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MIDDLE PERIOD OF
DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY

BY
EDMUND BURKE DELABARRE

REPRINTED FROM
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
Ctie Colonial ^octet^ of £t^a0£(act)usettg
Vol. xix

CAMBRIDGE
JOHN WILSON AND SON
Santersits IPtess
1917

^'S.S"

MIDDLE PERIOD
OF
DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY

MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY
During the earliest period of interest in Dighton Rock and its
strange writing,^ there seem to have been some, as Professor Green
wood implied in 1730, who suspected that possibly its characters
were Oriental. This belief was doubtless closely connected with
the many current theories as to the origin of the American Indians,
— a problem which aroused interested discussion from almost the
very earliest days of the colonies.^ On the one hand, northwestern
Europe was looked upon by some as the home-land of some at least
of the Indian tribes. But even more widely accepted as parents of
the aborigines were Orientals, either from the eastern parts of Asia,
such as the Siberian Tartars, the Chinese, or the Japanese, or from
its western borders, such as the Lost Tribes of Israel, the sea-faring

• See Early Interest in Dighton Rook, Publications of this Society, xviii.
235-299, 417.
' See G. L. Kittredge, Letters of Samuel Lee and Samuel Sewall (Publications
of this Society, xiv. 147, 16&-17I, 178 f).

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 47
Phoenicians, or even the exiled Trojans.^ It was natural that, when
this rock became known, some of the advocates of one theory or an
other should find in its curious characters evidence in favor of their
views. But up to this time no very definite theory concerning the
origin of the inscription had taken shape. During the next follow
ing one hundred years after Greenwood, it became generally held
that some ancient people of Oriental origin carved this monument,
and several theories ascribing it to different Oriental sources were
announced. Some of them went so far as to discover a definite
meaning for nearly every hne upon the rock. Yet there continued
an undercurrent of opposition to such speculations, and a belief that
either the American Indians, or even the action of natural forces
alone, were responsible for the markings.
Drawing bt John Winthrop, 1744; Opinions of
William Douglass, 1747
Indeed, it was a theory of the latter sort that was the first one
expressed. Greenwood's contribution remained buried, as we have
seen, for over fifty years, and Mather's continued to be the only one
in print. In 1744 or earlier John Winthrop, Greenwood's successor
in the Hollisian chair at Harvard, made a rough and incomplete
sketch from the rock, as we learn from a letter which he wrote many
years later. But he did not preserve this copy. So it was left for
William Douglass to make the next contribution in print. Except
historically, it is quite as unimportant as was Cotton Mather's own.
The one distorts and misrepresents the appearance of the inscrip
tion, the other tells us that there is no inscription there; and neither
of these men, apparently, had made a personal inspection of the
rock. Yet until 1781 their accounts remained all that there was in
print on this subject, with the exception of Neal's brief quotation
from Mather.

> This controversy about the original peopling of America is too intricate to
receive discussion here, and I deal with it only in so far as it affects opinion con
cerning Dighton Rock. For more detailed information, the following sources,
among others, may be consulted : S. F. Haven, Archaeology of the United States,
in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge (1856), viii. chap, i, ii; Winsor, Pre-
Columbian Explorations, in Narrative and Critical History of America, i; P. B.
Watson, Bibliography of the Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America, in Library
Journal (1881), vi. 227-244.

48 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [JaN.
The occasion of Douglass's utterance seems to have been a desire
to continue a quarrel begun with Cotton Mather years before,^ and
to make further ridicule of his opinions. They had been at first on
friendly terms. But in 1721 Mather warmly advocated the cause
of inoculation for small-pox. "On September 25th Dr. William
Douglass, the vociferous and determined opponent of Mather and
Boylston [who performed the first inoculation in Boston], wrote
from Boston to Alexander Stuart, M.D., F.R.S., m London,
inquiring what English physicians thought of 'this rash practice/
expressing his own opposition to it, and describing Mather as ' a certain
credulous Preacher of this place.' " ^ Douglass continued the attack
further, challenging Mather's right to call himself a Fellow of the
Royal Society, ridiculing his communications to that body, and speak
ing of him as "a Man of Whim and Credulity," a "certain Gentleman,
(who you know in times past has been troublesome to the R.S. with
his trivial credulous Stories)," a "credulous vain preacher," and the
Hke. This rancor was long enduring, for in a passage fir'st published
in 1747 the same sneering depreciation of Mather is still evident,
this time applied to the latter's views concerning Dighton Rock.
The passage is as follows:
They [the Indians] had no Characters, that is. Hieroglyphics, or letters;
they had a few Symbols or Signatures, as if in a Heraldry way to distin
guish Tribes, the principal were the Tortoise, the Bear, the Wolf. There
was not the least Vestige of Letters in America; some Years since a cer
tain credulous Person, and voluminous Author, imposed upon himself
and others; he observed in a tiding River, a Rock, which, as it was not
of an uniform Substance, the ebbing and flowing of the Tide made a
Sort of vermoulure. Honey-combing or etching on its face; here he im
agined, that he had discovered the American Indian Characters, and
overjoy' d, remits some Lines of his imaginary Characters to the Royal
Society in London: See Philosophical Transactions, No. 339. [Here
Mather is quoted.] This may be supposed wrote Anno 1714: At present
Anno 1747 by the continued ebbing and flowing the Honey-combing is
so altered as not in the least to resemble his Draught of the Characters.'
1 G. L. Kittredge, Cotton Mather's Election into the Royal Society (Publica
tions of this Society, xiv. 102-106).
2 xiv. 103.
» Summary, etc., 1747, no. 11, pp. 170-171. This work was originally issued
in numbers, each consisting of a half-title and sixteen pages of text. These

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 49
It is true that the lower part of Mather's drawing does not in the
least resemble the characters on the rock.^ But the inference is not
justified that this was due to a growing alteration effected by the
tides. It seems probable that Douglass obtained his knowledge of
the present state of the rock in 1747 from some one else. I know of
no one who has actually seen the rock itself and afterward written
about it, who believed that its markings were entirely due to natural
processes alone; though this view is expressed from time to time by
persons who were not themselves first-hand observers of it.
Ezra Stiles, 1767
The fact that Ezra Stiles expressed certain opinions concerning
Dighton Rock in his Election Sermon of 1783 is well known. This,
and the passages in his Diary in which he refers to the rock, will be
discussed in their appropriate order later. But that he made three
separate drawings of it in 1767, and another in 1788, is never men
tioned in the literature of the subject. In surveying the earlier his
tory of this interesting rock, we met with many curious examples
of persistent error and with many strange omissions of discoverable
fact, yet none of them was more surprising than is this almost com
plete ignoring of the important and repeated investigations by Dr.
Stiles. The facts were known to many at the time; the drawings
original parts are raze, but the Harvard CoUege Library owns the first seventeen,
though the half-titles of only two (nos. 1 and 13) have been preserved. The pas
sage quoted in the text must have appeared in no. 11. An advertisement in the
Boston Evening Post of Monday, February 9, 1747, stated that "Saturday last
was published, A Summary, . . . By W. D. m.d. No. 1. To be continued"
(p. 2/2). And the Boston News Letter of September 10, 1747, advertised "Just
published. Number XI" (p. 4/2).
According to Drake's Dictionary of American Biography (p. 278), William
Douglass was a physician and author, bom in Scotland about 1691, settled at
Boston 1718, died there 1752. "He was a violent antagonist of Dr. Boylston, in
his efforts to introduce inoculation. His learning was considerable; but his preju
dices were strong, and he lacked judgment and taste. He wrote many pohtical
essays in the newspapers, which were generaUy fiUed with sarcastic remarks upon
the magistrates, the clergy, the physicians, and the people of N. E. His 'Sum
mary' ... is inaccurate, and records his private squabbles as weU as pubhc
affairs." See also A. McF. Davis, Colonial Currency Reprints (Prince Society),
in. 250-254.
1 In the supplementary note to my earlier paper, I showed that this was due
partly to his lack of skUl as a draughtsman, but much more to the fact that this
part of his drawing was published upside-down.

50 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
and the opinions that accompany them are fully as worthy of men
tion and preservation as are any of the others; they have always been
readily accessible; and their author was an intelligent observer, a
man of high position and a recognized authority at the time on this
very subject of inscribed rocks.^ In 1767 he was minister at New
port. His Itinerary,^ preserved in the Library of Yale University,
describes these visits to Dighton Rock, and contains some of the
drawings that he made. With the courteous assistance of Professor
Franklin B. Dexter I have examined the scattered passages which
refer to this subject. I reproduce them not in the irregular order in
which the field-notes were jotted down, but rearranged and to some
degree condensed.
Attention has already been called to the fact that Dr. Stiles's
interest in the Rock was first excited when Mr. Checkley showed
him a copy of the Mather Broadside in the fall of 1766.^ On May 27,
1767, he learned from Mr. Edward Shove of Assonet Neck that the
"cyphered Stone" was situated half a mile from the latter's house.
On June Sth he rode from Taunton to Shove's house, and they went
together to the Writing Rock. "I began to take off some of the
Characters, but without Chalking first. Next day I chalked the
marks and took them more distinctly. . . . Spent the forenoon in
Decyphering about Two Thirds the Inscription, which I take to be
in Phoenician Letters & 3000 years old."
1 Ezra StUes was bom December 10, 1727, at North Haven, Connecticut;
graduated Yale, 1746; practised law 1753-1755; minister at Newport, 1755 to
1776. His congregation being dispersed by the war, but his pastoral relation not
broken, he resided in Dighton from March 12, 1776, to May 22, 1777 He re
moved thence to preach at Portsmouth, N. H. In 1778, he was elected President
of Yale CoUege, and died May 12, 1795. See A. Hohnes, Life of Ezra StUes
1798; also Stiles's Literary Diary, 1901. '
A clue to the existence of the drawings and unpublished materials is afforded
by certam passages in the Diary and in the Election Sermon. It is through
Professor Dexter that I located the material; and I am further under deep oblisa^
tion to hun for indispensable guidance in finding the pertinent passages The
two drawmgs m the Itmerary were photographed for me under the direction of
the late Mr. J. C. Schwab, Librarian of Yale University; and a photostat of the
other drawmg was made for me by the Massachusetts Historical Society
' Last autumn Professor Dexter edited a volume entitled Itineraries and Cor
respondence of Ezra Stiles: see pp. 234-235 for Dighton Rock. The passaees
quoted m the text of this paper, most of which are not reproduced in this printed
volume, are copied from the original manuscripts.
2 Publications of this Society, xviii. 264.

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STILES'S DRAWms
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IG, JUNE 6, 1767
5 FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 51
The Rock is a rusty Iron Coloured hard flinty Stone. The Letters or
Lines are half to three Quarters of an Inch wide; & not a Tenth of an
Inch deep — being picked in a hard reddish or tawny Crust of the Rock
a quarter Inch thick. The Range of the face of the Rock is one pt
nearer East than NE— ie NE by E. Tide generally covers half its
Height.1 On the north end (not the face) of the rock Dr. Stiles detected some
further faint marks, "said to be done 30 years ago, some said 12."
He draws them as dotted Imes, to indicate their faintness and uncer
tainty, making them look much like the letters "IHOWOO," with
' three U-like curves underneath. These characters I have seen referred
to by only one other observer of the rock.^ Yet they are still there,
very faint, observable only in an exceptionally favorable light, marked
rather by a slight difference in color than by indentation, but never
theless as surely artificial as are the markings on the face. I saw them
myself in the summer of 1915 without knowing that they had been
discovered before, and copied them in a manner which closely resembles
Stiles's depiction, including all his lines and some additional ones.
They seem to me, for reasons that I stated in my earlier paper ,^
to supply the most decisive evidence we have in support of the belief
that no great antiquity needs to be assumed for the characters on the
face of the rock.
"No other stones within rods except a flat one on the shore within
a few feet" of the Writing Rock. It has two marks in one corner,
which Stiles shows as somewhat resembling an X and an R. This
slab seems to have given rise to various tales of another elaborately
carved rock near the Dighton Rock, which we shall find discussed
and disposed of by Kendall, in 1807.*
' This paragraph and 'the one given below are not quoted in the exact order
of words and sentences, but are compilations from scattered passages. This,
and the fact that many statements are made by Stiles twice in sUghtly differing
language, explains why the wording given here differs from that of correspond
ing passages in the published Itineraries.
2 Edward Everett Hale wrote in his Diary, under date of July 31, 1839: "There
is an inscription on the North end of the rock made this or last year by some wan
derer who hoped to deceive future antiquarians, I suppose. H and W figure in
it." I am indebted to Professor Edward E. Hale of Union CoUege for this fact.
Why Mr. Hale should have been so misinformed as to the recent origin of the
marks is not clear. Possibly Dr. Stiles's information may have been similarly
untrustworthy. Cf. p. 95, below.
' PubUcations of this Society, jcviii. 239 note 1. * See p. 112, below.

