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HISTORICAl FOOTPRINTS

AMERICA.

From ilie Canadian Jouriial for Septemher, 1804.

HISTORICAL FOOTPRmTS
m AMERICA.

(

BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D.,
raovBSsoB oi niaioB? ahd bholisb x.i'csbaxubh^ uitivbsbitt collbob, tobovto.

"With the facilities of uatercourse which steam navigation has created
between Europe and America, and (he habitual resort of the settlers
on the Western Continent, to the 'marts and centres of gaiety of the
Old World, it is becoming more and more difficult for us to realise all
that is implied ia the date A.D., 1492, as that in which American
history begins. Few facts in the history of our globe are more singu-
lar, than that one hemisphere should have remained utterly unknown
to the other till the close of the fifteenth century j end the wondering
admiration with which the discovery of the New World was then
greeted by the 01d» was not diminished by the disclosures that fol-
lowed. New, indeed, the western hemisphere was, as is the planet
Neptune, or the latest discovered asteroid ; or as the Flint-Folk of the
drift are new to us. But with the discoveries of Cortes and Pizaro,
ihe men of Europe became gradually familiarised with the conviction
that it was no new world they had found ; but one with native relics
of an ancient past : pyramids, temples, and hieroglyphics tempting to
a comparison with those of Egypt ; and sculptures, rites, and institu-
tions of various kinds, all pregnant with suggestive resemblances to
those of the oldest Asiatic nations.

w-«S«i

2 HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMKRiCA.

In that fifteenth century it had not occurred to the boldest scicntifir
adventurer to conceive of the poss' .ility of men who were not of the
race of Adam. Speculative philosophy and science were, indeed,
venturing boldly on many novel courses ; yet St. Augustine's demon-
stration, which had satisfied the men of the fourth century of the im-
possibility of antipodes, was reproduced with undiminished force to
those of the fifteenth century : since to assert the existence of inhabited
lands on the opposite side of the earth, and beyond impassable oceans,
would be to contradict the Bible, by maintaining that the world was
occupied in pari by nations not descended from Adam. From this it
naturally resulted that when, in spite of such demonstration, anti-
podes were discovered ; and an inhabited continent had been explored
beyond the Atlantic, presenting to the gaze of the Old World social
and political institutions, arts, and sciences, the growth of unknown
centuries of progress : the only question discussed was, from what
centre of the Eastern hemisphere were those derived ? Egypt, Phoe-
nicia, Carthage, India, China, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, and Wales,
each found its advocates: The lost Atlantis of Plato and Seneca ,
the Ophir of Solomon ; the nameless Atlantic islands of Hanno,
Pharaoh-Necho, and other early explorers ; the sanctuary of the lost
Ten Tribes ; the Vinland of Leif Ericson; the Huitramannaland of the
Nprse rovers from Iceland ; and the western retreat of Madoc, son of
Owen Gwyneth, King of North Wales: have ali been sought in turn,
and have stimulated the ingenious fancy of sanguine explorers among
the traces of America's unwritten history.

That nations, possessed of language, arts, and government, were in
occupation of America, was proof enough tUat the human race— the
unity of which was then unquestioned,— had diffused itself into the west-
ern hemisphere ; and this idea presented itself at first in a less startling
form, from the belief, in which Columbus died, that only a new route
had been opened up to eastern Asia. The conviction of ancient inter-
course between the eastern and western hemispheres, fostered by such
means, has accordingly furnished fruitful themes for speculation,
almost from the first landing of Europeans on the American continent.
Exaggerated resemblances have been traced out in the arts and archi-
tecture of Mexico and Peru to those ot; Egypt and India. Their
hieroglyphics and picture writing have been hastily pronounced to be
the undoubted offspring of those of the Nile. Philological resem-
blances,, astronomical chronology, and religious rites, have all beei*

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

forced into the service of favourite theories ; and many ingenious and
extravagant antiquarian romances, adapted to the popular taste by
this means, have been welcomed as invaluable contributions to history:
though in reality as insubstantial as the dreams of Merlin or the le-
gends of GeoflTrey of Monmouth. Nevertheless one class of monumental
indices of intercourse between the eastern and western hemispheres, long
prior to the fifteenth century, is of an indisputable kind. The Royal
society of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen has placed the evi-
dence of this before the world, in the most accessible form in the
Grmlands Historiske Mindesmter/eer, and the Antiqidtatea Americana,
aire Scriptores Septentrionales rerum ante-Columhiarum in America.
The latter was issued from the Copenhagen press in 1837 ; and to thi»
a supplement subsequently appeared, to the contents of which special
reference will be made in discussing some of the supposed traces of
the ante-Columbian colonisation of America. To those works, along
with the correspondence and researches to which their preparation gave
rise, is chiefly due the revived interest in the recovery of ancieht
traces of intercourse between the eastern and western hemisphere,,
which continued for some years to engross a large amount of interest
among all classes in the United States.

From the literary memorials of the old Northmen thus restored
to light, sufficient evidence has been disclosed to render highly credi-
ble, not only the discovery and colonisation of Greenland, by Eric the
Red, a Norwegian colonist of Iceland,— apparently in the year 985, —
but also the exploration of more southern lands, some of which must
have formed part of the American continent. Of the authenticity of
the manuscripts from whence those narratives are derived there is not
the slightest room for question ; and the accounts which some of them
furnish are so simple, natural and devoid of anything extravagant or
improbable, that the internal evidence of genuineness is worthy of
great consideration. The exuberant fancy which revels in the mytho-
logv and songs of the Northmen, would have constructed a very dif^
ferent tale had it been employed in the invention of a southern conti-
nent for the dreams of Icelandic and Greenland rovers. Some of the
latter Sagas do, indeed, present so much resemblance in their tales of
discovery, to those of older date, as to look like mere varied repetitionft
of the original narrative with a change of actors, such as might result
from different versions of one account, transmitted for a time by oral
tradition before being committed to writing. But, notwithstanding

4 HISTORICAL FOOIPRINTS IN AMERICA*

all reasonable doubts as to the accuracy of details, there is strong pro-
bability in favour of the authenticity of the American Vinland of the
Northmen.

The Colonisation of Greenland, however, rests ou no probabilities
of oral or written tradition, but is an Indisputable historical fact. la
A.D., 999, Leif Ericson, the son of its discoverer, made a voyage to
Norway, at the time when Olaf Trygvesson, the Saint Oiave of Norse
hagiology, was introducing Christianity into Scandinavia. Under the
influence of the royal missionary, Leif Ericson abandoned paganism ;
and carrying back with him to Greenland teachers of the new faith,
it found a ready acceptance among the Arctic Colonists. Greenland
remained in connection with the mother country till the middle of the
twelfth century, when it attempted to throw off its allegiance to
Magnus, King of Norway, but was reduced to submission by an expe-
dition despatched for that purpose by Eric, King of Denmark, whose
niece was wedded to the Norwegian King.

There were two Norse colonies, those of east and west Greenland.
The colonists of the western coast aj^pear to have been exterminated
by the Esquimaux ; but the fate of those of the eastern settlement
was long a mystery on which the modern Dane and Norwegian ipecu-
lated as one of the obscure marvels of their race's history. It is obvioui
from the early details of the colony that the shores of Greenland must
have been accessible in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to an ex-
tent wholly unknown in the experience of modern Arctic voyagers. In
all probability the decay of the colonies is due to a contnueiable extent to
climatic changes which had plready, in the fourteenth century, begun
to hem in the Greenland coasts with the icy barriers which for four
centuries precluded all access to their inhospitable shores. But a
great mortality among the voyagers trading between Norway and
Greenland was occasioned in A.D., 1348, by a frightful plague known
by the name of the Black Death ; and it was long maintained that
the whole Greenland colony had been exterminated by the same deadly
scourge. Later accounts, however, still refer to the colonists ; and
tlie records of the reign of Queen Margaret — under whom the crowns
of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were united in 1397, — include refer-
ence» to the efforts then made to keep up the communication with
Greenland. But political troubles at home speedily rendered the
Queen indifferent to such remote dependencies. To all appearance,
also, the Greenland coasts were being gradually hemmed in by

BISTORTCAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA. 5

^mpaistble barrieri of ice, which cut off nil intercourse with them sub-
sequent to the close of the fourteenth century, and the very existence
of the long lost region became a matter of doubt.

