The localities of the sketches Figs. 5, 6, and 7 are about 35 miles east and southeast of San Francisco mountain, the material being a red sandstone, which stands in low buttes upon the plain. About these are mealing stones, fragments of pottery and chipped flints, giving evidence of the residence of sedentary Indians. So many localities of petroglyphs were seen that I regard it as probable that a large number could be found by search. The drawings in every case but one were produced by blows upon the surface of the rocks, breaking through the film of rock discolored by weathering so as to reveal (originally) the color of the interior of the rock. The single exception is the first pattern in Fig. 6, similar to the patterns on pottery and blankets, produced by painting with a white pigment on red rock. The original arrangement of the drawings upon the rock was not as a rule preserved, but they have approximately the original arrangement. I neglected to record the scale of the drawings, but the several pictures are drawn on approximately the same scale.
Fig. 5.—Petroglyph in Arizona.
Fig. 6.—Petroglyph in Arizona.
All of these figures partake of the general type designated as the Shoshonean, and it is notable that close repetitions of some of the characters appear in petroglyphs in Tulare valley and Owens valley, California, which are described and illustrated in this section.
The object resembling a centipede, in Fig. 6, is a common form in various localities in Santa Barbara county, California, as will be observed by comparing the illustrations given in connection with that locality. In other of the Arizona and New Mexican petroglyphs similar outlines are sometimes engraved to signify the maize stalk.
Fig. 7.—Petroglyph in Arizona.
Mr. Paul Holman, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports that eight miles below Powers butte, on a mesa bordering on the Gila river and rising abruptly to the height of 150 feet, are pictographs covering the entire vertical face. Also on the summit of a spur of Oatman mountain, 200 yards from the Gila and 300 feet above it, are numbers of pictographs. Many of them are almost obliterated where they are on exposed surfaces.