52 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
A map of the road from Taunton, ^ a few drawings of some separate
figures on the rock, and a mention of the previously made drawings
by Mather, Greenwood, and Berkeley,^ complete Stiles's notes on
this occasion. On the 15th of June he wrote a letter from Newport
to Professor John Winthrop of Harvard, telling of this visit; asking
for a copy of the Greenwood drawing; and expressing the following
opinion: "It is not a Vermiculation or Lusus Naturae, but a Work
of Art, and I believe of Great Antiquity, perhaps up to the Phoeni
cian Ages: but I believe it never will be interpreted."
On July 13 and 14, 1767, Dr. Stiles made another journey of 26
miles to the Writing Rock. On the 14th he arrived at Edward
Shove's, and visited the rock at 5.30 p. m. On July 15, —
at VI*" Morn^ I was at the Rock — Flood & 1 ft. high. So only washed
& skrubbed the Rock with a Broom, & took off a few Characters. . . .
From II'' to IV" I chalked the Characters, & took off some in full Dimen-
sions.3 Then struck the foot partition Lines — & try^ my cartridge
paper was discouraged with my first Scheme. And perceiv*^ the Tide
return, I applyd myself & took the Copy on the other side [of the sheet
on which he was writing, — the drawing of July 15 reproduced in Plate
XX], which I did in about two Hours or before sunset. Next Morn
ing I went & took another Copy on a larger Scale, but without Compari
sons, or alteration upon Comparison. At X set out from Mr. Shoves
for Home.
Besides one of the two drawings of the inscription, Stiles's notes
on this occasion include another map of the road from Taimton, a
drawing showing the location of the cracks on the rock, and a chart
of the shore and rocks in the vicinity of the Writing Rock.
It is worthy of note that on both of these visits Stiles followed the
usual practice of first chalking the characters on the rock before
making his drawing. In our later discussion of Kendall we shall
find this practice condemned as a means of securing a truthful copy.*
In addition to the three drawings that he completed, he apparently
1 On this map, the name Assonet as appUed to the Neck (but not to the Bay
or River) is speUed Wassonet. It is interesting to note that the same spelUng
occurs in the Old Proprietary Records of Taunton, Book 4, p. 230 (1683), and in
the Land Records at Taunton, Book 3, p. 390 (1683 and 1691).
2 Portions of the letter and of the Itinerary were quoted in my earUer paper
(p. 270), to show that StUes learned of the visits of Greenwood and of Berkeley
from Benjamin Jones, aged 70, owner of the Rock.
» Now owned by the American Academy. * See pp. 112-113, of. p. 80, below.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 53
was the first person who attempted to secure the characters "in full
Dimensions," using cartridge paper in some manner not specified,
perhaps to obtain a direct impression. It is possible that his failure
in this was what led him to induce Elisha Paddack to secure a copy
in this manner a month later. Before describing that incident, how
ever, we must first examine Stiles's own drawings.
There are three of these, as his notes imply, besides some detached
fragments. That of June 6th occupies four pages of the Itinerary,
each measuring about &^ by 7% inches. Placed together, there
fore, as Plate XIX shows it, the whole drawing measures about 7%
by 243^. The right and left halves are drawn on somewhat differ
ing scales, and are evidently not designed to fit onto one another
perfectly. They have Iain folded against one another so long in the
Itinerary that a few of the marks on each are merely blots derived
from heavily inked portions of the other side. On them Stiles wrote
a number of indications of dimensions, and a few descriptive re
marks. Some of these are so faint in the reproduction that I trans-
scribe them all in a footnote.^
The drawing of July 15 (Plate XX) is also in the Itinerary, where
it covers two pages, and therefore measures about 7% by 123^ inches.
It attempts to indicate the relative breadth of the lines; shows the
position of a few of the natural cracks in the rock by dotted hnes;
and gives marginal indications of the dimensions in feet.
^ "Taken off June 6, 1767" (in the upper left-hand comer). "Here is taken
above half but not Two Thirds of the Inscription." "On a Rock eleven feet
long & 4J^ wide at Assonet on the East Bank or Shore of Taunton River 7 m.
below Taunton, are these Inscriptions; which I took off Jime 6. 1767. I begun at
A the SW End, & proceeded from right to left to B; continued on the other side
from C to D the NE End. And as to Breadth I took about Two Thirds."
"Beginning." "Continuation." "End." Twice the word "Deest." In the
upper right-hand comer, again the date, "June 6, 1767." The "Deest" evi
dently means: "There is nothing here." The dimensions indicated are these:
of the left margin of the rock, "Two feet;" of the left-hand sheet, "Four feet
this side;" of the right-hand sheet, "Six feet to here;" in the lower right-hand
comer, " 2 J^ f eet high ie. here is taken off what fiUs 2 % feet breadth on the stone ; "
of the head of the human figure near the left end, "8 X 7 Ins;" of the taU figure
in the middle of the right-hand sheet, "22 Inch by 7;" of the double triangular
figure in the upper left-hand comer of the right-hand sheet, with the letters o
(above) and d (below) indicatiag its left vertical line, e and f its middle vertical,
a and b its broken right vertical, and h and i its opening at the right end, "12
ab, 8 cd, 14 be, 12 ad, 9 ef, 2}4 open^ hi." The pages 275 and 277 of the Itinerary
are also indicated.

54 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
The drawing of July 16th (Plate XXI), being made on a larger
scale, is not in the Itinerary. It is on two sheets of paper pasted to
gether, measuring together 12% by 31^ inches, the drawing itself
being about 9 by 23 inches. On the back is a carefully executed
separate drawing (Plate XXI) of one of the groups of figures, 4 by
6J4 inches in size. The main drawing, like that of the day before,
indicates the breadth of the lines on the rock, but contains no marks
of dunension. The separate figure, however, is divided by dotted
lines into squares corresponding in numbering to the indications of
dimensions in feet as given on the drawing of the 15th. In one
corner of the face is written: "Characters on the Writing Rock,
whose Incisions were obvious & unquestionable decyphered July 16,
1767. Given to Yale College Museum / Ezra Stiles / -1788;" and
on the back: "Dighton Writing Rock said to consist of Punic or
Carthaginian Characters." The drawing is now in the collection of
the Massachusetts Historical Society.
The three drawings are in some respects so unlike as to show little
indication of having been made by the same hand. Other features,
however, especially the representations of human beings and the
triangular figures, which are presented in an essentially like manner
by nearly every one who has ever copied the inscription, are naturally
nearly alike hi these. The figure usually drawn as a quadruped
bears no resemblance to its usual manner of depiction on the first
drawing, but slight resemblance on the second, and is lacking on ^he
third. In view of later importance attached to them, it is particu
larly interesting to compare together the two lines of characters
near the centre of the inscription which contahi some resemblance
to letters of the alphabet. Besides irregular marks possessing no
such resemblance, the upper line includes shapes somewhat like
XXXIM on June 6, XXX only on July 15, XXXIN on July 16, and
cXXXIM in the dravdng on the back of the latter. Calling the
'diamond-shaped character an O, and neglecting irregular curves,
the lower hne can be bfest Hkened to O . . OX on June 6, y7X on
July 15, and OnUX on July 16. As a whole, the June drawing is very
dissimilar to the two of July; yet a distinct individuality of style is
perceptible in them all. That of July 16 is very sunilar to the one
of the day before, being based on the same chalking; but it contains
fewer figures, the omissions being mainly, but not wholly, in the

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 55
lower part. It appears more carefully and accurately drawn than
the others, and impresses me as the best one that Stiles made, though
not the most complete.
One significance of these drawings is that they are the earhest
that show the entire sculptured surface of the rock in a serious
manner. Danforth's gave less than half. Mather's "second line"
was published upside-down, and hence has hitherto been valueless;
and even in its correct position it is seen to be ill-drawn and badly
distorted- Greenwood's drawing went only a little beyond Dan
forth's. These of 1767 show, as Stiles says, about two-thirds of the
face of the rock; but this is, nevertheless, the whole surface so far
as any artificial characters can be discovered on it. No one has ever
given more than these drawings include, except perhaps for a few
single figures that some have claimed to discover where others have
seen little or nothing.
EusHA Paddack, 1767; Fuether concerning De. Stiles "
That Stiles was not content with his drawings and still wished,
after his own unsuccessful attempt, to secure a full-size direct im
pression of the characters themselves, is shown by a letter written
to him on August 15, 1767, by Elisha Paddack of Swansey. The
letter is preserved with the Stiles papers in the Yale Library, and
has never before been mentioned in the literature of Dighton Rock.
The letter describes the use of a new method, similar to the one
adopted twenty-one years later by James Winthrop in making his
well-known copy of the inscription.1 Paddack writes:
According to your desire I have been to the Phoenitian rock and taken
* off some of the figures as big as the life, I was obliged to go twice before
I could finish it, when I first went there I attempted to take off one with
a pencil, but I found the task so difficult to perform with any exactness
that I was forced to give it over.
The next day I went again in company with one of the neighbours,
M' John Hudson, we took some Ink and flour, and stirred it together
into a sort of past, with which we filled up all the marks we could dis
cover belonging to a figure, we then laid on the paper and squeesed it
till it had receiv'd the colure of the past [paste], by this means they are
taken off in their full dimentions, but their situations being opposite to
1 On August 13, 1788: see pp. 77 ff, below.

56 THE COLONLVL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
what they were on the rock, I prick'd them off again upon new paper
which I have sent you. . . .^
One small figure from this copy, 3H by 5}4 inches, somewhat
resembling a figure 8, is stitched into Stiles's manuscript Itinerary,
What appears to be the mam drawing, about 26 by 42 mches, is in
possession of the American Academy at Boston.^ On the 7th of
January, 1768, Paddack wrote again to Stiles, and suggested that
one of the figures at the south end of the rock (shown at the right
end in all the drawings) was meant to represent the "Phenitian
God Dagon that we read of ,in the old Testament," whom the
Rev. Mr. West had described to hun as customarily drawn in the
form of a half-man and half-fish.
When Du Simitiere visited Dr. Stiles in Newport in 1768, the
latter showed him one or more of the drawings made by himself and
Paddack. In the unpublished manuscript that I quoted in my
earlier discussions of Berkeley and of Smibert,' Du Simitiere re
marks, of the characters on the rock as Mather depicted them:
"They are also totally different from the copy taken by Dr. Stiles
of New Port;" and he says further:
When I was in New Port, Rhode Island in June 1768,^ the rev. Dr.
Ezra Stiles shewed me a copy of the above inscription taken with exact
ness of the same size of the original on several sheets of paper pasted
together,^ as also the drawings of some more rocks which the D' said,
he had discovered in several parts of this Island, having unknown char
acters engraven on them, but not so many as on the rock at Taunton.
this gentleman has been indefatigable in his enquiries, on those supposed
inscriptions, which are by him thought to be of great antiquity, and to
be composed of non alphabetical Characters mixed with hieroglyphics. ^
This is the only mention, so far as I know, of these drawings by
Stiles, except that occurring in his Diary (published in 1901) and in
' Unquoted portions of the letter show that Paddack did not take an im
pression of aU the figures.
2 It depicts the two human figures and the "N" at the right end of the
rock, and the coUection of triangular figures to the right of the centre. It is in a
badly worn and tom condition.
' PubUcations of this Society, xviii. 267, 272.
* StUes mentions this visit in his Itinerary under date of June 6, 1768.
5 This was doubtless the Paddack copy.
' From the transcript of Du Simiti^re's manuscript made for Mr. F. L. Gay.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 57
the notes by its editor; and the following by his son-in-law, Abiel
Holmes,^ in a reference to the year 1766: ^ "This year he copied, for
the first time, the curious Inscription on a rock in Dighton, which
has baffled the attempts of the Antiquarians of America, and of
Europe, to decypher to entire satisfaction. It was his opinion, that
the character is Punic." ^
It is interesting also to note that Du Simitiire speaks of drawings
of other inscribed rocks made by Stiles. It is well known that Dr.
Stiles was greatly interested in all such inscriptions, and made draw
ings of several, in Rhode Island and elsewhere. His Itinerary records
a number of such visits. Of a rock in Kent "on Housaturmuk River
near Scattikuk," he remarks: "The manner of Inscription is like
that of the Dighton Rock" (October 8, 1789). He visited and copied
"marked Rocks" in Tiverton and in Portsmouth, on Narragansett
Bay, on June 17 and October 6, 1767, June 7, 1768, September 29
and October 6, 1788. The drawings of 1767 and 1768 are preserved
in the Itinerary. The Portsmouth and Tiverton rocks were again
pictured in 1835 by John R. Bartlett, aided by Thomas H. Webb,
and their drawings were published in 1837 in the Antiquitates
Americanse. They differ considerably from the ones made by Stiles,
as we would naturally expect after discovering how very unlike ar^
the different drawings of Dighton Rock.
Stephen Sewall, 1768
We leave Dr. Stiles for the present, to consider other events that
occurred before he again appears in our history. Stephen Sewall
(or Sewell as he is known in all Dighton Rock literature, though not
in the Harvard University official lists), Hancock Professor of Hebrew
and other Oriental languages at Harvard College, appointed to that
position in 1764, made a life-size drawing of the rock on September
13, 1768. The interest of members of the Royal Society seems to
have been thoroughly aroused by Mather's communication of 1712
and by Greenwood's of 1730, although fully satisfied by neither. It
1 Life of Ezra StUra, 1798, p. 119.
2 This is an error for 1767; but it is an error that Stiles himself made in his
Diary on Oct. 3, 1788.
» This opinion was expressed by Stiles in his Itinerary in 1767, and in his Ser
mon of 1783, as we shall see; but he expressed doubts about it in his Diary in
1782.

