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"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 I f 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 I 4n 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 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. 10 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 bIiMe-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 14 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. 15 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; 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. 10 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. f 80 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,„io reasonable LM'oiinf!.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. 23 ! 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•-■'--' 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. 2S 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, Y6 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. V • I ' 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