figures inscribed upon it, the first question that occurs to every inquirer must be, what is there to prove that these marks are the work of the Northmen, and not of the natives, or of the first European settlers about the year 1620? The stone, of which No. 1. is a delineation (No. 2. is a copy of the marks or inscription in 1790, and No. 3. in 1830), bears nothing to show by whom, or when, the marks in question were scratched upon it. The native tribes of America, the Hottentots, even the natives of Australia, according to Captain Gray's narrative of his travels, have a propensity to delineate rude figures and marks upon the sides of caves and remarkable rocks, to indicate that they have been there, and even to show their tribe, numbers, and the direction they have taken. This stone is, by the description, quite tempting to indulge the propensity common to all men, savage or civilised, to leave some mark after them of their having existed; for it is said to be conspicuous from its position, flat surface, and different texture from the common rock of the country around.[1] It is evident, on referring to
- ↑ "The Deighton stone is a fine-grained greywakke, and the rock of the neighbourhood a large conglomerate. It is situated 6½ miles south of Taunton, on the Taunton river, a few feet from the shore, and is covered with water at flood tide, on the west side of Assonet Point, in the town of Berkley, county of Bristol, and state of Massachusetts, and in a parish or district called Deighton. The marks are described as 'showing no method in the arrangement of them.' The lines are from half an inch to an inch in width, and in depth sometimes one-third of an inch, though in general very superficial. They were, inferring from the rounded elevations and intervening depressions, pecked in upon the rock, and not chiselled or smoothly cutout"—(Communication of the Rhode Island Historical Society to the Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen, 1830.) Other rocks, similarly marked with rude hieroglyphics, or figures of animals, are found in various parts of the interior of America, far from the coast,—as on the Alleghany river, the Connecticut river, about Lake Erie, on Cumberland river, about Rock-castle Creek,—and similar, as sculptured work, to the Deighton stone. Are these too memorials of Thorfinn Karlsefne, left in Vinland by his party of woodcutters? or are they the rude memorials of the wandering Indians, left, if they have a meaning, to show those of their own tribe who may follow that they have been on the spot some time before?