58 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
was probably the same Mr. John Eames, F.R.S.,^ who had induced
Greenwood to make the drawing of 1730, who was indirectly responsi
ble for this new one by Sewall. These circumstances are most fully
related by Lort,^ who found a brief abstract of them in the Minutes
of the Royal Society for the year 1775, and then was "favored with
a sight of the whole paper by Timothy Hollis, Esq." Lort tells us
that "some years since the late Mr. Eames applied to Mr. Tunothy
Hollis, to write to Mr. Winthrope ... at the desire of a gentleman
at Berlin ... to procure a more accurate copy." No answer was
received at that time, but the matter was reopened in the summer of
1774, when "Mr. Winthrope" wrote to Mr. Hollis, and enclosed a
copy of the drawing by Sewall.
He says that the original drawing is of the same size as the in
scription itself, and "is now deposited in our Museum;" and that
the copy sent was reduced from Sewall's original. He believes that
it is the "most exact copy" of the rock that was ever taken. This
"Mr. Winthrope" was Professor John Winthrop, Greenwood's suc
cessor at Harvard College. His own opinions of the rock, as further
disclosed in this letter, will be reserved for later consideration.
Of the further details of the making of this drawing and of Sewall's
opinions concerning the inscription, we know through Professor
Sewall himself. In 1781 he sent a copy to M. Court de Gebelin of
Paris, accompanied by a letter which Gebelin reproduces in part in
the eighth volume of his Monde Primitif, issued in 1781. I translate
the letter from this source.
On the 13th of September, 1768, Stephen Sewall and Thomas Dan
forth, assisted by Wilham Baylies, Seth Wilfiams, and David Cobb,^
1 See PubUcations of this Society, xvin. 283. Mr. Eames died in 1744. The
"some years since" mentioned below must therefore have been at about the time
when John Winthrop made his "imperfect copy."
' Rev. Michael Lort, in Archaeologia, 1787, viii. 295.
' Of these men who assisted SewaU I gather the foUowing facts, among others
mainly from Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
Thomas Danforth was a grandson of the Rev. John Danforth of Dorchester
(who made the first drawing of Dighton Rock). Bom about 1742, graduated
Harvard 1762; studied law and became a coimcUlor in Charlestown; left for
Halifax in 1776, and later Uved in England, where he died 1820.
WUUam BayUes, physician, bom in Uxbridge November 24, 1743, graduated
Harvard 1760; studied medicine, and settled in Dighton; held various poUtical
offices; one of the founders of the Massachusetts Medical Society; feUow of

STILES'S DRAWII
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSE"

Plate XX

'€:ri

G, JULY 15. 1767
b FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 59
made a copy of the Dighton Rock inscription. The rock is situated on
the easterly bank of Taunton ^ River, forty or fifty miles south of Boston.
It is partly covered at high tide. It is eleven feet long, and four feet in
height above the level of the water. The level of the beach seems to
have risen and to have covered a considerable part of it. It is of a red
dish color. Its plane face which contains the inscription is somewhat
inclined toward the shore.^ The inscription has attracted the attention
of the curious for half a century. The convenience of the roadstead and
the f acihty of navigating the river up to this point encourage the belief
that it is the work of Phoenicians who were driven hither from the shores
of Europe. Others judge that the inscription is hieroglyphic rather
than in alphabetical characters, and that thus it may have been due to
Chinese or Japanese navigators. . . . The greater part of the inscrip
tion is effaced to such a degree that it is no longer possible to distinguish
any characters in these portions of it.
The opinion that the Phcenicians were the carvers of the inscrip
tion we have found already recorded by Stiles in 1767. But Sewall's
mention of it seems to be the first that found its way into print.
The two facts that he cites as arguments in its support are too com
pletely trivial for such service; but we must assume that the ad
herents of the view were confident also that there were Phcenician
characters among the markings on the rock. This opinion was a
welcome support to Gebelin's own speculations, and he adopted
and elaborated it with minute detail. Sewall also seems to have
been the first to speak of the existence of a theory that Chinese or
Japanese were the authors of the writings. He does not say that he
himself accepts either of the views that he mentions.
But besides this rather non-committal opinion written to Gebelin
about 1781, we have two positive statements by Sewall which show
that he was strongly inclined to attribute the inscription to the In-
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the Massachusetts
Historical Society; died in Dighton 1826. For several years he was Judge of the
Court of Common Pleas for the County of Bristol.
David Cobb, bom 1748, graduated Harvard 1766; studied medicine in Boston,
and practised in Taunton for many years; an army officer, judge, general of
militia, congressman, Ueutenant-govemor, etc.; died at Taunton 1830.
' GebeUn spells this name "Jaunston."
2 "Sur le rivage." SewaU's own words, as written on his drawing (see below)
were: "incUnes a Uttle from a perpendicular." He also wrote "of a scarlet hue"
instead of "d'une couleur rouge;" and "for nearly a century past," instead of
"depuis un demi-si6cle."

60 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
dians. On the drawing itself, as we are about to see, he, or some one
else using his words, wrote: "I imagine it to be the work of the In
dians of North America, done rather for amusement than (for any
serious purpose)." And in a letter of January 13th, 1769, now among
the Stiles papers in the Yale Library, he wrote to Stiles as follows:
For my part, I confess I have no faith in the significancy of the char
acters. There is indeed in some of the figures an appearance of design:
— I mean that some of the figures seem to be representations of some
things that the engraver previously had in his mind; for instance, of
human faces, & bodies, &c. But the strokes in general appear to me to
be drawn at random: So that I cannot but think the whole to be a mere
lusus Indorum.
Sewall's was the first complete drawing of the characters which
was published, and, with the possible exception of the unpreserved
attempts by Stiles and by Paddack, the first one of the full size of
the face of the rock. His original drawing is preserved in the Pea
body Museum of Harvard University, and is here for the first time
accurately reproduced.^ A label on the outside reads: "Transferred
by a vote of the Corporation to the Peabody Museum. Delivered
Ap. 23. 80. Justin Winsor." To the face of the drawing is attached
a paper containing the following remarks:
Inscription on Dighton Rock.
This copy of the inscription on Dighton Rock was made about the
year 1768 by the learned Stephen Sewell, Librarian and Hancock Pro
fessor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages. It was put on cloth
and framed, and was in the Mineral Room of Harvard Hall. It was a
long time before I knew what became of it. My suspicions being ex
cited at last, I took a lantern and with the college janitor went into the
• Plate XXII. On account of the large size of the original, it was jBrst repro
duced in three parts by Albert H. Moore, photographer at the Harvard CoUege
Library, in the form of photostatic negatives. The three parts were then skil-
fuUy joined, mounted on cloth, and photographed by Mr. E. A. Dean, an expert
photographer of Providence. The resulting photograph of the complete photo
static negative was then used by Mr. Joseph W. McCoid, photostatist of the John
Carter Brown Library at Brown University, for securing the photostatic posi
tive from which this plate was made. I desire to express my obUgations to these
persons for their careful work, as weU as to Mr. George Parker Winship, Libra
rian of the Harry EUdnsi .Widener Collection, who assisted in this undertaking,
and who has been helpful in many other ways in this research.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 61
garret of Harvard Hall, where, after much searching among bottles,
boxes, mineral cases, and trumpery, I found it mutilated, and with the
frame broken, jammed away under the eaves. I sent it to Mr. Flattich,
a German in Boston, who according to my instructions, put it into its
present shape for four dollars and returned it 21 January 1860. This
copy of the inscription is noticed in volume second, part second, p. 127,
of the Memoirs of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
John Langton Sibley, Librarian.
Either in this restoration or in the earlier mounting, the drawing
was cut into uniform rectangles measuring 12 by 18 inches, and
moimted on cloth with narrow spaces between the sections. The
original paper, now very old and fragile, was evidently approaching
this condition in 1860, for in several places small pieces of paper
were pasted over the original, to hold it together. One of these, in
the upper right-hand corner, about half covers a rectangular space
of about 6 by 7 inches, now stained a uniform black that shows no
indication that there was ever any writing there. Yet this space
once contained Professor Sewall's own description, probably in the
exact words already quoted as having been sent to Gebelin in 1781.
From impublished evidence it is possible to restore it practically in
its entirety. In 1834 Dr. Thomas H. Webb wrote to Christopher
Dunkin, instructor in Greek at Harvard College, as follows: "In the
Hall of your University occupied by the Cabinet of Minerals, there
is fastened over the entrance door a drawing of the Dighton Writing
Rock taken some years since by the late Prof. Sewall. Of this I wish
a copy on a reduced scale. . . . On one corner of Prof. S. drawing
were written some remarks which are now illegible." After some
further correspondence, Mr. Dunkin sent the desired copy on No
vember 17th, remarking that he had entrusted the commission to
"one of our students a Mr. Hale." ^ The copy is carefully executed,
and is accompanied by the following note:

' There were then in coUege two students named Hale — Horatio, who en
tered August 30, 1833, and graduated in 1837; and Nathan, who entered Sep
tember 1, 1834, and graduated in 1838. The latter's younger brother, Edward
Everett Hale, did not enter untU 1835. Edward was later much interested in
Dighton Rock; but his son informs me that there is no record that Nathan (if it
was he who made the copy) ever gave any further attention to it. Though
Horatio Hale did not, so far as is known, write on Dighton Rock, yet he was
early interested in the Indians, and whUe yet an undergraduate was appointed

62 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
The writing in the right hand corner is in many places so entirely ob
literated by time, that it cannot be restored. The remainder, with a
few necessary interpolations, will read as follows: —
. . . September IS*"" 1768 . . . assisted by . . . David Cobb . . .
The Rook is situated on the eastern side of Taunton river, . . . The river
covers it at high water. It is [six?] feet [deep?] & four feet high above the — . . . .
It is of a scarlet hue, & has a plane face, . . . inclines a Uttle from the perpen
dicular. IThe inscription on this rook hath engaged the attention . . . for nearly a cen
tury past. . . . some imagine it to be . . . from Em'ope; others judge it to be
rather hieroglyphical than literal [derived from] China or Japan! ... [I]- im
agine it to be [the work of] the Indians of North America, done rather for amuse
ment than . . . willing to be disabused of this opinion, if . . .'
Except for the last sentence, these statements are clearly exactly
the same as those which were sent to Gebelin, and the passages which
Hale found illegible in 1834 can be supplied from that source.
The first published reproduction of a copy of Sewall's drawing
was made in 1781 by Gebelin, who "caused it to be engraved with
the greatest exactitude." ^ The copy sent over by Winthrop and
preserved by the Royal Society was reproduced by Lort in 1787 in
Archaeologia. From these two sources, probably, all later repro
ductions have been derived. Our plates reproduce, not only the
original, but the two copies just mentioned, another made after
Gebelm by Dammartin in 1838, the one by Rafn in Antiquitates
Americanse, 1837, probably derived from Lort's, and the more
recent one by Mallery, derived from that by Rafn.^ These six pre
sentations resemble one another closely, of course; but they also
differ, each one from the others, in many individual particulars.
The especial interest in exhibiting so many different forms of the
same drawing lies partly in the fact that some of them were made
the basis of particular theories whose aptness depended to some de
gree on the particular copy used; but even more in illustratmg, as
do also the variants of the Danforth, the Mather, and the Green-
wood drawings, that no free-hand drawing can be made exactiy like
philologist to the South, Sea Exploring Expedition: cf. 1 Proceedings Massachu
setts Historical Society, ii. 67-68.
1 The letters and drawing can be found in vol. u of Correspondence & Reports
(MS), Rhode Island Historical Society, pages 22, 25, 27, 32, 23
2 Monde Primitif, 1781, viu. 13. See Plate XXIII. '
' See Plates II (MaUery), XXII (SewaU), XXIII (GebeUn), XXII (Lort)
XXIII (Dammartin), and XXXI (Rafn). '

