The figures as illustrated are one-eighth of their natural size, and are also correct in their relative positions one to the other. The work is neatly done although the depth of the incisions is very slight.
MONTANA.
Mr. Charles Hallock, of Washington, D. C., reports the occurrence of pictured rocks near Fort Assiniboin, Montana, but does not mention whether they are colored or incised, and also fails to describe the general type of the characters found.
NEBRASKA.
The following (condensed) description of petroglyphs found in Dakota county, Nebraska, is furnished by Mr. J. H. Quick, of Sioux City, Iowa:
The petroglyphs are found upon the face of a sandstone cliff in a deep ravine at a point where two watercourses (dry for the most part), meet about 20 miles south of Sioux City, Iowa, but in Dakota county, in the State of Nebraska. At this point the range of bluffs which bounds the Missouri river bottom is deeply cut through by the above-mentioned ravine, which runs in a northerly direction towards the Missouri. Another ravine coming from the southwest leaves this narrow point of land between the two ravines, rising to a height of 50 to 75 feet above the bottom of the ravines. For some distance from the point this cape, if I may so term it, shows ledges of sandstone cropping out on both sides. And exactly at the point and for some rods back on the east side are found the pictographs under consideration.
The rocks are of two kinds, a few feet of hard jasperous sandstone superimposed on about the same thickness of sandstone so soft that it can be crumbled to pieces in the fingers. The lower soft strata have been worn away, leaving the upper harder layers jutting out to a distance of several feet over and completely sheltering them. And on the smooth surface of these lower soft strata, protected by the overhanging ledge above, shut in by bluffs 200 feet high on the east and sheltered from the winds by dense underwood and scrubby forest trees, are carved these pictographs. These safeguards, combined with the advantage of a very secluded situation, have combined to preserve them, very little marred by careless and mischievous hands.
The eagle or “thunder-bird” figures are quite numerous. There are also many of the “buffalo track” and of the “turkey track” figures. I call them “turkey tracks” because they all show a spur and seem to represent some of the large gallinaciæ.
In one of the groups, which I will call the “bear-fight group,” we are at a loss to determine whether the figure of the small animal was a part of the original design or a subsequent interpolation. It seemed genuine, but was not so deeply carved as the other figures. The same may be said of the diagonal bars across the figure of the bear.