“Fig. 15 embraces a number of characters on the ceiling. The left hand upper figure is in black, with a narrow line of red surrounding it. The drawing is executed neatly and measures about 18 inches in length. The remaining characters are in dull red, probably ocher, though the two on the left hand, beneath the one just mentioned, are more yellowish.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]
“The first three forms in Fig. 16 are copies of human-like figures painted on the ceiling. They are each about 12 inches in length. The other form in Fig. 16 is white and is on the southern vertical wall of the passageway facing the north. It resembles some of the human forms occurring elsewhere in the same series of petroglyphs.”
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Petroglyph at Tule river, California.]
In the range of mountains forming the northwestern boundary of Owens valley are extensive groups of petroglyphs, apparently dissimilar to those found west of the Sierra Nevada. Dr. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Ethnology, hastily examined them in 1871 and more thoroughly in the autumn of 1884. They are now represented in Pls. I to XI. So large a space is given to these illustrations because of their intrinsic interest, and also because it is desirable to show for one locality what is true of some others, viz, the very large number of petroglyphs still to be found in groups and series. Even with the present illustrations, the petroglyphs in Owens valley are by no means exhaustively shown.
One of the most important series of groups is that in the northern portion of Owens valley, between the White mountains on the east and the Benton range on the west. On the western slope of the latter, at Watterson’s ranch, is a detached low butte or mesa, upon the blackened basaltic bowlders and cliffs of which are numerous deeply cut characters, the most interesting of which are reproduced in Pls. I and II. The illustrations are, approximately, one-twelfth real size. The designs of footprints, in the lower left-hand corner of Pl. I, vary in depth from half an inch to 1-1/2 inches. They appear to have been pecked and finally worked down to a uniform and smooth surface by rubbing, as if with a piece of stone or with wood and sand.