[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]
All of these figures partake of the general type designated as the Shoshonean, and it is notable that close repetitions of some of the characters appear in petroglyphs in Tulare valley and Owens valley, California, which are described and illustrated in this section.
The object resembling a centipede, in Fig. 6, is a common form in various localities in Santa Barbara county, California, as will be observed by comparing the illustrations given in connection with that locality. In other of the Arizona and New Mexican petroglyphs similar outlines are sometimes engraved to signify the maize stalk.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Petroglyph in Arizona.]
Mr. Paul Holman, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports that eight miles below Powers butte, on a mesa bordering on the Gila river and rising abruptly to the height of 150 feet, are pictographs covering the entire vertical face. Also on the summit of a spur of Oatman mountain, 200 yards from the Gila and 300 feet above it, are numbers of pictographs. Many of them are almost obliterated where they are on exposed surfaces.
Lieut. Col. Emory (_a_) reports that on a table-land near the Gila bend is a mound of granite bowlders, blackened by augite and covered with unknown characters, the work of human hands. On the ground near by were also traces of some of the figures, showing that some of the pictographs, at least, were the work of modern Indians. Others were of undoubted antiquity. He also reports in the same volume (_b_) that characters upon rocks of questionable antiquity occur on the Gila river at 32° 38′ 13″ N. lat. and 190° 7′ 30″ long. According to the plate, the figures are found upon bowlders and on the face of the cliff to the height of 30 feet.
Lieut. Whipple (_a_) remarks upon petroglyphs at Yampais spring, Williams river, as follows:
The spot is a secluded glen among the mountains. A high shelving rock forms a cave, within which is a pool of water and a crystal stream flowing from it. The lower surface of the rock is covered with pictographs. None of the devices seem to be of recent date.
Many of the country rocks lying on the Colorado plateau of northern Arizona, east of Peach springs, bear petroglyphs of considerable artistic workmanship. Some figures, observed by Dr. W. J. Hoffman in 1872, were rather elaborate and represented the sun, human beings in various styles approaching the grotesque, and other characters not understood. All of those observed were made by pecking the surface of basalt with a harder variety of stone.