From time to time, however the subject was revived. Many a Norse
legend and poem celebrated the charms of the Hesperian region
which was fabled to lie embattled within the impassable Arctic barriers,
clothed in the luxuriant verdure of « perpetual spring. In Iceland,
where the old Norse colonists had maintained their ground, the faith
in the ancient Greenland colonies remainsd unshaken ; and received
confirmation from various indications of the lost settlement, as well as
from the definitf traditions current among the Islanders, and narrated
in their Sagas.

Among older memorials
is recorded that towards tV
OB': was drifted on the coa:
runic characters; oft \a^ xk

nd and the mythic Vinland, it

' the seventeenth century, an

bearing this inscription in

KPK X}R i THICK. O/t jaa»

I teeaty when I drew thee. To tin* , e poet, James Montgomery,
refers in the fourth ca.ito of hi» Greenland, when followiiig the later
route of the Mo/avian Brethren ia their generous exile : —

" Her«f while in peace th» weary pilgrims r eat,
Turn we oar voyage from the new-found west,
Sail up tha current of departed time,
And leek along its banks that vanished clime,
By ancient Scalds in Runic verse renowned,
Now like oM Babylon no longer found.
" Oft was i wearxj when I toiled at thee ;"
This on an oar abandoned to the sea
Some hand had gra^ren. From what foundered boat
It fell ; how long on ocean's waves afloat ;
Who marked it with that melancholy line :
No record tells. Greenlan', such fate was thine :
Whf te'tr thou wast, of thee remains no more
Than a brief legend on a foundling oar ;
And he whose song would now revive thy fame,
Grasps but the shadow of a mighty name."

Repeated unsuccessful attempts had been made by Norwegian,
Danish, aftd English voyagers, at the time this poem was published,
to effect a passage through the icy barriers around the east coast of
Greenland ; and it was not till 1822 that the enterprise of the distin-
guished Arctic voyager. Captain Scoresby, was rewarded with succeasj

HISTORICAL rOOTFRlNTS III AMKIIICA*

Later explorations, however, shew that the suei of early colonisation
had been more to the -.vest, within Davis Strait ; and tliere r.t length,
in 182^, and subsequent years, well defined runic inscriptions and
sepulchral records in the old Norse, ot Icelandic language, have been
brought to light ; and are now for the most part deposited in the
Christiansborg Palace at ipenhagen.

The result of such discoveries not unnaturally led to an eager desire
to recover, if possible, similar traces of the early Norse Voyagers'
visits to Vinland and other real or imaginary sites on the main-
land of the American continent. In this there was nothing impro-
bable ; and should a runic inscription, analogous to those already
brought to light at Kingiktorsoak, Igalikko, and other Greenland
sites, reward the zealous researches of New England antiquaries, it
would only confirm allusions to ante-Columbiau voyages to the
continent, already generally accepted as resting on good historical
evidence. The search, however, has hitherto been attended with very
<imbiguous success, as shown in the well-known history of the Assonet
or Dighton Rock inscription. Assuming that the voyages of Leif
Ericson, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and other old Norse explorers, are
authentic and indisputable, their visits to the American mainJanu
were of no permanent character j and it may serve to illustrate the
probabilities in favour of the recovery of any memorials of ante-
Columbian voyagers, if we review such traces as are still discoverable,
apart from direct writtea and historical evidence, of the actual presence
of European settlers on the Continent of America, in the sixteenth,
and even i:^ the seventeentl ;entury.

Among the remaing of the ancient Norse colonists of Greenland,
Architectural memorials of a substantial character attest their perpe-
tuation of European arts in their arctic settlementa. The ruins of
more than one %i.'cient Christian edifice still mark the sites consecrated
to religious services by the Norsemen who, while still pagans, sought
a home in that strange region of the icy north. One of these primi-
tive ecclesiastical ruins is a plain but tastefully constructed church
of squared hewn stone, at Kakortok, in the district of Brattahlid.
Though unroofed, the walls are nearly entire ; and numerous objects
of early European art, including fragments of church bells found
in the same vicinity, confirm the evidence of the civilisation estab-
lished and cultivated there by early colonists. Only a few miles
distant from this ruined church the Igalikko runic inscription wa

HISTORICAL FOCTl«RIN'"« IN ANTGHICA.

■found with its simple memorial of parciital nffociion: VIODIS
MrAGNVSJ D[PTTIR] HVILIR HKR GLEDE GVTil SAL
KciNAR, i.e., Vigdia, Magnus' daughter, re»U here; may God glud-
den her sauf.

With sucli literal, and architectural remains of th? Greenland
colonists of the tenth century still extant, it wis not unnatural for
New Eng iud antiquiiries \o turn with renewed vigour to the search
for corresponding remains in the supposed V- -hnd of the same early
voyagers, whan the ancient manuscripts ei a I r the Antiquitatei
Americance had established the discovery of the continent of Amerca
by Norsemen of the tenth century. Among those, the members of
the Rhode Island Society took a foremost part. They had already
furnished materials fot dlustrating the venerable manuscripts eil'ted
in that imposing quarto, which seemed to its sanguine editors to place
their dreams of a Norse Columbus of the Tenth Century beyond all
dispute. The Assonet, or Dighton Rock, on the east bank of the
Taunton river, which yielded to its antiquarian transcribers the long
desiderated traces of runic epigraphy, has attracted the attention of
New England scholars for nearly Iwo centuries. Itn history is alike
curious and amusing, but need not be detailed here.* It is a detached
r«ck, partly covered at high water, the exposed surfiice of which is
covered with Indian devices rudely graven, and greatly defaced by
time. So early as 1680 Dr. Danforth executed a careful copy of it ;
and since then it has been again and again retraced, engraved, -and
made the theme of learned commentaries by New England, Britisli»
French, and Danish scholars ; each striving in turn to enlist it in proof
of the favoured theory of the hour; and to make out from its rude
tcratchings : Phoenician, Punic, Siberian, or Old Norse chu. -jters, grs
ven by ante-Columbian voyagers in the infancy of the world, the
triumphs of the antiquarian seers culminated in the year 1837, when
the Antiquitctes Americance issued from the Danish press, with elal?-
orate engravings of this Dighton i-ock,from one of which— contributed
by a Commission appointed by the Rhode Island Historical Society-
its ingenious editor was able to furnish the interpretation of a ** runic
micription " suddenly brought to light among the rude devices of tKe
Wabenakies' picture-writing. The inscriptioa was oily too apt a re-
echo of the Saga manuscripts i and indeed is now aflfirmed to have been
the deliberate imposition of a foreigner resident at the time in New-

-rf-r

* Vide PrehUtoric Man, Vol. II. p. \Vi.

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

port.* However it originated, certain it is that the so-called runic
characters on the Dighton rock have vanished as completely as the
faith m their marvellous historical revelations.