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 63
its original, that it diverges more in proportion to the lack of artistic
skill, the want of a feeling for scientific accuracy, or the degree to
which a theory of interpretation may exert a bias Ln the mind of
the copyist. Doubtless other conclusions as to the psychology of
copying will result from further study, just as many inferences as to
the psychology of the different ways in which the same object is seen
by different persons may be based on a comparison of the many
differing original drawings. But these matters do not find an ap
propriate place, except as passing suggestions, in this historical
survey. There seems at first sight some disparity of statement as to where
Sewall's drawing was kept. Winthrop in 1774 speaks of it as in the
"Museum;" Webb in 1834 as hanging over the entrance door in
the "Hall occupied by the Cabinet of Minerals;" Sibley in 1860 as
in the " Mineral Room of Harvard Hall." Some, I think, have spoken
of Sewall's as weh as of James Winthrop's as being in the "Library;"
and in 1880 it was transferred from the charge of the Librarian to
the Peabody Museum. These apparently various localities, how
ever, were doubtless actually one and the same, and- identical with
the "Musseum" established by vote of the Corporation on August 1,
1769: 6. Voted that the Apartment * on the North side of
set apart the entrance to the Philosophy Chamber be a Musseum
for a Mu- for the reception of Curiosities belonging to the College,
to be in the care of the Librarian, who shall take a cata
logue of them in a book and keep the Key; and no person shall be ad
mitted there, but by the Librarian or his Substitute.^
The Philosophy Chamber was in the present Harvard Hall, which
stands on the site of the second Harvard College, burned in Janu
ary, 1764. The catalogue referred to in the vote cannot now be
discovered. I surmise that it is this fact, that the drawing was kept "in the
Mineral Room of Harvard HaU," together with some later mis
statements, which has led to the legend that there was a cast of the
' The exact position of this apartment about 1764 wiU be seen by consulting
the "Plan of Harvard HaU built in 1764," made by Du Simitiere and reproduced
facing p. 16 of vol. xiv of the PubUcations of this Society.
2 CoUege Book vui. 191. I am indebted to Mr. Matthews for this transcript
oJ the vote of the Corporation, as weU as for material used in many of my notes.

64 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
rock at Harvard. There is a "plaster contact facsimile" in the Gil
bert Museum at Amherst College, made by Professor Lucien I.
Blake in 1876. There are statements that one or two other casts
were in existence. The first one that I have seen occurs in an un
signed review, written by J. Elliot Cabot in 1849: "There is a fac
simile cast in the Geological collection at Cambridge." ^ In 1862
Daniel Wilson claimed ^ that "at the meeting of the American Asso
ciation for the Advancement of Science held at Albany in 1856,"
he "had an opportunity of inspecting a cast of the Dighton Rock;"
and in his best humorous (or shall we rather say, flippant) manner
proceeded to ridicule it. But apparently Wilson's prejudiced eyes
deceived him as much as he thought that the prejudiced eyes of the
copyists of Dighton Rock had deceived them. What he saw was
"some casts in plaster of a supposed Runic inscription, which ap
pears upon a'ledge of hornblende on the island of Monhegan, off
the coast of Maine;" for these were exhibited at the meeting in
question, and there is no evidence that any other casts were shown.^
It is doubtless from this mistaken source that was derived the
statement, with an error in date, made by Justin Winsor in 1889,^
to the effect that a cast was shown at the Albany meeting of
the A.A.A.S. in 1836. Cabot, therefore, remains sole authority for
the existence of another cast than that at Amherst.^ Instead of a
cast "in the geological collection," it may well be that what was
meant was either this drawing by Sewall "in the Mineral HaU" or
"Museum," or perhaps the paper-and-paint direct impression from
the rock, made by James Winthrop in 1788, shortiy to be described.
1 Discovery of America by the Norsemen, Massachusetts Quarterly Review
1849, ii. 209.
^ Prehistoric Man, u. 177.
' Dr. A. C. HamUn, Supposed Runic Inscriptions, Proceedings A.A.A.S., 10th
Meeting, Albany, August 1856, pp. 214^215.
< Narrative and Critical History of America, i. 101 note. The first meeting of
the A.A.A.S. was held in 1848.
' Another was attempted, however. A writer in the North American Review,
1874, cxix. 175, says: "Dr. HamUn endeavored to take a plaster cast of the
Dighton Rock, and unfortunately faUed." Other evidence makes it probable
that this incident occurred not long before 1870. In the Proceedings of the
American Antiquarian Society, October 21, 1867, p. 7, is a statement that "Prof
Wyman is about to take a plaster caat of the rock;" but if he ever tried to carry
out this intention, as an enterprise distinct from the attempt by HamUn it too
was a faUure. '

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 65
The probability that there was no actual cast there is strongly sup
ported by the results of an inquiry kindly made for me by Professor
Kittredge, who writes (on April 1, 1915): "The Geologists know
nothing of any cast of the rock. They tell me that our Professor
Webster had a lot of miscellaneous stuff which his successor (J. P.
Cooke) dumped into the rubbish heap — and they fear this was
among it. At all events, they have never seen any such cast."
There seems little question that Cabot's remark, as well as Daniel
Wilson's bit of apparently supporting evidence, must take their
place among the misstatements of fact of which we find so numerous
examples in the literature of Dighton Rock.
Besides the opinion of John Winthrop, in 1774, that Sewall's was
the "most exact copy" ever taken, we find it characterized in 1807
by Edward A. KendaU, himself an artist of no mean ability and a
close student of the rock itself, as "the most faithful, though not the
best executed," ^ of all the copies known to him.
John Winthrop's Letter, 1774
Reference has already been made to a letter by Professor John
Winthrop written November 14, 1774, to Mr. Timothy Hollis, pre
served in part in the Minutes of the Royal Society of 1775, but more
fully quoted by Lort from the original. Besides speaking of SewaU's
drawing, Winthrop also expresses some observations and opinions
of his own. He says that "above thirty years ago" he visited the
rock and made "an imperfect copy;" mentions Mather's account in
the Philosophical Transactions; and describes the rock. "When I
saw it last [in spring of 1774] the tide covered all but the upper part
of it. According to the best of my remembrance, the characters do
not appear so plain now as they did about thirty years ago."^ Of
1 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 185.
^ I suspect that this statement belongs in the same class with those so com
monly heard to the effect that the climate is growing milder. It is interesting to
discover that similar opinions were current two hundred years ago, and prob
ably have been expressed by aging people in aU the intervening time; so that,
if true, we ought by now to be Uving under decidedly tropical conditions. Sam
uel SewaU, writing on February 5, 1691, remarked: "'Twould be a vain thing
to goe about to dissemble the severity of our Winters; only most ancient in
habitants judge there is an abatement of their former rigor" (PubUcations
of this Society, xiv. 154). Remarks like Winthrop's concerning the rock are stUl
made to-day, and are probably not true except as psychological impressions
(xvUi. 238 f).

66 THE COLONLAX SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
the characters on the rock, he speaks only of the "four human figures,
very rudely executed," and "some semblance of a quadruped with
horns." He concludes: "Whether this was designed by the Indians
as a memorial of any remarkable event, or was a mere lusus at then-
leisure hours, of which they have a great number, I cannot pretend
to say. 'Tis certain it was done before the English settled in this
country." ^
John Winthrop has not infrequentiy been confused with his son
James Winthrop by writers on Dighton Rock; and the letters, draw
ing, and title of the one have been attributed to the other. John
was a professor, James was Librarian, at Harvard. The former
made the "unperfect copy" of about 1744, and wrote the letter of
1774 which was printed in Archaeologia in 1787. James made a
paper-and-paint impression of the rock in 1788, and in the same
year wrote a letter which was published in the Memoirs of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1804 — facts that will
later receive fuller discussion.^
Phcenician Theobt of Gebelin, 1781
The next event in our history was an important one, which had a
far-reaching influence on subsequent opinion and discussion. In
this respect it is comparable only to the announcement nearly sixty
years later of the Norse theory by Professor Rafn. I refer to the
publication in 1781 of a detailed Phoenician interpretation of the

' This last statement is, of course, a bare assertion of personal opinion, with
out evidential value.
2 Before I had straightened out in my own mind this confusion of the two
persons, Mr. Albert Matthews, in a letter of February 6, 1915, set me right about
it, and gave me some of the foUowing detaUs.
John Winthrop, b. 1714, was son of Chief Justice Adam Winthrop; graduated
at Harvard 1732; HoUis Professor of Mathematics 1738-1779; FeUow of the Royal
Society; died 1779. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography says that xa
the eighteenth century he was the foremost teacher of science in this country, and
that his influence in determining the scientific spirit in America was great. See
also Publications of this Society, vii. 321-328.
His son, James Winthrop, graduated Harvard 1769, was Librarian there 1772-
1787; for several years was judge of the court of common pleas, and for a long
time register of probate; died I82I. There is a sketch of him in A. C. Potter and
C. K. Bolton's Librarians of Harvard University (Library of Harvard University,
Bibliographical Contributions, No. 52, 1897).

^SRT

i

STlLESS DRAWU
STILES'S DRAWING, .
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM THE Oi

Plate XXI

"y.fij~;.r. .'.¦/•/-

r

,>

t^/^— *^,»

i©

>

F^i;»;

KMG, JULY 16. 1767
{JULY 16. 1767, DORSE
„RIGINALS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OE DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 67
whole inscription by M. Court de Gebelin.^ We have seen that
Professor Sewall wrote to Gebehn at about this time, suggesting
(though contrary to his own opinion) that the inscription may have
been Phoenician, and enclosing a copy of his drawing. Gebelin was
already engaged in the publication of his elaborate treatise on the
Monde Primitif, and he eagerly included in his eighth volume ^ this
new evidence in support of his behef that Phoenician navigators had
sailed "boldly and gloriously" throughout the ancient world, even
to America. He advanced many proofs of this view, which are of no
particular interest in this discussion. But Dighton Rock supplied
the most convincing one of them all.
His accoimt is a long one, but many of his reflections and digres
sions can be omitted without detriment to an endeavor to follow in.
detail the interpretation that he gives to each of the figures. His
reproduction of SewaU's drawing is given in Plate XXIII, and some
of its figures are numbered, which will help in the identification of
the parts under discussion. The following translation is not literal,
since it condenses the original wherever feasible:
If we compare this remarkable monument with the inscriptions of
Mount Horeb and of Mount Sinai, described by Kircher and by Pococke
respectively, and with recently discovered Phcenician alphabets, we dis
cover an astonishing resemblance which, added to other evidence at
hand that the Natives in the vicinity of Boston at least are of Oriental
race, makes it certain that the monument . . . was inscribed in very
ancient times by Phoenicians, perhaps even by those of whom Diodorus
speaks. 1. This monument is not the work of an American nation. The
savants who sent us a copy believe that it was executed by a foreign
nation, perhaps Chinese, Japanese, or even Phoenician.' It follows that

' He is described in Hoefer's Nouvelle Biographic G^nfirale (xii. 216) as a
"c^l^bre ^rudit francais," b. 1725. Hewas the son of Antoine Court, but as
sumed the name Court de Gebehn in accordance with a common practice among
Protestants of the time as a protection against persecution. His great work, de
fending the view that the practices of agriculture were the basis of mythology,
was: Le Monde Primitif, analyst et compar6 avec le monde moderne, 9 vols.,
Paris, 1775-1784. He died under the care of Mesmer in 1784, with his work still
unfinished. 2 1781, viii. 58, 59, 560-568; and Planche I.
" We have already seen that Sewall, who sent the copy, merely quoted but
did not accept these opinions, and did believe that it was executed by Indians.

