Another version, by Davidson and Struvé (_a_), of the discovery of the petroglyph is as follows:
Again they (Joliet and Marquette) were floating on the broad bosom of the unknown stream. Passing the mouth of the Illinois, they soon fell into the shadow of a tall promontory, and with great astonishment beheld the representation of two monsters painted on its lofty limestone front. According to Marquette, each of these frightful figures had the face of a man, the horns of a deer, the beard of a tiger, and the tail of a fish so long that it passed around the body, over the head, and between the legs. It was an object of Indian worship and greatly impressed the mind of the pious missionary with the necessity of substituting for this monstrous idolatry the worship of the true God.
A footnote connected with the foregoing quotation gives the following description of the same rock:
Near the mouth of the Piasa creek, on the bluff, there is a smooth rock in a cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on whose face, 50 feet from the base, are painted some ancient pictures or hieroglyphics, of great interest to the curious. They are placed in a horizontal line from east to west, representing men, plants, and animals. The paintings, though protected from dampness and storms, are in great part destroyed, marred by portions of the rock becoming detached and falling down.
Mr. McAdams (_a_), of Alton, Illinois, says “The name Piasa is Indian and signifies, in the Illini, ‘The bird which devours men.’” He furnishes a spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 inches in size and purporting to represent the ancient painting described by Marquette. On the picture is inscribed the following in ink: “Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3d, 1825.” The date is in both letters and figures. On the top of the picture in large letters are the two words, “FLYING DRAGON.” This picture, which has been kept in the old Gilham family of Madison county and bears the evidence of its age, is reproduced as Fig. 40.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--The Piasa petroglyph.]
He also publishes another representation (Fig. 41) with the following remarks:
One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have ever seen is in an old German publication entitled “The Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from nature, by H. Lewis, from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico,” published about the year 1839 by Arenz & Co., Düsseldorf, Germany. One of the large full-page plates in this work gives a fine view of the bluff at Alton, with the figure of the Piasa on the face of the rock. It is represented to have been taken on the spot by artists from Germany. We reproduce that part of the bluff (the whole picture being too large for this work) which shows the pictographs. In the German picture there is shown just behind the rather dim outlines of the second face a ragged crevice, as though of a fracture. Part of the bluff’s face might have fallen and thus nearly destroyed one of the monsters, for in later years writers speak of but one figure. The whole face of the bluff was quarried away in 1846-’47.