The literate evidence which the Antiquitates Americana furnishes
m proof of the discovery of America by Northmen of the Tenth Cen-
tury, rests on authority wholly independent of any real or fancied con-
firmation, derived from Greenland or New England inscriptions. The
stimulus thereby furnished to antiquarian research was therefore no
less strong than thoroughly legitimate. The members of the Rhode
Island Historical Society accordingly renewed their search for traces
of ante-Columbian art ; and their attention was at once directed
to a substantial piece of masonry which had occupied a promi-
nent site at Newport, Rhode Island, beyond the memory of
the oldest inhabitant. As a genuine American ruin of former
generations the old Round Tower on Newport common forms an ex-
ceedingly striking feature; and the historical and literary associa-
tions ascribed to it, as well as the critical warfare which has raged
around its site, and ransacked the mysteries of its very foundations
have added not a little to its genuine interest. When the antiquaries
of Co- nhagen were in search of relics of the long-lost Vinland, care-
ful drawings of the old Tower were despatched to them, and welcomed
as. supplying all that they desired. Engravings reproduced from them
illustrate the Supplement to the Antitiuitates Americance, and the
authentication of the old ruin as an architectural monument of the
arts of Vinland and its Norso colonists of the eleventh' and twelfth
centuries is thus unhesitatingly set forth by Professor Rafn and his
brother antiquaries of Copenhage n :— « There is no mistaking in this

• The Controversy touching the Old Stone Mill in the Town of Newport'~Rfmd^
Mand. Newport. Charles E. Hammet, jr. 1851. p. 52. " Tte version of
the inscription published in that work [the AntiquUate, jlmerican^l and distri-
buted throughout Europe and America, was altered so as to make it appear to
have been the work of the .Scandinavians, by altering the characters, and adding
in the body of the inscription, the characters ORINX which is said to be the
name of one of their ea -ly navigators,"

The tracings on the rock read as OR, appear in an r^igraring so early as 1790 •
the remainder, which serve to complete the name-not of Orinx as stated above
but of noTfin, with a concise record of his fifty-one folio wers.-appear for the first
lime in the copy made, and sent to Copenhagen in 1830. No one will believe, for a
inoment, that the members of the R. I. Historical Society had any hand in a fraudu-
Jent transcript, beyond their transmission of the drawing, executed either by some
very credulous or designing copyist, of the rude and ill-defined Indian device*

I'i

HISTORICAL lOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA. <>

instance, the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of th.
North were constructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or
«nte.gothic architecture, and which, especially after the time of
Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the whole of the west

l^LZfl''\ ZT' "''"' '* """"""'^ '" predominate, until the
close of the twelfth century. . . . From such characteristics
as reraam we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which
I am persuaded that all who are familiar with old Northern arch-tec-
ture will concur: that this building was erected at a period decidedlv
»ot later than the twelfth century."* Having thus settled the age
of the venerable strusture, and scornfully dismissed the idea of il
erection for a windmill as one the futility of which any IrehitJc
could discern , that of its supposed primary destinatiou'^.srwatch
tower IS also rejected: and the final conclusion indicated is thallt is
an eccesias ical structure which originally '■ belonged to some monas
tery or Christian place of worship iu one of the' chiefTa ish s t

y'^tu" ''•"t"' **■"' "" ""■ '" ■>« found ruins^fselL
round buildings m the vicinity of the churches. These round buli

.ngs have been most likely Baptisteries ," and iu proof <,f this, refer-
ence is made to an octagonal building forming part of the ruins of
Mdhfont Abbey, m the County of Louth, in Ireland.

To venture on questioning the genuineness of this Norse relic after
these attestatons of its credentials to such venerable antiuu y in
volved some degree of boldness. Its associations moreover? ooL"t
It unmistakeably with the olden time. It forms a central pointTn
some of the romantic scenes of Cooper's "Red Rover;" and Lone-
fellow, assuming Its antiquity as amply attested for all a poefa uur-
poses, has associated it with another discovery of so-called Norse rehcl
which was welcomed at the time as fresh confirmation of the S^nd !

dug up at Fall River, Massachhsetts, in 1831, buried in a sitting pos-
ture, wrapped in cedar bark, with some tubes, two arrowhead! and
other fragments of brass lying beside it. it any othl iml' the
native origin of the whole would have been acknowledged beZd all
stCf J'"'*^'''7-y«-"-dedwith the researches ofZf°"

It ns''o"f ,h" T""*"" " Copenhagen.t Thither accordingly
specimens of the relics we rc^^A^u of what was somewhat

*Jntiquitate» jSmeriranae, Supp. p. 18. ' ~ '

jm.Hr. ..r ,a i.cou,erU U l-J„,H,u. ,. ,«,,„ .u,u. Oopenhagea.

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

grandly designated the " pectoral," or "breastplate," on being sub-
mitted to the chemist, Berzelius, was found to bear a marvelloui
resemblance to modern brass ; and an elaborate account of the ** Dis-
covery of Antiquities made at Fall River, Massachusetts," with the
subsequent investigations, was published in the M^moires de la societe
Roijale des Antiquaires du Nord, along with a letter from a learned
Boston Antiquary on « the famous Dighton Rock, the marvel of thi»
region," with its ancient characters, affording indubitable proof ♦* thai
the Northmen have been on that Spot."*

Here, at any rate, were ample materials for the poet. No better
credentials could be desired for the hero of a genuine Norse Ballad,
whatever the severer incredulity of the historical student might de-
mand ; and the Norse Viking, resuscitated from the skeleton in armour,
speaks accordingly, narrating in his epical lyric, the ballad-legend of
the Newport Round Tower. In response to the invocation of the
tnodern Skald, the Viking recounts his passion, when,— like Othello,
telling his adventurous tales,— the tender eyea of King Hildebrand*t
daughter kindled his heart with their soft splendour. But tfaoogb
they shone responsive, the royal father laughed hi« luit to scorn.

" Why did they leave, that aight,
Her nest unguarded ? "

Bearing from the Norwegian shore in flijght with the bIiM<i<Jred
maiden, the fierce Viking tells how he dashed mid-shipa on hi« pur-
Buers ; and leaving Hildebrand and his crew to perish in tht •* blade-
water," he sweeps fearless before the gale into the ttnk&oini Weitt^

As with his winga aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,

With his prey laden :
So towards the open m&Io,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricam,

fiore I the maiden.

Three weeks we westward bofe,
And when the storm was o'ar,
loud-like we saw the shore,
Stretching to lee'^ard ;

Mem.de la'aoe. Royalt'i^g Jniiquairtt du Nord. i8i(M4. "P, llT.

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS tV AMERICA. U

There for my lady's bower,
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
Stands looking seaward.

But the tnoderu Skald who rehearses the old Viking's tale, claims
. at the «anl(^ time « poet's license. " That this building crald not
have been erected for A windmill," says Professor Rafn, "is what an
architect can easily discern." •• I will not enter into a d'ocussion of
the point," responds the poet. "It is sufficiently well established
for the purpose of a ballad ; though doubtless many an honest citizen
of Newport, who has passed his days within sight of the Round
Tower, will be ready to exclaim with Sancho, * God bless me ' did I
rot warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that if
nothmg but tt windmill ; and nobody could mistake it but one who
had the like itt his head,* "

The controversy was atill maintained among the New Englibd
Oldbuckf and, Wardours, when in 1847,* learned mediator dating
froni" Brown University, Providence," proceeded to publish, und«f
the nom deplume of « Antiquarian," n seties of abstracts from a joint
Beport of Profesaor Rafn of Copenhagen, and "Graetz of Gotten-
burg," Mid from *n elaborate narrative prepared by «• Profeiior
Scrobein," a distinguished geol6gist, despatched to Rhode lelaad by
tbe nnauimous vote of the Royal College at Copenhagen. Prom the
researches of this well accredited commissioner, the ruined tow«r ii
McerUiaed to bave been '• an appendage to a temple, and used for
fthgioua offices, as a baptistfely or baptismal font. It appeare to have
been erected by the Northmen, in the eleventh century, daring ft
sojourn of Bishop Eric in Vinland. as the island was called, from tbo
•icellency of its wine and abundance of its grapes." Excavationi
within the ruin brought to light « the foundations of the reciptimtm,
dr place where the candidates stood while receiving the baptismal
•bower . . . In close proximity to this was a second foundation,
that of the paiettrium;" and the discovery was completed, and
placed beyond all dispute by the finding of various ar. -nt coina,
including « some of Henry II. 1160. which would lead us to believe
that some kmd of commercial intercourse existed in those days."