68 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
America offers nothing analogous in the pictures that the Indians make
on trees and rocks. Moreover, the known Indian pictures include noth
ing that approaches these alphabetical characters, and the Indians
possessed no such characters. Finally and decisively, the monument
depicts objects unknown in America.
2. The monument is divided into three unmistakable scenes, one
representing a past, another a present, and the third a future event.
First Scene. — At the right are four figures which turn their backs
on the scene representing the present. They clearly relate to a past
event. Their natiu-e indicates that those who engraved them were
Phoenician navigators,Keither from Tyre or from Carthage. The figure
to the right of 15 is Priapus, god of fecundity, father of fruits. He can
not be mistaken. He indicates the country whence come these bold
navigators, — a country of prosperity and abundance. The second
figure (to the left of 15) is an owl, symbol of Minerva, Isis or Astarte,
goddess of wisdom and of the arts. It indicates the superiority in the
arts and the skill in navigation of the nation of these newly landed
sailors. The next figure, a little to the left and lower down, is the head
of a sparrow-hawk, with a kind of mantle over its shoulders. It sym
bolizes persons who have come by sea. Among the Egyptians and
Phoenicians, the sparrow-hawk was an emblem of the winds, especially
of the north wind, which is necessary in order to pass from Europe to
America. Figure 14, which terminates this group, is unmistakably the
little Telesphore, divinity of a happy outcome. He is wrapped in a
sleeveless mantle, and covered with his hood. He shows that the voyage
has met with the greatest success.
Second Scene. — This represents the present, and for this reason is
placed in the middle of the picture. Its essential objects are two animals
that face one another, armed with banners and streamers that float in
the wind. One represents the foreign nation, the other the American.
The former is a horse, at rest in a kneeling position; the other a beaver,
recognizable by its long flat tail.i Their good accord proves the intelh-
1 Gebelin does not mention the numbers on the drawing which identify these
two animals. It is clear that the beaver is no. 10. The horse is much more diffi
cult to see. Some have denied its existence, and that of some other figures ex
cept in the imagination of Gebehn (see, for example, Gabriel Gravier, Notice sur
le roc de Dighton, Nancy, 1875, p. 8). But a sympathetic exercise of the faculty
which discovers camels and whales in the clouds, can detect the rudely drawn
animal of Gebelin's fancy. I think its head is to be found directly above the num
ber 11, with blunt curved muzzle, eye in the highest dot above and to the right
of II, and ears represented by the triangle next to the right of that; the fore legs
go down to the head of the beaver; the curved hne above the fattest dot near-by

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 69
gence of the two nations, and the favorable reception given to the
strangers. The horse, and particularly the head of this proud animal, was the
symbol of Carthage, as a maritime city, situated in a fertile and fruitful
land. The horse was also a symbol of Neptune, of navigation, and of
ships. This horse moreover has the air of a sovereign, while the beaver
has almost that of a suppKant, — vivid picture of the difference between
the noble pride of science and of the arts, and the timid weakness of
ignorance. The upper part of this scene shows a large space enclosed on all sides,
with thi'ee re-entrant gates facing north, east and south. It ends toward
the west in a triangle within which is a cross. This is evidently a habita
tion divided into two parts, of which the larger was the dweUing of the
natives, the smaller one that of the strangers, who placed a cross therein.
It is known that the cross was in use in most remote antiquity among
the Egyptians; and the Carthaginians were acquainted with it also, and
used it as an instrument of punishment. Behind their dwelling is no. 8,
their bark or ship, with stern, prow, mast, and rudder. From no. 11 to
no. 9 is a band of alphabetical characters, reading from right to left.
No. 11 may be an H or an A; no. 12, a B or an R. The next following
characters cannot be deciphered. The band ends in three characters
(no. 9), which may be three T's, or more hkely three X's, indicating the
number of the foreigners. No. 7 resembles a Phoenician Caph.
Third Scene. — This relatively empty scene represents the solitude of
the future. No. 3 is a colossal bust, the Oracle who has just been con
sulted; his veU, no. 2, is already drawn. The question put to him was
concerning the time of departure homeward; and the answer has been
favorable. On the right arm of the Oracle is a butterfly (the right-hand
figure within the bust), symbol of retum, of resurrection. On the breast
of the god is a character which, if hieroglyphical, is the trident of Nep
tune; if alphabetical, is the Phoenician M, initial of the Phcenician name
for water, and thus again symbol of Neptune. No. 4 is a small statue
or personage; no. 6 a person advancing hastily.' Above no. 5 is the Q
of the Syracusans, Corinthians and Carthaginians. It is the initial
letter of the name Carthage, — another evidence that Carthaginian

is the nunp, from which one hind leg descends to the unnumbered figure just in
front of the beaver, and the other stretches out behind just above the number 13,
and terminates in a half-formed hoof. I confess, however, that I shall not resent
correction in this identification.
' One of these, apparently, is regarded by Gebehn as a priest, of whom he says
merely that he ia "rSady" (d^j^ pr6t). Probably therefore it is no. 4.

70 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
sailors, perhaps while on a voyage to or from England, were driven by
some northerly tempest to the shores of America.
At the left extremity of this scene are three monograms, formed of
characters that are incontestably Phoenician. No. 1 is formed of the
two letters, Sh and N, and is the word Sh-Na, year. The lower ones in
dicate probably the month and the day of the month. These letters
are drawn with more taste and skill than the other figures, which are
very crude. This is natural, for the writer on the ship would be more
skilful than the painter. Nevertheless, the distribution of the picture
is made with much inteUigence and unity of design.
It is a happy circumstance for us that this unique monument has
been sent to us at the very moment when the fitting accomplishment
of our work compelled us to develop our ideas on this subject.
It seems hardly necessary to say that the interest of Gebelin's
theory lies not in any possibility that it may be correct, but in its
historical and psychological importance as an influence in shaping
opinion and as a stage in the gradual development of scientifically
sound views. From this point of view every fact, however trivial,
every drawing, however distorted, and every theory, however mis
taken, is an interesting exhibit, an indispensable factor in the dra
matic sequence of events that make up, all taken together, the entire
absorbing story. Considered simply as a rude scrawl of unknown
meaning made by uncultured Indians, Dighton Rock would be worthy
of but scanty notice. As the centre of interest around which has
raged a storm of controversy; as the leading motif in a developing
sjTnphony that passes through many movements to a final clarity
and harmony of many subordinate motifs; as the plot which has in
volved in an unfolding story a multitude of strange and varied actors;
as a mystery which has led through crude and errant stages at last
to a sound scientific understanding — Dighton Rock is unsurpassed
in its appeal. Its history illustrates almost every variety of scientific
error, almost every type of psychological process. As a study in the
correct method and common errors in science, and as a subject for
illustrating the natural psychology of perception and belief, there is
nothing more instructive. My own art is inadequate to present the
material in a manner that will exhibit all these features as they might
be presented. But it may furnish the raw materials of actual fact,
and some part of the machinery of fruitful suggestion, wherewith

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 71
the reader may weave his own perfect fabric. Whoever will take
each drawing and, giving free rein to his selective imagination, find
it fully justified in the Burgess photograph, as can be done with
practically every one of the originals; or, if a copy, find in it an illus
tration of definite and comprehensible laws of the copying process;
and will further think himself sympathetically into the frame of
mind and limitations of knowledge of each exponent of a theory,
will derive from this study all of its possibilities of instruction and
entertainment. Gebelin, Harris, Hill, Magnusen, Rafn, Dammartin — devisers of
detailed theories concerning this inscription — were of the type in
whom the possession of a theory, the imagining of the presence of
a particular figure, creates a blindness to all other possibilities.
The type is common in early stages of scientific advance, and
helpful to its development; and it is very common wherever the
true lesson and method of science has not been grasped. Gebelin
saw a Priapus, a horse, a habitation, a Phoenician letter, — and lo !
the figures were indubitably designed by their authors to be just
these and nothing else. He believed in the far-extended voyages
of the Phoenicians; they might have landed at Dighton Rock, —
a possibility which no one to-day would think of denying; and to
him it followed that they unquestionably did land here and carve
the rock. It is much more profitable and interesting sympatheti
cally to appreciate the type, to welcome the example of a fitting
stage in the unfolding drama of opinion, — to regard each new
theory offered and each new figure seen as a precious find — than
coldly to criticize the interpretation offered and dismiss it as false
and unworthy of serious attention.
At least one other feature of psychological interest is present in
Gebelin's case. I refer to the occurrence at apt moments of fortu
nate coincidences. Examples of this have occurred more than once
in the history of Dighton Rock. We have seen how Gebelin him
self remarked on the happy coincidence of the arrival of a copy of
this inscription in his hands just when it was most serviceable to
him in the exposition of his theories. He did not himself know fully
how remarkable the coincidence was. Not only was SewaU's draw
ing helpful to him, but, if he really reproduced it as faithfully as he
says he did, the particular copy of the drawing that was sent to him

72 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
was, of all the copies of which we have knowledge, the best adapted
for his purposes. On all of them he could have found most of his
figures, but on no other could he have seen the horse which was most
convincing proof of Carthaginian origin; and this seems to be true
also of some other figures, such as the sparrow-hawk and the owk
The very copy providentially came to him which he most needed for
his purposes. There is no chapter in the history of science that is
more curious than that of coincidence. It is laden with suggestions
of a beneficent Providence, and of all sorts of strange mental and
spiritual forces. It is an elusive light, enticing men much more often
into pathways of error than of truth. Yet it has played its part
sometimes as an important and even indispensable element in the
discovery of the latter.
Gebelin's views naturally aroused much subsequent discussion.
Many, like President Stiles, accepted them favorably. Others op
posed them. Alexander von Humboldt,' for instance, speaks of the
"enthusiasm which is natural to him, but which is highly mischievous
in discussions of this kind." Lort ^ remarked: "It would scarce be
supposed he could be serious, by anyone that did not consider how
far a man may be carried by attachment to a system." Vallancey '
seems to have made an unwarranted statement which, since it
has been quoted,^ needs correction. He calls Gebelin's an " explana
tion repugnant to all history. Many letters passed between me and
Gebelin on this subject; at length he acknowledged his doubts ; in
short, tacitly gave up the point." This "tacitly" is misleading, and
does not justify its conclusion. Vallancey had quite as indefensible
a theory of his own to advocate; and that he was naturally a preju
diced and unreliable theorizer we are shortly to discover. Sounder
criticisms of Gebelin, however, were fully justified. Wliile his theory
was stiU a serious possibility, the attitude of critical discussion, ad
vocacy or opposition, was the only one possible, instead of that
which I have just been defending as desirable now. The question is
no longer a genuine issue. Yet it is interesting to notice, in finally
1 Vues des Cordillgres, L 180; Eesearches, etc., London edition 1814 i 151-
153. 2 Archaeologia, 1787, viii. 300.
' Ibid. viii. 302.
* For example: Gabriel Gravier, Notice sur Ie roc de Dighton, 1875, p. 9. .

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 73
taking leave of Gebelin, that I have found — in sources, of course,
that have no scientific importance whatever — two revivals of this
old Phcenician theory as recently as 1890 and 1915.
Du SiMniERE; Stiles's Election Sermon, 1783;
' LoET AND Vallancey
In earlier discussions, I have quoted several times from an un
published manuscript by Du Simitiere. Everything of importance
in it has been given, except its conclusion, which gives evidence that
part of it, at least, was written shortly after the publication of
Gebelin's eighth volume in 1781.
It seems that the opinion of the learned of this day in New England,
is, that, the above mentioned inscription or some other, in that part of
the continent is really of the highest antiquity and it is like to make
more noise now in the world than ever it did before; as will appear from
the foUowing paragraph, translated from the Journal politique ou Ga
zette des Gazettes [Bouillon, May 22, 1781, p. 65. The quoted passage
mentions Gebelin's theory and his forthcoming "memoir"]. N.B. the
above mentioned intended memoir has been actuaUy published at Paris
in June 81. in the work entitled [here follows the unabridged title, in
about seventy-five words, of the Monde Primitif]. for an account of this
work see Mercure de France N" 28 for July 14, 1781 page 76.
Dr. Ezra Stiles, whose drawings of 1767 we have already dis
cussed, continued his interest in Dighton Rock throughout his life.
His only public reference to it that I can find occurs in his Election
Sermon of 1783; but he mentions it several times in his Diary, both
before and after that event. The Diary ' references are as follows:
May 1, 1782. — I wrote a Letter to Professor WilUams of Harv. Coll.
answer*^ his upon M. GibeUns Opinion that the Inscription upon the
Rock at Taunton is Punic or Phcenician. I doubt it, hav*^ compared it
with all the oriental Paleography. (III. 19-20.)
May 16, 1783.^ — Visited Dighton Rock charged with Inscriptions &
Character which M. GebeUn of the Acad'' of Paris says is Phoenecian or
Carthaginian. (III. 72.)
Oct. 3, 1788.' — At Assonet employed in taking off the Inscription
1 Literary Diary.
^ The Itinerary mentions this visit, giving no fuller information.
' This visit is somewhat more fully recorded in the Itinerary. The drawing is
not preserved there, and was probably an unsatisfactory one to StUes himself.

