Fig. 206.

Fig. 206. A rock of similar character with those above described, occurs upon the Virginia shore of the Ohio river, four miles above the town of Steubenville in the State of Ohio, and about fifty miles below the city of Pittsburgh.[188] It is a detached block of sandstone, measuring seven feet by nine. The figures are cut in the same style with those before noticed, and are quite numerous. They comprise outlines of men and animals, including the tortoise and several serpents. There are also human footprints, and the tracks of animals, together with other emblematic figures, including the Indian symbol of the sun. The striking resemblance of the lower right-hand figures to those occupying a corresponding position on the Dighton rock, will not be overlooked.

Fig. 207.—Site of the Sculp­tured Rocks of the Guy­an­dotte.

A very interesting rock of this description lately existed at Catlettsburgh, on the Kentucky shore, at the confluence of the Big Sandy and Ohio rivers. It was p299 entirely broken up about two years since, by a Vandal, to furnish the materials for building a chimney and walling a cellar! By a strange fatality this rock was selected for the purpose, although there were an abundance of others in the vicinity. It is represented to have been charged with numerous outline figures and emblematic devices. Efforts were made to recover some of the inscribed fragments, but without success. Nearly opposite this place, on the Ohio side, three miles below the village of Burlington, at a point where the Ohio sweeps along the base of the sandstone cliffs, and where numerous fallen blocks line the shore, a similar inscribed rock once existed. It however has lately shared the fate of its neighbor on the other side of the stream. It was situated below the high-water mark; and its proximity to the water proved, in the end, the cause of its destruction, as the fragments quarried off could be easily placed on floats for transportation to the points required. Still another is said to have existed near the edge of the water, at a place known as the Hanging Rock, now the site of a furnace village, twenty-four miles above the mouth of the Scioto. It has probably been destroyed in like manner. There is however a very singular one still in existence a few miles above the town of Portsmouth, the southern terminus of the Ohio and Erie Canal, at the mouth of the Scioto. It consists of a colossal human p300 head cut in outline, upon the vertical face of a large rock extending into the river. It is always under water, except when the river is at its very lowest stages, and is not exposed oftener than once in four or five years. It is familiarly known as the “Indian’s Head,” and is regarded as a sort of river gauge or meter. When the water-line is at the top of the head, the river is considered very low.

Numerous other rocks of similar character are scattered over the West, occurring chiefly upon or near the banks of streams. They are not however confined to the westward of the Alleghanies, but are found in several of the Atlantic States. Those at Dighton and Tiverton in Massachusetts, and at Portsmouth in Rhode Island, are well known examples. They do not seem to differ materially in character from those already described.

From an inspection and comparison of these rocks, it must be very apparent that they are all the work of the same race: there is a family likeness in their style and workmanship, and a coincidence in position, which admits of no dispute, and seems to be conclusive upon this point. The further well known fact that the Indians possessed a system of representation, not inappropriately termed picture-writing, by which they conveyed intelligence and recorded events, serves still more clearly to indicate their probable origin,—especially as it is equally well known that they carved their rude pictures upon rocks as well as upon the bark of trees.

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