To the manifest deUght of the rogue— an undergraduate we may sur-
•ile,-^ho palmed off this grave hoax on the Rhode Iskaders, itwaa
taken up seriously. «* Graeti of Gottenburg " passed muster undtr

niBTOniCAI, FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

^LT^ "f f """able Rafn of CopenhagoR. " Bishop Oelrisher •
who bequeathed the 1400 reichsthalers needed fc- prosecuting th. „.
teresfng inquiry eseaped challenge. But an elderly disputant 'W
o the oMest inhabitants," indignantly affirmed the falsit/o P 'ofess^
Scrobeins report; that he had been grossly deceived; that h h^
no hand in the report attributed to him ;' .„d only negJcd^
inquire If anybody at Copenhagen or elsewhere had eve befole
heard of this mythic Professor, whose report, as the ven ™ble col
^oversiahat maintains, ■■...» gross andHpable imposi bon he"
Copenhagen] committee, .he Boyal Society and the world." The
•Ant.quar.an" of Brown University gravely responded with stU
more startling extracts from the Professor's report; which docn

r:SsT/2n? Th" :i"'°f ""'™'' "•" "» «"- <i"b

lorbids ! • And so the old mill grew ever more famous M™
than one poet added his contribution fo its renown "and inTh'.."l

How lon^ hath Time held on his mighty mwch
binoe £r3t arose thy time defying arch ?
Did thus th' astonished Indian gaze on tLee,
A irystery staring at a mystery ?
A son of Canaan shall we rather f*j
Viewing the work of brethren pass'd away t
Was it Phoenician, Norman, Saxon toil

That sunk thy rock-based pillars in the soil ?
How looK.u the bcay, the forest, and the hill,
When first the sun beheld thy walls, old miil T
Alaa 1 the Antiquarian's dream is o'er,
Thou art an old stone windmill,-nothing more I "

The Norse buildera and •nte-Columbian date of the N«WDort

Fhcenic an origin long ascribed to the Round Towers if lre\Z±l
.ff.r being thns subjected to the sly assaults of the satirist, „weuZ
X TaXeTr. ^'^^^^^ "'" censors,-have bee.'s::^^
leclll th.l ' T' "^^y P^^^"P« ^^^"^ i* «^*»t courtesy to

h tl of r"" '"'^; '" "*"*^' ^°"^^^'' 'h" -l^^Pter incite
^d vilue ^;:"^/\»-^-^<>e-ai — h is replete wHh intere.t
and value. But for the investigation, into the significance of the

HISTORICAL rOOTPRINTS ,N AMERICA. |3

Dighton Rock cnscription. extending over nearly two centuries • anrf

KhodelsUnd Historical So i "ow t'bts thatt u""" T'" "' *^
which ha. ..quired .„ additioja, iri™'';'': katSlrr';","

:tst;:rdrr''^"''-'"~^^^^^^^^^^^

-•^t;f HEl'"? F-^

i.e«. J between this date a„d at ofp "" ''."™- ^''^ ""i^
little room for doubt aVto tW V ,. """■■ '^''""'''■'» "'"' '»«•

i.Ti.e. to hi/he „ The I* . "°""''°"' "" "''''"■ '^ ">"•
Me to those who „o„W f„t hT^"^ »ssociatiou,, though „n.cc.pt.
•rderenth cent„ro„ .tn {f^J""'" '"'"'P''"-' «' 'he tentt.

*~s. .rr: oiiTt^t^e -tst^ t;;:.^ j;r

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

1620, when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, to give
the old ruin on Newport common as great a value in the eye of every
true hearted American, aa the Catt Stane can claim from the
British antiquary who believes that its rude letters record the burial-
place of Vetta son of Victus, son cf Woden, the lineal ancestor of
Hengist, the Teutonic colonist of England.

A picturesque old relic, known par excellence as The Old House of
Boston, stood till 1860 at the corner of North and Market Streets of
the New England Capital, with its quaint gables, and overhanging
oaken-timbered wal^s, such as abound in the old capitals of Europe,
and look as if they had been built before the laws of gravitation ha^
a being. The date latterly assigned to it was 1680; but the march
of improvement knows no antiquarian sympathies ; and a range of
modern warehouses has usurped the site of the venerable civic relic.
Here and there among the burial grounds of New England and other
older States, weathered and half-defaced stones commemorate the
worth of early colonists ; and doubtless some lie buried, where they
may be found in. other ages, when the Roman characters and English
language of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will seem as
strange to the eyes of a new generation as the runes of the Greenland
Norsemen do to our own. But a recent discovery towards the
northern limits of the New England States suffices to encourage
the hope that still earlier traces of the first European colonists may
yet gratify intelligent curiosity with glimpses of the beginnings of
America's history. This new found historical footprint of the seven-
teenth century, only brought to light in the autumn of 1863, is a
plate of copper measuring ten inches by eight, found at Castine, in
the State of Maine, — the old Indian Pentagoet, — near the mouth of
the Penobscot river, famous with the Kennebunk, or Kennebec, as it
is now called, as marches of the French and English debateable land,
■ubeequent to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was discovered in
the course of excavations made in constructing a battery at the
mouth of Castine harbour* The corroded sheet of copper attracted
no attention when first restored to light ; nor was it till its discoverer
bad cut ft piece off it to repair a boat, that his attention was drawn
to (he characters engraved on its surface. Fortunately the detached
piece was easily recovered ; and on being restored to its place, the
inaeription was decyphered as follows :

* FnoMitfvif f oftht AtturicaM Jtntiqmricm SoeUty, April, 16C4. p. 60.

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

1648. 8 .IVN.F.
LEO PARIS . IN .
CAPVC . MISS.
POSVI HOC FV-
Nl)f M IN HNR-
EM NRiE DMiE
SANCTiE SPEI

The inscription, it will be seen, commemorates the erection in what
was then a part of La Nouvelle France, of, as may be presumed, a
Mission Chapel of the Capuchins, dedicated to our Lady of Holy
Hope. Charlevoix, in his Histoire General de la Nouvelle France,
refers to a visit of the Jesuit Father, Dreuillettes, to a Hospice of the
Capuchin Fathers on the Kennebec river, in 1646; and states that at
that date,—only two years before the event commemorated in the in-
scription,— they had another mission house at Pentagoet. The Capu-
chin Fathers were A fraternity belonging to the Franciscan Order of
Mendicant Friars, whose mission here, and in the Kenne jec region,
appears to have been, not to the Indians, but to the Frer/ch colonists
of Acadia and the neighbouring mainland. The inscribed plate re-
cords the laying of the foundation stone in which it was deposited, by
brother Leo of Paris, at the date named ; and may be read in extenso
thua;— 1648, Sjunii, /rater tea Parisiensis, in Capucinorum missione
potui hoc fundamentum in honorem Nostrte Domince Sanctce Spei.

The date, though so modern, according to the estimate of European
antiquaries, carries the mind back to a very primitive period in the
hwtory of Maine ; and the interest of the inscription is enhanced by
the, associations connected with the site of the building it commemor-
ttes. "Few spots on the coast of New England can boast so much
ttltnral beauty, and none has had the vicissitudes of its history so in-
terwoven with the history of different nations, as the peninsula of Pen-
Ugoet, Penobscot, Castine.*» The date also has its own peculiar sig-
nificance in the past history of the New EngUnd States. This might
be illustrated by various contemporary events. Perhaps the moat
mtmorable, at it is 4he most characteristic, is that in that very year—
when Europe wm axranging the peace of W«»tphalia.-.-w*itchcr»ft
eune to « head in the New WorW, ant. the firat of the New England
wifchei wu htaged in, M4«McbiM;<tii Bjix.

