklin (the ancient Venango), Pennsylvania. It is a prominent point of rocks, around which the river deflects, rendering this point a very conspicuous object. * The rock, which has been lodged here in some geological convulsion, is a species of hard sandstone, about twenty-two feet in length by fourteen in breadth. It has an inclination to the horizon of about fifty degrees. During freshets it is nearly overflown. The inscription is made upon the inclined face of the rock. The present inhabitants in the country call it the ‘Indian God.’ It is only in low stages of water that it can be examined. Captain Eastman has succeeded, by wading into the water, in making a perfect copy of this ancient record, rejecting from its borders the interpolations of modern names put there by boatmen, to whom it is known as a point of landing. The inscription itself appears distinctly to record, in symbols, the triumphs in hunting and war.
Rock Carvings in Ohio
In the Final Report of the Ohio State Board of Centennial Managers, Columbus, 1877, many localities showing rock carvings are noted. The most important (besides those mentioned below) are as follows: Newark, Licking County, where human hands, many varieties of bird tracks, and a cross are noticed. Independence, Cuyahoga County, showing human hands and feet and serpents. Amherst, Lorain County, presenting similar objects. Wellsville, Columbiana County, where the characters are more elaborate and varied.
Mr. James W. Ward describes in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of New York, Vol. I, 1871-’72, pp. 57-64, Figs. 14-22, some sculptured rocks. They are reported as occurring near Barnesville, Belmont County, and consist chiefly of the tracks of birds and animals. Serpentine forms also occur, together with concentric rings. The author also quotes Mr. William A. Adams as describing, in a letter to Professor Silliman in 1842, some figures on the surface of a sandstone rock, lying on the bank of the Muskingum River. These figures are mentioned as being engraved in the rock and consist of tracks of the turkey, and of man.
Rock Carvings in West Virginia
Mr. P. W. Norris, of the Bureau of Ethnology, reports that he found numerous localities along the Kanawha River, West Virginia, bearing pictographs. Rock etchings are numerous upon smooth rocks, covered during high water, at the prominent fords of the river, as well as in the niches or long shallow caves high in the rocky cliffs of this region. Although rude representations of men, animals, and some deemed symbolic characters were found, none were observed superior to, or essentially differing from, those of modern Indians.
Mr. John Haywood mentions (The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, Nashville, 1823, pp. 332, 333) rock etchings four miles below the Burning Spring, near the mouth of Campbell’s Creek, Kanawha County, West Virginia. These consist of forms of various animals, as the deer, buffalo, fox, hare; of fish of various kinds; “infants scalped and scalps alone,” and men of natural size. The rock is said to be in the Kanawha River, near its northern shore, accessible only at low water, and then only by boat.
On the rocky walls of Little Coal River, near the mouth of Big Horse Creek, are cliffs upon which are many carvings. One of these measures 8 feet in length and 5 feet in height, and consists of a dense mass of characters.
About 2 miles above Mount Pleasant, Mason County, West Virginia, on the north side of the Kanawha River, are numbers of characters, apparently totemic. These are at the foot of the hills flanking the river.
On the cliffs near the mouth of the Kanawha River, opposite Mount Carbon, Nicholas County, West Virginia, are numerous pictographs. These appear to be cut into the sandstone rock.
See also page 225, Figure 148.
Rock Carvings in the Southern States
Charles C. Jones, jr., in his Antiquities of the Southern Indians, etc., New York, 1873, pp. 62, 63, gives some general remarks upon the pictographs of the southern Indians, as follows:
In painting and rock writing the efforts of the Southern Indians were confined to the fanciful and profuse ornamentation of their own persons with various colors, in which red, yellow, and black predominated, and to marks, signs, and figures depicted on skins and scratched on wood, the shoulder blade of a buffalo, or on stone. The smooth bark of a standing tree or the face of a rock was used to commemorate some feat of arms, to indicate the direction and strength of a military expedition, or the solemnization of a treaty of peace. High up the perpendicular sides of mountain gorges, and at points apparently inaccessible save to the fowls of the air, are seen representations of the sun and moon, accompanied by rude characters, the significance of which is frequently unknown to the present observer. The motive which incited to the execution of work so perilous was, doubtless, religious in its character, and directly connected with the worship of the sun and his pale consort of the night.
The same author, page 377, particularly describes and illustrates one in Georgia, as follows:
In Forsyth County, Georgia, is a carved or incised bowlder of fine-grained granite, about 9 feet long, 4 feet 6 inches high, and 3 feet broad at its widest point. The figures are cut in the bowlder from one-half to three-fourths of an inch deep. * It is generally believed that they are the work of the Cherokees.
These figures are chiefly circles, both plain, nucleated, and concentric, sometimes two or more being joined by straight lines, forming what is now known as the “spectacle-shaped” figure.
Dr. M. F. Stephenson mentions, in Geology and Mineralogy of Georgia, Atlanta, 1871, p. 199, sculptures of human feet, various animals, bear tracks, etc., in Enchanted Mountain, Union County, Georgia. The whole number of etchings is reported as one hundred and forty-six.