74 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
on Dighton Rock, which I formerly copied in 1766. (III. 330.) [The
1766 should have been 1767. His biographer, Abiel Holmes, follows the
error.] Sept. 16, 1790. Writ* a Letter to Dr. Barton ' of PhUad^ with Copies
of Dighton Rock Inscriptions &c. upon his public^ of American An
tiquities. (III. 402.)
The doubts that he expressed in 1782 concerning Gebelin's theory
seem to have wholly disappeared at the tune of his Election Sermon
in 1783. The occasion of this sermon is sufficiently indicated in its
title.2 It was only a year and a half since Cornwallis had surren
dered at Yorktown, and peace had not yet been formally ratified
with England. Indian wars had ceased in New England; but to the
country as a whole they yet presented a serious problem.
The future destiny of the new United States was uncertain, but
Stiles saw for it an "elevation to glory and honor." He based his
certainty of this fortunate outcome on the prophecy in the ninth
chapter of Genesis: "Cursed be Canaan; . . . God shall enlarge
Japhet, and Canaan shall be his servant." "We are to consider all
the europeaii settlements of America collectively," he says, "as
springing from, and transfused with the blood of Japhet. ... I
rather consider the American Indians as Canaanites of the expulsion
of Joshua." In proof of the latter contention, he cites the observa-
He worked on it for about an hour and a quarter, and then "I desisted with an
unfinished Draw^, discouraged" for some reason whose brief record is Ulegible.
'¦ In 1787 (?) Benjamin Smith Barton, M.D., had published: "Observations
on some parts of natural history: to which is prefixed an account of several re
markable vestiges of an ancient date which have been discovered in different
parts of North America." It bears no date, but is supposed to have been issued
in 1787, an assumption confirmed by the fact that it was reviewed in the Gentle
man's Magazine for November, 1787 (Ivii. 992-993). It was printed as Part I of
a larger work, but no more was published. It contains no reference to Dighton
Rook. It is now rare, but a copy of it can be found in the Library of Congress.
2 The United States elevated to Glory and Honor. A Sermon, Preached
before His ExceUency Jonathan Trumbull, Esq L.L.D. Governor and Com
mander in Chief, And the Honorable The General Assembly of The State of
Connecticut, Convened at Hartford, At the Anniversary Election, May Sth,
1783, New-Haven, 1783, pp. 99. See pp. 9-14.
I do not know whether this sermon was given in full as printed. If it was, I
calculate, after timing the reading of several pages at a fairly rapid rate, that it
must have taken upwards of two hours and a half to deHver. It is amusing,
therefore, to notice that on p. 94 he says "But I trespass upon your patience,''
and then continues preaching for five pages more.

;^'^

4

DT ^, X)0(i

*/r V.

/^f,)r'/////ft'// /// t \ /'/Il

' , //',/.,.¦,//, /yfi.y

SEWALL'S DRAl
FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE PEABOBI
LORT'S REPRODUCTION OF S
IX. ENGR«,>;

Plate XXII

// , ///

y//rUfr/

iw. nil. I'l.xjx /, -y/

SAWING, 1768
i-.DY MUSEUM. HARVARD UNIVERSITY

If SEWALL'S DRAWING, 1768
,iVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 75
tions of Smibert, who saw in the Indians a resemblance to Siberian
Tartars.^ From this and other unspecified data, "we may perceive,
that all the Americans [i. e. Indians] are one people — that they
came hither certainly from the north-east of Asia; probably also from
the mediterranean; and if so that they are canaanites, tho' arriving
hither by different routs." He concludes, therefore, from the Bibli
cal prophecy, that the Indians "will eventually be, as the most of
them have already become, servants unto Japhet" ("at least unto
tribute," as he says in another place); and that "the population of
this land will probably become very great."
In the course of this argument he makes mention of Dighton
Rock, which he regards, apparently, as the work not of the Indians
but of Phoenicians. Providence brought the Indians here, he says,
long before the Europeans, and before Madoc in 1170,^ and before
men from Norway in 1001, —
not to mention the visit of stUl greater antiquity by the Phoenicians,
who charged the Dighton rock and other rocks in Narragansett-bay
with Punic inscriptions, remaining to this day. Which last I myself
have repeatedly seen and taken off at large, as did Professor Sewall.
He has lately transmitted a copy of this inscription to M, Gebelin of the
Parisian academy of sciences, who comparing them with the Punic
paleography, judges them panic, and has interpreted them as denoting,
that the ancient Carthaginians once visited these distant regions.
This sermon has been misrepresented as being a plea for rebel
lion, or as advocating the deliberate extermination of the Indians.
Thus the reviewer of Lort, who had given a very fair and full ab
stract of Stiles in Archaeologia,* says in the English Review for
1790* that Stiles tortured the characters on the rock "into another
system in favour of triumphant rebellion." Daniel Wilson repre
sents him as saying that the Indians were to be "displaced and
rooted out by the European descendants of Japhet." ^ Gravier says
that Stiles accepted Gebelin's theory, "and made it the basis of
an argument that the white men, sons of Japhet, should extermi-

' See PubUcations of this Society, xviii. 274.
2 This date is misprinted 1001.
' 1787, viii. 290, 291 note.
« XV. 180.
6 Prehistoric Man, 1862, ii. 173.

76 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
nate the Indians, sons of Ham."^ I have seen other instances, but
do not find them in my notes. It is clear that Stiles did not speak
of, much less advocate, extermination; but simply predicted, on
scriptural authority, that the Indians would become servants of the
whites, " at least unto tribute."
It was the sermon by Stiles, together with Gebelin's discussion,
that led the Rev. Michael Lort to search in 1786 for previoife refer
ences to the rock. Most of the contents of the paper that he read
before the Society of Antiquaries of London,^ the source of nearly
all reports as to the earlier history of the case until now, have been
presented in earlier connections. As to his own opinions, he was
really non-committal at this time. "WTien I first saw it," he says,
"in M. Gebelin's book, I own I could conceive of it as nothing more
than the rude scrawls of some of the Indian tribes, commemorating
their engagements, their marches, or their hunting parties, such as
are to be seen in different accounts of these nations." But he does
not tell us whether he still holds to this opinion. After his paper and
Vallancey's, which follows it, had been criticized in the English Re
view,^ however, and the reviewer had told the story of Dean Berke
ley's visit to the rock and resulting belief that the marks were due
to natural forces of erosion only, Lort wrote to Bishop Percy on
April 16, 1790,* saying: "I have reduced it to the lowest standard of
human art, by supposing it the scrawl of Indian hunters;" but now,
after learning of Berkeley's view, "I am very much disposed to be
of this [i.e. Berkeley's] hypothesis."
The next following paper in the same number of Archaeologia
(page 302) was entitled: "Observations on the American Inscrip
tion. By Colonel Charles Vallancey, F.A.S. Read Febr. 9, 1786."
Supporting his views on the similarity existing between Danforth's
drawing and an inscription found on a rock in Siberia, described and
figured by Strahlenbiu-g, he concludes that Dighton Rock was cer-
tamly inscribed by Siberian Tartars. His imperfect sense of strict
1 Notice sur le roc de Dighton, 1875, p. 10 f.
* Account of an antient Inscription in North America, Archaeologia 1787
viii. 290-301. Read November 23, 1786. ' '
» XV. 180-182. See pp. 268, 269, of my former paper for fuller notice of this
and the following reference.
* J. B. Nichols, IUustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Cen
tury, 1848, viii. 504-506.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 77
accuracy is exhibited at the very beginning of his paper, where he
says that "the drawing of the inscription sent to M. Gebelin was
taken by Dr. Greenwood in the year 1730," instead of by Professor
Sewall in 1768. Attention has been called also to his unwarranted
distortion of facts concerning a change in Gebelin's belief in conse
quence of a correspondence between the two. That some, at least,
of Vallancey's contemporaries had no high regard for him as a scien
tific observer is indicated in the following passages quoted from
letters by the Rev. Edward Ledwich, who is described by Nichols ^
as a "learned and industrious antiquary and typographer:"
Ledwich to Richard Gough, Esq., June 24, 1787. — I must take the
hberty, entre nous, of cautioning you about Colonel Vallancey's draw
ings. On reflection, I believe you wiU not adopt his whimsical, and, in
deed, absurd explanations of the most common things. [Vallancey had
tried to prove that an oflBcer's gorget of 100 to 150 years ago was ex
actly the same as the Urim and Thummim.] . . . All his other profound
investigations are equally ridiculous, and at some future time will be
ridiculed. Ledwich to Bishop Percy, August 28, 1802. — [Speaks of] Vallancey's
ungentlemanhke treatment of every writer dissenting from him, and his
monstrous absurdities. ,
James Winthrop, 1788
Every one who tries to make a free-hand drawing of the inscribed
rock quickly realizes that, whatever his skill, his copy differs to some
extent from the original. There was constant dissatisfactioii with
the copies already made, and a desire to obtain something more
accurate. Before the introduction of photography, the most promis
ing method of guaranteeing complete fidelity seemed to be to cover
over the artificial characters with something like ink or paint, and
then press paper firmly against the rock and thus take off the char
acters in exact form and size. Perhaps Stiles had attempted this in
July, 1767; and certainly Paddack did in the foUowing month. But
these copies never became widely known, and ^Stiles's has not been
preserved. In 1788, however, James Winthrop^ made use of a similar
' Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 1848, vii.
809. The letters quoted are in this ame volume, pp. 824, 847.
2 For an account of James Winthrop, and the need of distinguishing between
bim and his father, John Winthrop, see page 66, above.

78 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
method, and the life-sized impression which he obtained was long
preserved in the Library of Harvard College,^ but seems now to have
disappeared. Fortunately, however, an engraving ^ of it, from a copy
reduced by an accurate method, accompanied by a letter datel
November 10, 1788, in which Winthrop describes his method and
observations, was pubhshed in 1804.^ He says:
"At the lowest tides the water retires from the foot of it, but
at high water it is commonly covered." The face is natural, not
smoothed by art; measures ten feet six by four feet two. "Tradi
tion informs us, that in the last century it stood as much as four
rods from the river, but the inhabitants by digging round it, upon
the foolish expectation of finding money, gave a passage to the tide."
Speaks of SewaU's copy, in the Museum of the University at Cam
bridge. "The lower part of the rock has been for a long time coated
with moss and dirt, which concealed a considerable part of the in
scription." The shortness of its uncovering by the tides "wiU-
abundantly account for any deficiency or imperfection in the copy
taken by Professor Sewell, whose habitual accuracy and attention
are well knovm."
" In the course of last August,* upon the invitation of Judge Bay
lies,^ of Dighton, I went to view the rock, and take a copy of it. We
were assisted by Rev. Mr. Samuel West and Col. Edward Pope, both
of New Bedford, and Rev. Mr. Smith, of Dighton.^ We spent one
1 See memoir by Rev. Di. N. L. Frothingham, in 4 Massachusetts Historical
CoUections, ii. 142; and Kendall, Travels, ii. 221. Other accounts, however, say
it was in the Museum. Probably, therefore, it was in the same room in Harvard
HaU, in which SewaU's drawing was kept (see p. 63, above).
2 The engraving measures, in its printed part, about 7M by 20J^ inches. It
is "a reduced representation of Mr. Winthrop's original draft; accurately traced
under his inspection." It is reproduced from a photostatic copy in Plate XXIV.
Compare with MaUery's reproduction, Plate II, originating in Rafn's non-
photographic reproduction in Antiquitates Americans, 1837, and therefore pre
senting some difference from the original.
' Account of an Inscribed Rock, at Dighton, in the Commonwealth of Massar
chusetts, accompanied with a copy of the Inscription, Memoirs of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1804, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 126-129.
* Dr. Stiles, m his Itinerary (p. 251, October 3, 1788) gives the date as
August 21; but Winthrop's own accoimt makes it August 13.
^ Dr. WiUiam BayUes: see p. 58 note 3, above.
6 Rev. Dr. Frothingham, in the memoir just referred to, says that Mr. Thaddeus
Mason Harris also "accompanied and assisted him. I have heard him describe
the pantographic process by which it was done." Winthrop's own statement

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 79
day in clearing the face of the rock, tracing the character, and paint
ing ^ it black. . . . The next day [August 14, 1788], . . . after re
tracing the character with paint, ... we applied the paper to the
face of the rock, two of us managing the ends of the sheet, and the
remainder, vnth towels, wliich we dipt into the river, pressing the
paper upon the rock. ... As soon as the paper was dry enough to
be removed, we laid it upon the shore and completed the character
with ink." Afterward, at home, he traced the inscription with ink
upon the other side of the paper. Having thus obtained a "posi
tive," he had a'large "pentagraph" made, which would expand
thirteen feet; and therewith made the reduced copy which was re
produced in the engraving.
"The inscription comes within eight inches of the bottom of the
rock, and runs off at the top and ends, which makes it highly prob
able, that it has suffered considerably since it was first wrought.
The character is generally about half an inch wide and very shaUow,
appearing as if it was made by some pointed instrument." As to
his method of copying it, it "appears in practice to be simple and
exact." The fallacy of Winthrop's confidence in the accuracy of his method
hes in the facts, first, that it does not insure a reliable distinction be
tween natural and artificial markings; and secondly, that he and his
party painted only what they personally beheved to be inscription.
We can have no confidence that their selection of characters as
artificial was any more to be rehed on than that of any one else
who attempts to depict them. As I have previously suggested,^

corroborated by a similar statement in Stiles's Itinerary, makes it clear that
Harris was not one of the party. It is probable, however, that he later, in Cam
bridge, assisted Winthrop in making a reduced copy; for it was the copy, not
the original, that was made in the manner aUuded to. I cannot discover that
T. M. Harris ever recorded his opinion of Dighton Rock, although he was greatly
interested in Indian remains and described some of the mounds in Ohio. He
beUeved that the Indians who made these mounds were of Siberian Tartar origin,
and were driven southward into Mexico by the northern tribes of Indians, who
came originaUy from northwestern Europe. This behef evidently would not
commit him to acceptance of the Tartar theory concerning the rock. See his
Journal of a Tour into Ohio in 1803 (1808), pp. 147 ff.
1 The "paint" used is said by Stiles (in his Itinerary) and by KendaU (in his
Travels) to have been printers' ink.
2 Previous paper, xviii. 236. This paper, p. 52, above.