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

(Corresponding memorials of an earlier date doubtless He undis^
turbed beneath the older foundations of churches and hospices of Lower
Canada. The little church of Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Sague-
nay, still occupies the site consecrated to the service of God, on what
was one of the earliest settlements in the New World. A trading post
was established there by French fur-traders, under the special favor of
Henry IV. ; and contracts were entered into by two merchant traders
of Rouen and St. Malo for its colonisation as early as 1599, Within
very iecent years the remains were still visible of a stone mansion built
by Captam CLauvin who died there in 1603, after having made two
voyages with settlers to Tadoussac. A sligi.ter, yet more enduring
memorial of the old colonists attracted my attention when visiting the
spot, in the scattered tufts of Sweet William, Mignionette, and other
garden flowers, repeating the tale of Goldsmith'i Deserted Village :

*• Where once the garden smiled,
And still where many » gardtn flower grows wild."

Jamestown, Virginia, which claims to be the earliest settlement on
the American continent, was founded by the English Captain, New-
port, in 1607, and on the 3rd of July, ia the following year, Cham-
plain laid the foundation of Quebec, The site of the first fort is dow
occupied by the venerable church of NStre Dame des Fictoiref, one
of the oldest edifices in the City of Quebec, which received its tores-
ent name on the defeat of the English forces under Sir William Phipps.
mI690. But the most curious inscription how visible on the old-
fashioned buildings of the picturesque capital of Lower Canada, is one
accompanying a quaint piece of sculpture known as the CAien d* Or
a work of the following century. But modern though it is, tradition
has already confused its associations and forgotten its nig nificance.
Uver one of the windows of an old house near the Prescott Gate, now
used US the Post Office, is an ornamental pediment, the centre of
which 18 occupied by a slab of dark limestone, on w^iich a dog is sculp-
torcd m high relief and gilded, represented gnawing at a bone ; and
bcBCAth It this inscription :—

" Je suig un Chien qui ronge mon os,
En le rongeant, je prends mon rep&a,
Un jour viendra qui n'est pas venu,
Ou je mordrai, qui m'avra mordu,*

The hou«e b said to Uy% been the mansion of a wealthy Bordeaux

HISTORICAL rOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

merchant, who put up this piece of sculpture, with the nccompanvinj;
quntrain. as a Inn/pooii on M. Bigot, French Intendant and Presi-
dent of the Council ; and paid for his caustic wit with his life. But
the date of the assassination of M. Philihert.the supposed lampoonist,
19 proved to have heen long subsequent to that of i7Si, inscribed on
the stone ; and the origin and special eignificancc of the inscription
ren?iin an enigma.

In the able and well digested temm& of American Archreolo-y rre-
pared by the learned librarian of the American Antiquarian s'ociety.
he remarks: "We should be glad to see gathered into one chapter
under an appropriate head, all the evidences of Art beyond the ability
of the natives, that must be assigned to an ante-Columbian period, and
all other indicat.ons of n foreign people, before that era, in the United
States, They cannot he numerous t and the point i» of sufficient im-
portance to be distinctly presented with all the force it possesses.
They have hitherto proved unsubstantial whenever we have attempted
to grasp them."* The Dighton Bock, the inscribed rock o.i Cun-
ningham s Island, Lake Erie; the much controverted "Grave Creek
Stone;" and a contemptibly gross forgery with the date I.^P'/, "dii-
covered, according to most respectable authority, on a plate of mica
upon the breast of a skeleton, buried after the ancient manner in a
moaod near that at Grave Creek, from whence the more celebrated
iMcnbed atone was derlred : " arc all noticp^ and some of them dif
missed too gently by their courreous reviewer.

The invention of spurious inscriptions: from the notorioua gold
plates of the Mormon Gospel, to the "Ohio Hofv S|o„r/« and the
new version of the Yen Commandments, partly in Hebrew and n^ttly
m onknowa characters, engraved on a stone tablet, discovered under
ikn ancient mound at Newark, Ohio, in l86tt ; have for the mc.st pari
been the work of such illiterate and shallow knaves, that they scarcely
merit serious notice, were it not for the amount of discussion they e/.
cited, before the nil engrossing civil war preoccupied the public mind
with us stern realities. The former relic, cluuisily made nut nf com-
mon hone-stone, has been repeatedly engraved. A State Geologist of
high repute pronounced its materia) to be *' «otr«cu///e, a stone eniirelj
unknown among the rocks or minerals of the Ohio region ;•• nml a ihi
tingmshed free-mason. "v.cU informed upon the history of his order,
ami^ upon antiqu ities in general." certified that "the stone was one

• JrefKiology o/ihe United States : by W. F.tlAven7~p. ISiT^

HISTOIUCAL F0OTPRJNT8 IN AMKUICA.

used by masons of n ccitnin grade in the Eiist, soon nffcr tlie building
of the first tt-niple by Solomon, iuid before the iTociiou of the second/*
— with much else ('(|unlly wondeifui ; so thnt the IIoky Kk\-Stonb,
as it was now dcsijinalcd, !/ecame nn ol)ject of immense interest ta
American free-masons. The discussions on the nuthenticity and signi-
ficance of the mound vcrsi mi ot the Decalogue fell with < qual propriety
into the liands of divines, ihongij not without other lenioed aid. The
Rev. J. W. McCi.rty, Kector ot Tr niiy Church, Newark, was the first
to interpret tlie mysterious characters The llev. Tlieodore l)wi"-ht
confirmed his interprelation, and proved the antiquity of the in.'^crip-
tion by references to Gesenius, comparison-* with rare coins of the
Maccabees, and remarkable coincidences with tlie Samaritan version.
J. J. IJenjamin, " perhaps the best Hebrew scholar now in this coun-
try, whose home is in the Turkish Province of Moldavia, and who is
now in this country for the purpose of prosecuting researches among
the Indians for evidences of the Lost Tribes," with the aid of an in-
terpreter, gave new readings ; until not a few rejoiced in the belief that
the veritable sepulchre o> Moses had at length been discovered,— not
in n valley in the land of Muab, over against Beth Peor i but in the
Newark valley, in the State of Ohio.*

The favourite idea of finding the Lost Ten Tribes among the Red
Indians of the i\ew World, which pervades Lord Kingsborough's ela-
borate work, and played a prominent part in the s|)ecnlations.of the
earlier American ethnologists and antiquaries, lies at the root of
this class of marvels. It retained .ts hold on the popular mind as long
«s such subjects possessed any attraetions; and notices of the disco-
rery of shekels and other Hel)rcw relics could be easily multijilied by
« little research in the files of Western American newspapers. The
Rev. George Duffield, of Detroit, furnishes one account ot a Hebrew
Shekel, found in Indiana among the bones supposed to have been
thrown out of an ancient mound; and conjectured to be of the time of
the Maccabees. f The discovery of a lar -e hoard at Jerusalem, in recent
years, has rendered the silver shekel a . by no means rare; though
its appearance might well excite wonde»> ong the genuine contents

• Cincinnati Vommcrciai, July 12tli, 18(i0; Xov 6tli, 7th &c. Newark
North. .Sineriran, July 5i!i. I8f.0, kc. Hur/iefs W-ekly Journal, St-pt. 5tl> 1 8(10.
New York Imlepcndent, March Uih, I8C1. Jl Tejn esenlatwn of the two stones,
with the characters insnihed on th<'m, that trere found by D. Wyrick, during Iht
«um7/icro/18GO. near Newark, Ohio; Ac, &c

t Schoolcraft's History of the Indians, Vol. iv. p. 149.

lltSTORICAI. rOOTPRINTS IN AMIIRICA.

of ft Western Indmii mound. "We hnvp nt liflml," snyn l^Ii-.I^FInvon,
"Jewish pliylncleries l' t were takeji from henenth tlie soil, in a
country villnge, where it was th'ctared Jews wore never known to liavo
been j Imt n JoUower uf Moses was tiltiniately traced to the very spot
fvhere these were found."* Tlie ICttf/ffl newspaper of Jurksnn, Missouri,
describes "n verit»l)U' Eu'yptian coin," found there in Decemher, l8;'»r<,
ahoul thirty feel helow the surihee, in dij:i»ing n well; nnd comments
on the evidence ilius furnished from time to timej " that the country
was known centuries before the time t-f ('(dumhus, not only to the
Northmen nnd other Europeans, hut to the Egvpti.ma, the Phcenieians,
And even to the Chinese.'' Similar notices of tlie recovery of ancient
coins have been repeatedly pnl)lished ; nnd, coiisidering the zcid devo-
ted to numismatic collections in America, it ia far from improbable
that an occasional stiny waif from these cab'uets may have furnished
genuine tnnterinls tor such n discovery. But it ia to be feared that the
majority of them are no better authenticated than the repute! find of
theapochryphal Professor Scrobein, among the foundations of the
Newport Hound Tower.

