The paint or color used was black and red, the latter resembling venetian. How wonderfully the color has stood the test in the face of the storms to which the lake is subject is apparent; only in one or two instances does it to-day show any signs of fading or weather-wearing. The signs impressed me as intending to convey the idea of the prowess of an Indian chief in the hunt, or as being a page in the history of a tribe, the small perpendicular strokes seen in the lower portion indicating probably the number of bear, deer, or other animals slain.
When referring, in Pacific Railroad Report, vol. I, page 411, to a locality on the Columbia river in Washington, between Yakima and Pisquouse counties, Mr. George Gibbs mentioned pecked and colored petroglyphs which he found there as follows:
It was a perpendicular rock, on the face of which were carved sundry figures, most of them intended for men. They were slightly sunk into the sandstone and colored, some black, others red, and traces of paint remained more or less distinctly on all of them. These also, according to their [the Indians’] report, were the work of the ancient race; but from the soft nature of the rock, and the freshness of some of the paint, they were probably not of extreme antiquity.
For another example of petroglyphs from Washington see Fig. 679.
Mr. John Haywood (_d_) gives the following account:
In the county of Kenhaway [Kanawha] about 4 miles below the Burning spring, and near the mouth of Campbell’s creek, in the state of Virginia, is a rock of great size, on which, in ancient times, the natives engraved many representations. There is the figure of almost every indigenous animal--the buffalo, the bear, the deer, the fox, the hare, and other quadrupeds of various kinds; fish of the various productions of the western waters, fowls of different descriptions, infants scalped, scalps alone, and men as large as life. The rock is in the river Kenhaway, near its northern shore, accessible only at low water unless by the aid of water craft.
The following notice of the same locality, but perhaps not of the same rock, was published by James Madison (_a_), bishop of Virginia, in 1804:
I cannot conclude this letter without mentioning another curious specimen of Indian labour, and of their progress in one of the arts. This specimen is found within 4 miles of the place whose latitude I endeavoured to take, and within 2 of what are improperly called Burning springs, upon a rock of hard freestone, which sloping to the south, touching the margin of the river, presents a flat surface of above 12 feet in length and 9 in breadth, with a plane side to the east of 8 or 9 feet in thickness.