80 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
any one who seeks to improve upon the actual vagueness and uncer
tainty of the inscription by showing it in a definite and detailed form,
must infallibly be in. error; and this is true whether he draws the
characters as they appear to him, or makes a cast of them and then
renders it legible by painting in his interpretation,^ or chalks the
supposed characters on the rock itself and then either draws or
photographs the result. It is, of course, true that the method is
well calculated to present the size, proportions, and relative positions
of the figures in an exact manner. But as to what artificial figures
are actuaUy there, comparison of this paint-and-paper impression
with the Burgess photogtaph, the most trustworthy reproduction
in existence, and with the many differing other original copies that
have been made, from which it differs vastly more than they from
one another, seems to justify the conviction that Winthrop's result
is the least trustworthy of any. It has rarely met with approval by
any expert judge, and has often been justly criticized. Thus KendaU
says: "Of all others the method of procuring a copy, described by
Mr. Winthrop, is the one most infallibly adapted for producing a de
ceitful issue. . . . No such expedient can succeed. The greater part
of the inscription is so much worn out, that the forms, of which it is
composed, are wholly subject to the fancy; and in several places,
where the figures are plain, they are made out, rather by difference
of colour, than by difference of surface. Figures of the latter class
can yield no impression; and those of the former will take any shape,
into which the printers' ink may be spread." ^ Elsewhere he says
further: "It must be evident, that the accuracy of the impression
eminently depended upon the accuracy with which the ink was ap
plied. Now, the sculptures being in general very obscure, nothing
could be more easy than to apply the ink erroneously." ^ Thomas
H. Webb * disapproves of Winthrop's method, and of chalking the
characters and then photographing them, "so that we have not a
daguerreotype of the original, but of the part supposed to havfe been

1 This was done in the case of the only cast known to have been made that in
the GtUbert Museum at Amherst CoUege.
2 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iii. 186
1 Travels, ii. 236.
« Unpublished Letter to John Ordronaux, May 9 and 27, 1854; in the coUec
tion of the Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 81
traced." C. R. Hale ^ is another critic who finds Winthrop's copy
defective. Both Kendall and Hale approve only of a drawing by a
skilled artist, with the characters left purposely vague as on the
original, such as were made by Kendall himself and by Seager; and,
with the exception of a clear photograph made without any chalk
ing or other selective brightening of the lines, I believe that they are
right. Washington, 1789; the Belknap Papers
It is said to have been this copy by James Winthrop that attracted
the attention of George Washington in the autumn of 1789. The
circumstances are related most fully and authoritatively by the Rev.
Dr. John Lathrop, in a letter of August 10, 1809, to Judge John
Davis.^ Dr. Lathrop, who was with Washington at the time of the
latter's visit to the Museum of Harvard College, told the latter of
the belief that there were Oriental characters on the Rock, and that
Phoenician navigators, ''who as early as the days of iMoses are said
to have extended their 'navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules,"
had made the inscribed record.
After I had given the above accoimt, the President smiled, and said
he believed the learned Gentlemen whom I had mentioned were mis
taken: and added, that in the younger part of his life, his business called

1 Unpublished manuscript, 1865, in the coUection of the American Antiquarian
Society. ' Printed in fuUin 1 Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 114-116.
Washington's visit was made October 29, 17g9. The Massachusetts Centinel
of Saturday, October 31, said:
On Thursday moming, at eight o'clock, The • PRESIDENT of the United
States sat out from his residence in Court-Street, on his journey eastward, . . .
At Cambridge he was received in the Philosophy-Room of the University, by the
President and Corporation, and after breakfasting he viewed the Library, Mu
seum, &c. He then continued his journey (p. 2/3).
Washington's own account, under date of October 29, is as foUows:
Left Boston about 8 o'clock. Passed over the Bridge at Charles-Town, and
went to see that at Maiden, but proceeded to the CoUege at Cambridge, attended
by the Vice-President [John Adams], Mr. Bowdoin, and a great number of
Gentlemen. At this place I was shown by Mr. Willard, the President, the PhUosophical
aparatus, and amongst others Pope's Orary (a curious piece of Mechanism for
shewing the revolutions of the Sun, Earth, and many others of the Planets),
the Ubrary, (containing 13.000 volumes,) and a Museum (Diary, ed. Lossing,
1860, p. 38).

82 THE COLONIAL , SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
him to be very much in the wilderness of Virginia, which gave him an
opportunity to become acquainted with many of the customs and
practices of the Indians. The Indians he said had a way of writing and
recording their transactions, either in war or hunting. When they wished
to make any such record, or leave an account of their exploits to any
who might come after them, they scraped off the outer bark of a tree,
and with a vegetable ink, or a little paint which they carried with them,
on the smooth surface, they wrote, in a way that was generally under
stood by the people of their respective tribes. As he had so often ex
amined the rude way of writing practised by the Indians of Virginia,
and observed many of the characters on the inscription then before him,
so nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt
the inscription was made, long ago, by some natives of America.
There are numerous references to both Stiles and Winthrop, and
their dealings with Dighton Rock, in the correspondence between
Dr. Jeremy Belknap and Ebenezer Hazard^ at about this time.
Most of them are unimportant, but they infuse a gleam of humor
into our subject, and add a little information. Hazard speaks of the
rock in 1784 as a puzzle to Dr. Stiles. Belknap replies: "There is
no end of conjectures when one's imagination is warmed, as the
Doctor's apparently is with his system." In 1788, Belknap writes:
"Jemmy Winthrop has visited Dighton Rock, and taken off the in
scription more perfectly than it was ever done before. But, how to
translate it? Ay, there's the rub. And perhaps, if it was translated,
it might prove an unmeaning scrawl. But we are in the dark in that."
In reply, Hazard remarks pi-opheticaUy: "Many a man may run his
head against Dighton Rock before the meaning of the inscription on
it will be knovm;" and Belknap, in return, criticizes Winthrop's
copy. Before citing Belknap's next letter to Hazard in which this sub
ject is mentioned, brief notice may be given to the fact that John
Pintard, writing to Belknap on August 26, 1789, speaks of James
Winthrop, and says: "I wish to contribute my aid towards his de-
cyphering the Dighton Rock, but I apprehend it impossible." ^

1 BeUmap Papers, i. 343, 353, 361, ii. 76, 77, 81, 160.
2 BeUmap Papers, iii. 447. A footnote on p. 446 teUs who this John Pintard

^ C- x>:^^^/\/^

' W'i--!lliHt IL I ¦.' /¦I'nli .'j

\X/\

GEBELIN'S REPRODUCTION C
FROM GEBELIN'S MONDE PRI
DAMMARTIN'S REPRODUCTION OF GEBELIN'S
FROM DAMMARTIN'S EXPLICATION DE LA PIERRE DE TAUNSTON. 1838. F

Plate XXIII

/' , {!ncriiy.JC . '/y/fiynrr.i ic

/L.X. (^'

F SEWALLS DRAWING, 1768
IITIF. 1781. VIII. PLANCHE I
iEPRODUCTION OF SEWALL'S DRAWING, 1768
tANCHE I. ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS

1917] middle period of dighton rock history 83
Batlies-Smith-West-Gooding-Baylies Drawing, 1789
In the final letter by Belknap referring to this matter, a new event
is recorded. On the 20th of August, 1789, he writes to Hazard as
foUows: We had nothing of any great consequence at the Academy. . . . We
had, also, a third copy of the inscription on Dighton Rock. There is a
bird added to the discoveries, which is said to bear some resemblance to
the cassowary of the East Indies; and there are figures which resemble
our Arabic numerals 18881. There is, also, a figure which seems to be
compounded of two Roman capitals, thus, AA. What they will finally
make of it, I know not. This communication was from Dr. Baylies, of
Dighton, who lives in sight of the Rock.
The reference here is to a drawing which has been known wrongly
as "Dr. Baylies and Mr. Goodwin's Copy, 1790," through errors in
both name and date that were made early, and were continued in
the name attached to its reproduction in the Antiquitates Ameri
canse of 1837, the only puhlished and well known version of it. But
there are two drawings which are clearly variants of the same, in
the coUection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. One of them,
7}4 by 19 inches in size, bears the description: "Dighton Inscrip
tion copied in 1789 by Rev. Mr. Smith. Presented to the Society
July 1, 1889, by W. P. U[pham]." On the other, 12 by 22 inches, is
written: "Dighton Inscription Sent to Presid* Stiles By Rev"^ M'
Smith 1789." To these I can add another original, measuring 7J^
by 20^ inches, that was drawn by Joseph Gooding of Dighton. I
have found in print no authoritative account of the authors and
circumstances of this historically important version of the inscrip
tion. From various unpublished sources, however, that have never
been brought together, we discover that it was made shortly before
July 25, 1789; that, several copies were drawn at the same time
directly from the rock; that Joseph Gooding^ and another person.

' Joseph Gooding, Jr., was born March 6, 1773, in Dighton; developed re
markable mechamcal genius, and before he was 21 commenced the manufacture
of brass clocks at his home; later enlarged the business and made tall mahogany-
cased clocks; was town clerk in the short-lived Wellington, and in Dighton
1806 to 1809; made watches in Troy (Fall River) 1826 to 1838, but retumed to
Dighton; was a skilful designer, engraver and die-cutter; died November II,
1853, at the age of 80 years and 8 months. See Hurd's History of Bristol County

84 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
probably either Samuel Baylies or William Baylies, Jr., were the
actual draughtsmen; that the rock, in preparation for the draught,
had first been carefuUy studied and its artificial lines selected and
chalked by the Rev. John Smith ^ and the Hon. WiUiam Baylies of
Dighton, the Rev. Samuel' West^ of New Bedford, and "an
engraver;" and that the Rev. Dr. StUes, President of Yale CoUege,
not yet satisfied with the several copies he had made or of which he
knew, was probably responsible for its making, having apphed to
the Rev. John Smith to secure a new drawing.
The fullest and earliest account of the affair is contained in a letter
from the Rev. John Smith of Dighton to Dr. StUes, preserved among
the StUes papers in the Yale Library; and it adds much to what has
previously been known from other sources.

