A large number of petroglyphs are reported from this state. It is sufficient to present the following examples extracted, with reproduced illustrations and abbreviated descriptions, from the Report of the Committee of the State Archæological Society, published in the Report of the Ohio State Board of Centennial Managers.
Fig. 63 is a copy of the petroglyph on the Newark Track rock.
Fig. 63.—Newark Track rock, Ohio.
It is described in the volume cited, pages 94, 95, as follows:
The inscriptions near Newark, in Licking county, Ohio, originally covered a vertical face of conglomerate rock, 50 or 60 feet in length, by 6 and 8 feet in height. This rock is soft and, therefore, the figures are easily erased * * *. About the year 1800 it became a place where white men sought to immortalize themselves by cutting their names across the old inscription * * *.
On the rock faces and detached sandstone blocks of the banks of the Ohio river there are numerous groups of intaglios, but in them the style is quite different from those to which I have referred, and which are located in the interior. Those on the Ohio river resemble the symbolical records of the North American Indians, such as the Kelley Island stone, described in Schoolcraft by Capt. Eastman, the Dighton rock, the Big Indian rock of the Susquehanna, and the “God rock” of the Allegheny river. In those the supposed bird track is generally wanting. The large sculptured rock near Wellsville, which is only visible at low water of the Ohio, has among the figures one that is prominent on the Barnesville stones. This is the fore foot of the bear, with the outside toe distorted and set outward at right angles.
Other sculptured rocks of a similar character have been found in Fairfield, Belmont, Cuyahoga, and Lorain counties.
That the ancient bird-track character belonged to the mound-builders is evident from the fact that it is found among their works, constructed of soil on a large scale.