Of another class of Antiquities is ** the Alabama Stone," an inno-
cent piece of blunderinir, not without its significance. It was dis-
covered near the Black Warrior River, about forty years ago, when no
rumours of the old Northmen's visits to Vinland stimulated the dis-
honest zeal of relic hunters, or tempted the credulity of over-zealous
antiquaries; nnd so its mysterious Roman capitals and remote nnte-
Columbian date were only wondered at as an inexplicable riddle. As
originally transcribed this record of the thirteenth century ran th ji

HISRNEIINDREV.
1232

Had this Alabama stone turned up opportunely in 1830, when th
Antiquaries of New England were in po^^session of a roving conunis-
•ion on behoof of Finn Magnussen and other Danish heirs and assig-
nees of old Ari Marson, who knows what might have been made of
■0 tempting a morcef u ? From the Annoles Flateyensea, we learn nf
*• Eric (Jrcenlandinga bisknp" who, in A.D., 1 121, went to seek out
Vinland ; and in the following century the Annates Ilolenses, recovesed
by Torfseus from the episcopal seat of Ilolum in Iceland, sup[)ly thia
tempting glimpse : '* fi/unst tn/Ju funrf,^' i.e., new land is fount. With

• AnhcEulug\j of the United States, p. 135.

giL^gt.

HISTORICAL roOTI'lllliITt IN AMKIIICA.

«ucn a hint i>h«t might not Irarncd ingenuity hare dnne lo «nrM.
the mystenea of the New World i„ the year of grnrr. imt Urh.n!
p.ly Ks rate has hcen to fall into the iL. of L 1. fl^."",^^^^^^^^
for hterary cd.ta,,. which he does i« thi, «„.ou.a.uic la.hion i '"
We have hefore us the 'Alaham. St .nc» foun.l. .ome thirtv rear.

HjI lINlJ.llhX. as plainly as the same insrrintioM a« - c • •

.erof . .,„„„ .„.„.„„/,„„,„. vi,efi;:::r;:;t'.frb':t?:r

.emeJ l,u, of .„„r.e ,l,ey „„„„, ,,. i„,e„jej To, . Vn,."" ^ H

^»<,j,„<a/« ^,„„,„„«. next eorae. .mde, ,»icw.»ith i.. 11 !
charaaer, gr,.e» .„d .l,c„ filled i„ „i,h . bl.ck .„™,.„,iUo„' But

Blek,„g. . P„v,„„ cf Sweden. S„. Gramma.ieu. .ell. „,T„ ,1^:
pre ace .o h„ //„,.„■, Danica ,1,.. Kin, W.Mem., ,h. G e." » h!
.we mi. ce„ ury, ,e„, .,m,s»,ie, skilled i„ ftunic lore .o re.d .id",^
.he .nscnpfo... 01»„, W„r„,iu, .ried i, .,.i„ «.»^/Ztl7/i
r..r. .fter. Bu, what ho.h had failed .» decipher. p.„,Lo, M gL «

of Copenhagen mastered in Im. and made i. .„, .„ fc, „ ,^^2

n old-northem tune,, and regular .lli.era.ir. «r.e. rererring ,'„\Z
heroe. m ,he balll. of Braa.aii... fought, AC, 680. T» JiZ
.oer conld he "Rm. ■ . .„.,e." ..1.;. iu „g„„e .erie. of ,S
character., be dcs.. u. Bui. J„, fo, ,he credi, ,f .he An o"^
nan eraft. .he Bun.mo inscription had hy .hi, .i„,e been Ui,cer„T.;
be nolh.ng more than the ...tur.l ^„,^- „„ , ^, « «

ferred. Old enough .. ,. for the most ambitiou. .tiekle, for .he Inti.
quay of the New World < aneient indeed a. the oldest of those coh
.nterpre ed by .he author of -..he Testi„,o„y of .he Bocls " a"d
.nsenbed by the same hand that formed its rocky malri, '

But from such learned and unlearned bl„„derings.-not without
the.r value from the curious illustrations they afford of , e c| „
from , he exdus,vo pedantry and dilettanti,™ of ,he eighteenth cf
tury of Europe, .0 the widely diffused, bu, superfioiarknol l":;
he American nmeteenth century ,-i, i, pl^sau, ,„ ,„„, ,„ „„ ^^^^^
.on of early date which invites consideration as „ g.nui, ,,„!;■
rudely executed record of the sixteenth • entury. The ■■ M» "',
Stone," now referred to, was discovered about tie year ,820 Z

RTSTORICAI. FOOTPRINTS IM AMKRICA, 21

Township of M«nliu% Onondag/i County, New York, by a fni-mcr.
mhfn gntherinj: the itonea out of a (icld brought for the first time into
cuhifrttioii.^ It ii An irregulnr spherical boulder, about fourteen
Inchfi in dmmeter, now depositea in the Museum of the All)Aiiy In-
•tilutf. On one side, which ih smooth and nenrly flut, the following
ioscription it rudely, but regularly cut, with the device, at the divid-
ing line, of a serpent twining round a tree :

Leo. De I L : Ml
VI, 1520 I X

The letters on the right side are somewhat defaced; but the stone looks
like n rude memorial hastily executed by some explom , on the most con-
fcnient taf^let at hand, cither as a memento -ud evidence of his hav-
Ing wachcd tlie spot,~in itself a fact of n' ...ght interest, when the
date and locality are considered ;~or as the record made by some
friendly hand to mark the last resting place of a companion who had
persevered thus far among the first explorers of the New World's mys-
teries. But like most American inscriptions, that of the Manlius Stone
hjis bfen tortured into meanings not very easily discernible by any
ordinary process of interpreting such simple records. «• By the figure
of H serpent climbing a tree." says one ingenious decyp.ierer* " a well-
known passage in the Pentateuch is cleaily referred to. Bv the date
the sixth year of the reign ot the Ponlitf. Leo X. has been thought to
be denoted. This appears to be probable, less clearly from the in-
scnpt.ve phrase: Leo de Lon VI. than from the plain date 102O
being six years after the Pontiff took the chair :" which, however, it
IS not. as fjiovanni de Medici succeeded Julius II. in March, 1513.
Mr. Buckingham Smith recently submitted to the American Antiquf,^
Tian Society a paper devoted to the eluci.lation of inscribed stones
found on ancient Indian sites.f among which he includes both the
Grave Creek Stone and the Dightou llock. Applying the same rule
to those as to the Manlius Stone, he discovers ili tlicir characters,
imtmlsor ciphers used in the Catholic church, and renders them as
hbndg -d invocations to Christ and the Virgin Mary. Of the Manlius
Stone he says, with more hesitation, "as, v\ the year of Christ, 1520
Giovanni de Medici (Leo X.) sat upon the Papal throne, the wo" '
might possibly have been LEO DEcimus PONtifcx MAXimus."
Ao:ain the same inscription is assumed by another interpreter to be

• ScliookTiifVa Nutes on the lioquoi», p. 32G.

f Pjociedmss vf the Aimrican Jintiqucrian Soculy, April, ltC3, p. 33.

mSTOniCAI, roOTPRINTS in amfrica.

a n,em„r!„I of J„a„ Ponce <Ie I.eon. ,),e dl,eov..rrr of Fl„ri,l, „„a ,„

po,u,.. L.O X, or „i.„ Do,, ju„„'p,::e';e ri v: V '::;::u:r

Aparr, however, from .„v n.d, ,p,,;„i i,,r,„i(i,„,io„ of ,!,<. ol.icct

iiiiercst. i>io reasonable LM'oiinf!<! r.v;>.f t^.. ,,

and ,ve arc. .us su,,,,li„, „i,h „„ i„,o„-,„io„ or a d,uo wi.Wn iZi

y»rs of the fi,st Iandi„g of 0.,lu„d.„. o„ ,l,e ,„„i„,„„j , „„a 'J,^ ' '^ ^

V..s„„a. A d,scov,.,-y „, ,l,i, „„,„ „,^„^.

