genius of archæology might well lavish her favours more liberally on votaries who make so much out of her smallest contributions. The parenthetical introduction of Professor Rafn's Huitramannaland is a fine example of rhetorical allusion. The unhesitating determination of its inscription as in "the Celtiberic character" wonderfully simplifies the previous alternatives; and it could never be surmised from his text, that the historian of the Indian tribes assigns his precise date of 1328 on no better authority than the statement of Mr. Tomlinson, the proprietor of the mound, that the section of a large white oak which stood on its summit disclosed about five hundred annual rings; which, supposing the oak to have taken root the very year of the mound's completion, and the rings to have been exactly the product of five centuries, would indicate the said date. Dr. Clemens, however, a much more impartial and trustworthy witness, states the annual layers of the oak at three hundred, and says nothing about the inscription. But its alphabetic marvels were hailed with rapture by the wondering savans to whom they were submitted. The antiquaries of Copenhagen published a description of this "Runic inscription found in America ;" hesitated as to its authors between "tribes from the Pyrenean Peninsula," and inhabitants of the British Isles; but apologized for qualifying with any possibility of doubt the certainty as to its being "of European origin, and of a date anterior to the close of the tenth century," because the European alphabets with which they had compared it are themselves of a very ancient Asiatic origin. They added, moreover, the somewhat dangerous hope," that the numerous amateurs of antiquity in America may continue to exert themselves for the discovery of more monuments of such high value.”1

1 Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, 1840-44, p. 127

Ancient European, then, the Virginian inscription is, unless it be still more ancient Asiatic. But Africa, too, has its champions. M. Jomard, President of the Geographical Society of Paris, pronounced the riddle to be Libyan; and his opinion has since met with independent confirmation. Mr. William B. Hodgson, formerly American Consul at Tunis, in his Notes on Northern Africa,1 after discussing the vestiges of the ancient Libyan languages, and noticing certain Numidian inscriptions found at the oasis of Ghraat and elsewhere: proceeds to comment on the Grave Creek Stone as "an inscription found in the United States, and containing characters very similar to the Libyan ;" and after detailing the discoveries in the mound, he thus exclaims: "Whence was the ivory brought? Who was the gorgeous chieftain whose engraved signet was found by his side? Did he come from the Canary Islands, where the Numidian language and characters prevailed? or from the land of the Celto-Iberians, whose writing was somewhat similar? Shall we recur to the lost Atlantis? Could any of the Carthaginian or African vessels, which usually visited the Fortunate or Canary Islands, have been carried by accident to the New World? The peopling of America is quite as likely to be due to Africa and Europe as to Asia." Without attempting to determine the true answer to his queries, Mr. Hodgson concludes that there is no apparent difficulty in supposing the inscribed stone to have been brought from Africa by accident or design. Dr. Wills de Hass, an American archæologist, has recently communicated to the American Ethnological Society an elaborate paper, which he intimates his intention of publishing, in proof of the authenticity of the Grave Creek Stone; meanwhile we can only regret that

1 Notes on Northern Africa, the Sahara and Soudan, in relation to the Ethnography, Languages, etc., of those Countries, p. 44.

a relic which, if genuine, is an object of such just interest, should have been given to the world under such equivocal circumstances, and elucidated with so much indiscreet zeal.

The Virginian inscription is not, however, the sole example of graven characters found on the American continent in connexion with native antiquities. In 1859, Dr. John C. Evans of Pemberton, New Jersey, communicated to the American Ethnological Society an account of a stone axe inscribed in unknown characters, which had been recently ploughed up on a neighbouring farm. The axe, which measures about six inches long by three and a half broad, is engraved here (Fig. 50) from a

drawing furnished to me by Dr. Evans. When exhibited to the Ethnological Society, Mr. Thomas Ewbank remarked, that "it seemed strange that the characters, if intended to signify anything, should be placed where they would be most exposed to being worn away by the use of the instrument." Two of the characters are placed on one side, in the groove for the handle, the others apparently form a continuous line, running round both

sides of the axe-blade, as extended here (Fig. 51). This is not, however, an altogether unique example of an engraved axe. The practice of decorating implements of

the simplest forms with graven and hieroglyphic characters has already been illustrated in a previous chapter, in one of the Carib shell knives (Fig. 6) from Barbadoes.1 Such devices probably indicate the dedication of the weapon or implement to some special and sacred purpose, such as the rites of Mexican sacrifice rendered so

common.

Humboldt figures, in his Vues des Cordillères, a hatchet made of a compact feldspar passing into true jade, obtained by him from the Professor of Mineralogy in the School of Mines at Mexico, with its surface covered with graven figures or characters. In commenting on this interesting relic, M. Humboldt adds: "Notwithstanding our long and frequent journeys in the Cordilleras of the two Americas, we were never able to discover the jade in situ; and this rock being so rare, we are the more astonished at the great quantity of hatchets of jade which are found on turning up the soil in localities formerly inhabited, extending from the Ohio to the mountains of Chili." 2 Here also, therefore, we have a glimpse of wide-spread ancient trade and barter carried on throughout the American continent in ancient

1 See vol. i. p. 209. 2 Vues des Cordillères, vol. ii. p. 146, plate xxviii.