A general remark may be made regarding the Kejimkoojik drawings, that the aboriginal art displayed in them did not differ in any important degree from that shown in other drawings of the Micmacs and the Abnaki in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology. Also that the rocks there reveal pictographic tendencies and practices which suggest explanations of similar work in other regions where less evidence remains of intent and significance. The attractive material of the slates and their convenient situation tempted past generations of Indians to record upon them the images of their current thoughts and daily actions. Hence the pictographic practice went into operation at this locality with unusual vigor and continuity. Although at Kejimkoojik lake there is an exceptional facility for determining the relative dates of the several horizons of scratchings, the suggestion there evoked may help to ascertain similar data elsewhere.
Mr. Charles Hallock kindly communicates information concerning pictographs on Nipigon bay, which is a large lake in the province of Ontario, 30 miles northwest of Lake Superior, with which it is connected by Nipigon river. He says:
The pictographs, which are principally of men and animals, occupy a zone some 60 feet long and 5 feet broad, about midway of the face of the rock; they are painted in blood-red characters, much darker than the color of the cliff itself.
He also, later, incloses a letter received by himself from Mr. Newton Flanagan, of the Hudson Bay Company, an extract from which is as follows:
About the dimensions of the red rock in Nipigon bay, upon which appear the Indian painted pictures, as near as I can give you at present, the face of the rock fronting the water is about 60 feet, rising to a greater height as it runs inland. The width along the water is something like 900 yards, depth quite a distance inland. The pictures are from 10 to 15 or perhaps 20 feet above the water; the pictures are representations of human figures, Indians in canoes, and of wild animals. They are supposed to have been painted ages ago, by what process or for what reason I am unable to tell you, nor do I know how the paint is made indelible.
As far as I can gather, the Indians here have no traditions in regard to those paintings, which I understand occur in several places throughout the country, and none of the Indians hereabouts nowadays practice any such painting.