^no>,„ por,od o, E,„.„,„.„„ e.vplora.io,, of „,c A„,erica„ eo„ in i^'
« ocal.rv so far to Ik. „orll„vard. and so remote from tl.e sea cosf
»l.en taken ,„to c„nside,.ati„n al„„, „;th the authentic t e of o der
Sc.and,,,av,„„ sHtlen.ent stiil di.coveraMe i„ Cee.da,..;, is e„la,l ,ed
co,,fi,.„, , ,0 doubts 0, an, Scandinavian e.,!o„isatio„ of .- d „

roilioi s ol tne American coasts appears to be co„fi,med bv rre-
ndile lestimonvi but tbat tbe^r ■„ . , .■""meu oy cre-

»!,„ 1 ,. • , . pi 'seMce was trans rut, and that

t ey e,t „„ cndnrn.g evidence of their visits, seen, no le s r
lo he Spa,Hsl, p,„„..ers of A.neriean discoverv and civilisation in tl"e
en r,e, snbse,|„ent to the era of Colun,bns, we n,nst theref ,- ook
for l,e carhes memorials ol E,„opea„ adveutur. in the New wLlj!
The Icfered traces ol the ea.Iy Spanish ex,,h,re,s of America are

o dcr .olon.sts of.Greenlan.l ; and possess an inferior historical value
,e y ecttuse o the ample tnaterial, provided by Spanish cl .t r^

[8->0 a ^^'^ ; " '"'"'"' •""' '■""''"'^' »'■ «•--!■ A-eriea. lu
U.te, "u™ 'T"\"':''^ "' "- 'l'"p„,raphieal Bureau of the
Unted btate , was .ssucd troa, the War l)ep,,rt,„ent at Wasbinnon-

S ,:;:"V U " ' '"r" "' " ■"'"•"'■■' rec„„„oissa„ee^„m
an J."n. s Iv. Snnpson „, the (iorps of TopopaplJeal Entciueers. Hi,
na„a.,vc,s accompanied ,vi,h illustrations of a .e,na,k;blc scries of

HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

inscriptions engraved on the smooth face of a rock of gigantic pro-
portions called the M >ro. The route of Lieutenant Simpson lay up
the valley of the Rio de Zniii, and there, as he inl'orms us, he met Mr.
Lewis who had heen a trader among the Navajos, and was waiting to
offer his services as guide to a rock, upon the face of which were,
according to his repeated assertions, "half an acre of inscriptions."
After ])assing over a route of al)OMt eight miles, extending through a
country diversified hy cliffs of hasalt, and red and white sand stone, in
every variety of hold and fantastic form, they came at length in sight
of a quadrangular mass of wiiite sanl-stone rock, from two hundred
to two hundred and fifty feet in height. This was the Moro, or In-
scription Rock, on ascending a low mound at the hase of which,
the journalist states, "sure enough here were inscriptions, and some
of them very beautiful; and although, with those we afterwards ex-
amined on the south face of the roik, tiiere could not be said to be
half an acre of them, yet the hyperbole was not near as extravagant
as I was prepared to find it." Oil ilse summit of the cliff t'.e ruins
of a pueblo of bold native masonry formed a rectangle two hundred
and six by three hundred ami seven feet ; around which lay an im-
mense accumulation of broken pottery, of novel and curious patterns.
The inscriptions are of two classes : the native hieroglyphics which
furnish no means of judging of the dates of tlie oldest ot such sym-
bolic writings ; and the Spanish inscriptions and devices. The longe.
examples of the latter class appear to be mostly iinpfrfcct, through
the action of time and the defacement of later visitors, lUit they
have not been su!)jected to such careful stmly, by competent tran-
scribers, as to ensure their complete reproduction, or conjectural resto-
ration ; and it is jjrobable that future explorers may be rewarded by
the discovery of many additional records of interest and historical
value. One apparently reads thus : -

-\- Pasamos pur aqui •

el sarjente mai/or
y el capitan Jfi de Arechu-
seta y el via<lante Dleyn Martin
Burba y el AlJWes Guillen de Ynes
Josana A. 163G.

Another, and apparently the oldest with a date afifixed, a.d. IfiOG,
is given here in facsimile. But others are in an earlier character.

BIGTOftlCAL rUOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

centuf "" "'""^^ ^* *'''"^^'*'' *"*'*"''• inscriptions of the preri

pr6vum»

f4'

4^ /ar

))el5e/at^tny

MGRO IKSCRIPTIOH: A.O. 1606.

thiltriTrf "'"''.•'.SP""'^'' "P'or" -1.0 found timeeoengr,«
this «„fa.ihrul memorial of his visit is tio longer decipherable in con-
eequenee perhaps of the haste of its reeor.ler! „h„ IZZuZ Zl
on the ,6,h April, (?) ,o„6. he passed the Moro Kock with TpatoS

research of future explorers j for Lieutenant Simpson could only de-
»ote a portion of one day to their transcription , „„d the Abbi dLb-

Desert, of North Ara^rica- a, inscriptions that "have never beep
mentoned ■„ any scentificorgeographical work published in Europe ••

siipL'rcr ° """"' "" "'^'^""'^ "™» »f >•-■'--'

Some few of the Moro Inscription, are in Latin , but the greater
number are ,„ Spanish, and are occasionally accomp;nied witlS
ml devices or rebuses, somewhat after the Indian fashion of picture
writmg. One, for example, reads Vita Vaca ye Jarde, with the
.ccompany„,g syn,bol of the Vaca. or cow. Another group, co„!
"sting ot certain initials interwoven into n monogram, accompanied
by an open hand with a double thumb, all enclosed i. oar touch-faS
supposed by the transcriber to be, even more literaPv than theVr^
Mous bit of pictonal symbolism, a pictured p„„. " Tl'ie character. "
he remarks ".n the double rectangle seen, to he literally » i?„.
m.»«Und may possildy be symbolical of Francisco Manuel, tho.rgh
the double thumb would seem to indicate something more." Th.

BItTOmtCAL VOOTfRIHTS tH JIMSaiCA.

drviee tliut ingeniousljr interpreted tnekdet an intf rvoTrn meovgnui
of European charactenf* and the open band* a a/mbol of freqociil
occurrence among the Indian hieroglyphics of thia and other regioui
though not as here, with the novel adjunct of Ihe douhle thumb. It
if perhaps, in the simple form in «-hich it is introduced io groups of
Indian symbolism, the same '* Red Hand '* which Stephens observed
with auch interest wherever he wandered among the ruins of Centril
America. Here, however, it is the work of the designer; an 1 the
monograph, which its trnnsrriber reads as Francisco, appears more like
the sacred monogram I. II. 8. Perhaps it is thus placed, with Mi
ohvious significance, along side a native symbol of the Deity, or of
one of his impersonated attributes. On the same face of the rock
where this device occurs, is the following elaborate, though partialtj
mntitated piece of local history, somewhat ia the florid ttyle of
Oriental epigraphy : —

G, y Capa* Gen* dt la» Prtfi* del ISuevo Mex^ por ei Rey Ji»o

S^ pa»6 par egui de vuelta de toi puehtot de Zuni & lot 29 de Julip
del ano de 1620, ton puso en pat i su pedim^^ pidien dole 9u favor
temo Vasallot de su lilaj'*'* y de nuevo dieron la obedienci:^ #o do h
ffita/ hizo eon el agasnja soto, if prudencia como tan ehristianisim9
» . . tan particular y t/allardo eotdada indomitable y loado
ttwemoB ...

