Fig. 204.
Fig. 204. A third rock near by, almost entirely hidden by the ruins brought down by the rock avalanche from above, bears upon its face a figure of angular outline, resembling the outspread skin of some animal. The eyes and mouth are distinctly marked. By its side is the figure of a human head, and several wolf and deer tracks. There may be other sculptures on the rock; the portion exhibited in the engraving was exposed only by the expenditure of much severe labor, in the absence of tools for excavation. p297
Fig. 205.
Fig. 205. At the distance of a few rods from these is a small rock, four feet high by six in length. Upon its vertical face are cut the head and shoulders of an elk. The figure is faithfully executed, of full size, and in point of spirit can hardly be excelled by any outline representation. The savage artist who worked this head, with his rude instruments, into the living rock, must have been a close observer of nature. He undoubtedly stood at the head of his profession—an Indian Landseer! Below this head is a rude representation of some object, probably a bow, an arrow from which is entering the neck of the elk.
There are unquestionably other rocks, in this immediate vicinity, covered over with earth and rubbish from the avalanche. The labors of the excavator would doubtless be rewarded with other discoveries; the employment however of some less primitive means than sharpened sticks and the naked hands can be feelingly recommended.
After leaving the vicinity of these rocks, it was ascertained that three miles higher up the stream, at a point known as the “Falls of the Guyandotte,” there are others of a similar character. The figure of a man, with an upraised tomahawk, and that of a fox or other animal, are cut in the vertical face of the cliff, over which the river lately flowed, but which is now left exposed by some change in the channel of the stream.
The rocks above described occur in a sunny nook a short distance from the river, at a point where there is a small but beautiful interval of land. There is here a small earth circle and mound, showing that the race of the mounds penetrated thus far up the stream.
The rocks are weather-worn fragments of the coarse sandstone of the coal series, which breaks with a tolerably smooth and regular fracture, presenting surfaces well calculated for the kind of rude sculpture here exhibited. The lines upon the horizontal faces of the rocks are much less distinct than those upon their sides. They seem nevertheless to have been cut deeper, and are more elaborate. Those upon the vertical faces of the rocks seem to be little defaced, and probably are much in the same condition in which they were left by the sculptors. They are, for the most p298 part, about three fourths of an inch wide by half an inch deep, sometimes a little wider and deeper: the outline of the principal figure on the large rock is not less than an inch wide and three fourths of an inch deep. Some of the round holes, which are very regular, will contain a gill of water each. The lines, as observed respecting the rock first noticed, do not appear to have been chiselled, but pecked into the stone. Where hard iron seams occur in the rock, a narrow ridge is left,—the rude instruments employed having evidently been inadequate to cut or break through them. That some of the tracks of animals, particularly those of the bear, were rubbed and smoothed with stones after having been chipped into shape, seems extremely probable, from the fact that they are not rough like the other lines, and exhibit the muscular developments of the foot with much accuracy. It is barely possible that they have been thus worn by the action of the elements.