Joseph Erramos -|- Diego Nunez Betlida -{•

C*"** y el Sapata Bartotom* A'arrso,

Lieutenant Simpson learned from the Provincial Secretary, Don
Aciano Vigil, that though the conquest of the Province was originally
effected by Juan de Onatc, in the year 1;>!)5, all records p/eceding
th? year 1C80 have perished, as the Indians burnt the archives iu an
insurrection against the Conquerors at that date. On this account
therefore, the Moro Inscriptions have even some historical value ; and
among these th» one quoted above may be classed. The proper
names occur so far apart from the main inscription that their cornec-
tion in the form assumed by the original transcriber, is doubt-
ful. Translated, it reads: The Governor and Captain General of
the Provinces of New Mexico, for our Lord the King, passed this
place, on his return from the Pueblo ol' Zufii, on the 29th of' July, of
the year IG.'O, and put them in peace, at their petition, asking the
favour to becom^^ subjects of his Majesty, and anew they gave
obedience ; all which they did with free consent, knowing it prudent,

HISTORICAL rOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

r I

•.well M very c»>mt>*n . . . to ,o distinguished «„■» p,||.nt ,
•ot.l,crmten,laMe and f„nml,, clove . . . Joseph Ermmo. +
D.e^o Nunc. Bc-lh. o + General «„,! Counsellor. Bartolon,eo N.rrsl
Orent creJ.t ,s rtue to the inlelligen. real of the officer. I,y ,hom
the scr.es of Moro ■nscr.,,t,on, were copied, unJor such Jisadvao.a^eo™
crcumstanees «,ih so much care; but » more prolonged visit to the
same mterestmg locality will p,ob„My hereafter amply repay th.
lahour, of some enterprising explorer. «„d ,Jd perhaps to o»r
present ma.er.als, l,y ,he discovery of ,„cient „ative. a, will a, ,.,I,
E. ropean ,„scr,p,u,n, of great value. The Uighton Rock sink, into
•us gmficance am.d the numerous devices and hieroglvphics -raven br
nat.ve a,ts,sonthe Moro Cliff, from among th^hL, :JZ^.
ings of ,vh,ch an ingen.ous fancy need find no difficulty in seleetini
e,,m-alents for more tha,, all the ancient languages affirmed to U
represented .„ the polyglot alphabet of the Grave Creek Stone

in !^,'r ^'"^'- ™"'7|i'= '"^.™<'™l of the early presence of the Sp'aniard,
m he New World .s der.vcd from a different locality. I„ .he yeaj
J8.1, a slone tablet engraven here with its curious heraldic blaso'nrv.
«as found on one „■ the North Chincha islands off the coasfof Peru
bur.ed .n the accumulated guano of centuries to a depth of eighteen
fee . The sluehl is quartered heraldieally, and pierced at the inter-
.oct™, ,v„h „ square socket, possibly for the insertion of the beam to
«h.ch a benccn-hght or lantern «as attached. In the first quarter i.
.house, or chureh. «nh a bclfrytower and bell, and over this the
.M.rcv,atcd Mord DOM. The second compartment is charged with .
pehcan, cl which there are myriads about the guano islands , and th'

rv«rnvKi'"'°?.,°'', "'.''' "'' '■"""'' 1""""- '^"''" PEDRO
.11 ■ . . • , ■'" "" "" ""■'■'' I""'"- i^ »» »™ holding

. blnzmg torch, w.th an inscription of uhieh the only word nol

deeypherable .s QVEMA. «„„„. The fourth quarter 'bear, threl
Islands, no doubt ■ntcndcd for those of the Chincha group. So fa,
..the whole ,s decypherable it may read simply: TA, hou„ of
P'/ro. Covenjor of ,he Chincha IdanJs ; which the device in th.

.d fiee. Bu the use suggested for the socket in the o.ntre of th.
«h„!d accords w,th the destination which its blazonry su-csts for
the tablet, a, , he decoration of a beacon-tower attached toThe resi.
dence of the insular Spanish Viceroy.

• »

HISTORICAL rOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA.

• I '

The teuTpturfd taMct exhumed from the gttnno bed of the ChmcliR
Ifliinds, and now deposited in the British Museum, is thus ii mentoriaFi
of the early Appropriation hy the Spanish conrjuerors of Pern, of wh4t
w© know were among the n>ost prized possessions of the Inea* long
before the advent of Pizaro and his unscrupidotis coijqtiistadors. The
chronological sijsjnificancc of the depth at which it was f<iund receivet
•ome iliustration from other discoveries subscfjuenily made.

eniKCHA TAULET.

In May, 1S60, ^^essr9. Trevor and Colgate, bullion dealers. New
York, exhibited to the American Ethnological Society four gold relics*
which formed part of a discovery made on the same Chincha Islandi^
by |ome Coolies engaged in digging graves. They included the rudelj
executed figure of a man, wrought with the hammer and punches,
from a piece of gold weighing about twelve gold dollars ; and threo
cups of the same metal, wrought in like manner wiih the hammer, and
weighing about five gold dollars each. But the most interesting fact
in relation to those curious native relics is* that thev were recovered
at a depth of upwards of thirty feet below the original surface of the
guano; and they carry us back centuries before the period when thtt
sculptured memorial of the Spanish intruder?, described above, «ai
abandoned to the same slowly accumulating sepulture.

tS BltrOKICAL roOTPRINTS IN AMKRICA.

Sveh then are a few highly chnrnctfristic illustrattona of the fooU
pmiti of ««rly American explorers and settlers, which, without AttemiH.
Wg »ny exhaustive treatment gf the Bubject, may suffice for the pur-
pose now m v,ew. The sculptured tablet, the engraved plate/ th.
weda , and the com, arc nearly indestructible. Wherem thev hwe
Ken left they are «ure. sooner or later, to turn up ; and already. *, we
tee. chance discoveries on widely scattered localities, carry u» back
^ondcrfu ly near the first well established dates of permanent settle
«en on the chief centres of early occupation. The Northmen cole
m«ed Greenland nearly eleven hundred years ago. and their memorial,
temain to this day as indubitable as those of the Romans in trans-
•Ipme Europe.^ The Spaniards took fcsession of the American mZ
^^ndaix centuries later, followed by the Portugese, the French. .„d
the English , and the traces of all of them carry us back wonderfully
near the earliest dates of their presence tbere. We know, moreover
from the amusing history of the Dightoa Kock iiiscriptioH, that the
subject has attracted a lively and even eager attention for nearly two
centuries; and since the revival of the traditions of the long lost Via-
land. ante-Columbian inscriptions and memorials have bc<-n sought for
cten with an undue excess of zeal. The antiquaries of New England
have done good service to the historian by their thorough exploration
of aa real or imaginary traces of ante-Columbian colonisation, and
have no special reason to blush for the ardour with which thev have
been stimulated in the pursuit of so tempting a prize. If. however,
■ome of them arc mclincd to reflect on the labours of their more en-
thusiastic conff^M-es as a little Quixotic, they may derive consolation
from the abundant counterparts that serve to keep them in counten-
T *V, If "''°'^ «f archaeological research in older corners of
the world. Nor has their labour been in vain. Their diligence ha.

and that If Icelandic and Norse rovers, or far older Egyptian, PKani.
c^n Greek, or Punic adventurers, ever landed, by choice or chanceToL
the American shoi^s, they have left no memorials of their prematur.
glmpsesof the Western Hemisphere; and appear to have made no
permancfit seulemcnls on its eoil.

« 1. «

*- ^

^ I. '