(1883), pp. 238n, 261, 264. Dates of birth and death were supphed by the Town
Clerk of Dighton, who secured them from present members of the Gooding
family. 1 Minister at Dighton; successor to the Rev. Nathaniel Fisher,tLwhom he
assisted for five years before the latter's death in 1777. Graduated Princeton
1770. The following sketch of him appears in S. D. Alexander's Princeton Col
lege during the Eighteenth Century (1872), pp. 137-138:
John Smith was a native of Tlainfield, Connecticut. He became a Congrega
tional minister, and on the 22d of April, 1772, was settled at Dighton, Massachu
setts. In 1802, he became a Missionary in the neighborhood of Canandaigua,
New York. He gave a deed of six thousand acres of land to form a seminary of
learning in Canandaigua. Afterwards, Mr. Smith removed to Lycoming County,
Pennsylvania, where he remained tiU 1812, when he removed to Nelson County,
Kentucky, acting as a Missionary in both places. He died in Kentucky in 1820.
Mr. Smith was the grandfather of Professor Henry B. Smith of the Union Theo
logical Seminary, New York.
That the 6000 acres here mentioned were a grant from the State of New York
for educational purposes is made probable by an unquoted portion of Smith's
letter to Stiles.
2 Minister at Acushnet in Dartmouth, now New Bedford; bom "Yarmouth,
Mass., March 3, 1730; Harvard 1754; ordained June 3, 1761; a prominent Whig;
member of conventions for framing the constitution of Massachusetts and of the
United States; member of the American Philosophical Society and of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences; D.D. Harvard 1793; died Tiverton,
R. I., September 24, 1807. "A man of superior abilities and education for that
period. ... A man of considerable erudition; and in his personal appearance,
as well as his remarkable eccentricities of character, is thought to have resem
bled the great Dr. Johnson." See Ricketson's History of New Bedford (1858),
pp. 276, 318 f. Another Samuel West graduated at Harvard in 1761, was a
Bost/on minister, died 1808. The two are often confused.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 85 '
Dighton July 25. A D 1789.
Honorable much respected & D' Sir,
My long delay in sending you a delineation of the characters of the
Dighton Rock, be assured, is not to be imputed to my neglect or want of
attention to your apphcation. but to the very great difficulty of de
scribing them with precision. You are sensible. Sir, that no two descrip
tions by any two Gentlemen, or any two taken by any one person, at
different times, do agree with each other. And I am fully of the opinion
there were originally more characters on the rock than we have been
wont to imagine. Some characters are always evident; others are
sometimes very distinguishable, & some others are commonly unobserved
being by time almost obliterated. And the characters, in general less
evident, on some days or rather hours in the day, are obvious, but are
commonly almost imperceptible. Hence the reason of the dissimilitude
of the several copies which have been heretofore taken. In the solution
of those different appearances of the characters on the rock at different
times you wiU, Sir,. permit me to observe That the situation of the Sun
with respect to the rock & the station of the observer or draughtman
are both to be considered. When the Sun begins to incline to the west
of the Rock, having passed his meridian so far as to cast his rays ob
liquely on the Rock which looks about N.W. leaving the ingraved char
acters in a partial shade, is, I think, the time to discover the most if not
all the characters. The station and distance of the observer or de-
Hneator is also a very material circumstance; in one position and dis
tance some characters are discernable but in another invisible. We
find that a distant and oblique view in which the sight is the least in
jured by the refraction of the hght, is the most favorable to the dis
covery of those character which in general are the least evident. It is
a fact that some characters not discoverable in one station become evi
dent by another; the station for some reasons, at the time, may be too
near or too remote, too oblique or too direct with respect to the object
to be discovered. To take off those characters, even tolerably, we have
found to be a work of long observation and repeated labour.
With all drafts before us formerly taken & obtainable our own (Pro
fessor Sewalls and M"' Winthrop's, the latter taken the last summer in
the manner I formerly mentioned) the Rev"^ Sam" West of Dartmouth &
Honourable W"' Baylies A. A Socii^ assisting both of whom had formerly
and the latter repeatedly of late attended us in compleating this busi
ness (with the assistance also of an engraver in the leading draft before

1 This means that the two gentlemen were Fellows of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences.

86 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [JAN.
this) and two draftmen ^ who draw to the life attending from eight o,clock
A.M. until 2. P.M., & examining minutely every character, wishing to
•visit the rock no more, and determining to do everything perfectly, was
this copy of the Dighton Rock which we have presented you, drafted.
It is the opinion of the gentlemen who attended, that this draft has never
been equalled; nor do they conjecture that it can hereafter be much ex
ceeded. It is indeed possible that a very curious hand who had no other
object of attention might by visiting the rock daily, a number of weeks,
amend that draft; but no man, can, I apprehend, by a few visits deter
mine that the draft we have sent you is much defective. We are how
ever so diffident of its perfection that should it be ever made pubhck,
it is our opinion, that y^ other draughts should be pubhshed with it; for
though it may in general be more complete it may in a few strokes be
less accurate than some of the other descriptions; and a general view of
the whole, it is probable will manifest the more evident traits of the
original. We discovered a few strokes below the animal, but not sufficiently
e'vident for delineation. The bird is supposed to be the Casuary pecu
liar to Asia; & it is conjectured that the animal is asiatic.
Was N. America once inhabited by a people from Asia who were
skilled in hierogliphicks, who used the sliield and helmet, who wor
shiped on high places & who gradually receeding before the more nothern
tribes from Siberia settled themselves in the southern continent?
The Hon. W™ Baylies has apphed to M'' Winthrop of Cambridge to
present D"' Stiles with a copy of his delineation of the characters of the
Dighton Rock — which he has probably already received.
To the Rev'' D' Stiles President of Yale College, this description
of the Dighton Rock is most humbly presented, in testimony of unfeigned
respect and great esteem, by his most obedient and very humble servant
John Smith.
P. S. . . . The preceeding account of the Dighton has been read &
approved by those gentlemen whose names are herein mentioned, de
siring y* I would add that the description being taken with a pen it is
conjectured . . .'^ is not exactly proportioned.
The proportion of one figure with another, must I conceive from the
mode in which he made his draught, be more exactly impressed by M'
Wintworth, than could be made on sight by a draughtman tho very
expert.

1 Here "draughtmen" is written above the line.
^ Here "they" is written and crossed out, and no word substituted.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 87
The copies I have sent you. Sir, were taken at the same time; which
y^ most nearly resembles the original we can hardly determine. The de-
hneations I have sent you are also somewhat defective in the relative
distances of some of the characters.
Capt Walter Haley who has resided seven years in China, not know
ing our conjectures, declared the bird to be the Casur or Casuar of
China; one of which he saith he owned several years, & the figure an
swers well to the description which he gives of that bird.
In view of later conflicting statements as to who was the person
chiefly responsible for this version in its several somewhat differing
copies, and by whose name it should therefore be known, we could
wish that the Rev. John Smith had been more explicit in regard to
the several functions of the associates whose names he mentions.
He himself, in aU the literature of the subject, has never been given
credit for it, although according to his own statement he was the
leading figure in the enterprise. Another important feature that he
faUs to mention is that, as a preliminary to the actual drawing, the
characters that were so carefuUy studied out were rendered clear
and definite by means of chalk. This was a common practice as a
preparation for drawing, resorted to earlier by both Greenwood and
Stiles; as it is stiU the almost universal practice as a preliminary to
photography. That it was resorted to in this case we learn from
Kendall, who tells us that one of the drawings that he saw in 1807
"is in the possession of the Honourable Judge Baylies, of Dighton,
under whose inspection it was made. In this instance, the supposed
sculptures were chalked, and the chalked lines were copied. But
this expedient ... is deceitful in its promise of accuracy: I tried it
myself, and found that I falsified the figures at every touch. "^
The drawing that was sent by Smith to President StUes is no
longer preserved with the letter, ha'vdng wandered somehow to
Boston, where I found it unexpectedly after I had become acquainted
with the letter itself. It is clearly a version of the same drawing as
that spoken of by Belknap as having been sent to the American
Academy by Dr. Baylies. That the latter person disputed Smith's
claim to the honor of having superintended its making is revealed
in the above passage from Kendall, and confirmed by Dr. Baylies

' Travels, ii. 226. The "Judge" Bayhes of whom he speaks was Dr. William
Bay hes.

88 THE COLONLA.L SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [JaN.
himself. In the first volume of manuscript Papers of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston is an "Extract of a letter
from WUliam Baylies Esq, dated Dighton 27 July 1789, to James
Winthrop Esq, with a copy of the Dighton inscription. Communi
cated by M"^ Winthrop." It is endorsed as "Read Aug. 19. 1789."
The drawing itself cannot «be found,' but it is naturally the same
as that above mentioned as referred to by Belknap, and its es
sential identity with the others here discussed is evident. Dr.
Baylies' account, though much less circumstantial than Smith's,
nevertheless contains some further detaUs, and is as follows:
I have within a few days, made another visit to the Rock. The
Reverend Mess'rs West & Smith accompanied me. We endeavoured to
be very exact. We viewed it at different distances, in different direc
tions in the full blaze of light, & when shaded. I chalk'd most of the
lines myself & I herewith send you a Copy of the Inscriptions as they
were chalk'd, done in my Opinion tollerably well; I wUl not be answerable
for the exactness of their magnitude & situation with respect to each
other. You will observe that several caracters in this Copy differ from
those which have been taken before. I was aware of this, & therefore
examined them with the most scrupulous attention. The first Char
acter on the right hand is certainly open at the bottom, and the three
Xs are united by curv'd lines at top & bottom. The stroke running
from the figure which is on the right of the left Hieroglyphick & seems to
form the basis of it, is very plain on the rock. The Bird is entirely new:
the head, crest, neck, legs the curv'd stroke behind them & the line of
the Belly as far as the legs are aU very evident & it is rather surprizing
that we should hitherto have overlook'd it. The back is not so easily
seen, more especially a httle behind the 0 it is not to be distinguish'd
from a number of straight oblique lines terminating in a bushy tail,
wider I think, than the Copy gives it. I had no sooner chalk'd it, than
it convey'd to me the Idea of a Cassaware, a representation of which I
had somewhere seen a number of Years since. M' West upon seeing it
on paper join'd in Opinion with me. I shew'd it to M'' Healy, the Gen
tleman on whom you caU'd when in Dighton to see some Eastern Curi
osities, he at once pronounced it a Cassaware without any intimation
of my Opinion. He told me that in the East Indies he was weU ac
quainted with the Cassaware, .having one in his possession for the space
of six months, & he thought this to be a good likeness; the greatest dif
ference was in the Crest; that of the Cassaware being solid, horny, &
shap'd like the Comb of a Cock. I observ'd to him that I could not tell

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 89
what to make of the bending stroke behind the legs. His reply was that
the Cassaware, when tir'd of standing, eas'd himself down on his belly
by resting his Wings on the ground, which being made as he express'd
it of unfeather'd sticks, some being much longer than others, bent into
that figure upon the Bird's beginning to settle. Should this & the Quad-
rupede prove to be the Cassaware & Leopard, of which I am not in much
doubt, we must go to Asia for the Engravers; & shaU find perhaps
simular figures in the Pagodas of the East, & finally trace its Origin to
the Symbohc Worship of the Scythians. To the left & right of the Bird
are several characters which are omitted: as they could not be traced
with Accuracy, I thought it best to pass them by entirely. As I despair
of obtaining a better, you may lay this Copy before the Academy, if
you think it of any Utihty.
We are not yet done with claimants to the honor of having pro
duced this drawing. We find a new one in Joseph Gooding of Dighton,
about whom we know most fully from an unpublished letter written
by Miss Sophia F. Brown of Dighton to the Rev. Edward Everett
Hale:i Dighton Oct. 19th 1864. ... It was made by Joseph Gooding of
Dighton, the date as nearly as we can ascertain is 1790. Mr. Gooding
who has been dead many years was an old man when he gave it to my
mother, and he told her that he made it when he was a boy of fourteen
at the same time that he made another copy for a party of gentlemen
from Harvard. He said they appeared to be satisfied with the drawing
and gave him a silver hah dollar which was the largest sum of money
he had ever owned. He had to scrape away the moss, he said, then, to
obtain the figure of the bird in the lower part of the inscription.
The date given here is approximate only, and should be 1789, for
no drawings so much alike as this and the one by the Rev. John
Smith could have been made except from the same chalking,
Gooding's age should have been given as sixteen; and it is hardly
correct to say that the drawing was made for " a party of gentlemen
from Harvard." The narrative as it comes to us, moreover, assigns
to Gooding sole credit as maker of the drawing; but it is clear from
1 Presented by Mr. Hale, together with a copy of the drawing made for him
by Miss Brown in January, 1862, to the American Antiquarian Society, in whose
collection it is now preserved. Miss Brown stUl had in her possession the original
drawing by Gooding of which she speaks, up to the time of her recent death in
Providence, and kindly loaned it to me for reproduction.

90 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
Smith's statement that he could have taken no other part in the
enterprise than that of one of the two draughtsmen, though he may
well have assisted also in the menial task of scraping away the moss
and perhaps thus was even the discoverer of the "bird." But the
really critical feature, the selective chalking, must have been attended
to for the most part, as Dr. Baylies says it was, by the older members
of the party.
Some further facts appear in the foUowing passage from the In
dependent Chronicle and Boston Patriot for May 19, 1819,^ quoted
from the Newburyport Herald of May 4 :
The writer of this article recollects about the year 1791 or 2, of see
ing two copies of the writing on the Rock, taken by two gentlemen of
Dighton, one by Dr. H. Baylies, the other by Mr. William Goodwin.
Copies of the Doctor's transcript were sent to several of the Universi
ties in this country, and a copy of Mr. Goodwin's was sent by the Rev.
John Smith, the minister at Dighton, to the University of Edinburg;
but it is not known that, at that period, any satisfactory result was re
turned as to the origin or meaning of these hieroglyphics. We are led to
these observations at this time by observing the foUowing paragraph in
a late New Bedford Mercury :
"We are requested to mention that the Rev. Timothy Alden, Presi
dent of Allegheny College, has lately received information from a gen
tleman in France, that the Hieroglyphics on Dighton Rock have been
decyphered; and that it appears they were inscribed by an Asiatic in
the year of the world 1902. We are promised a further account of
them." The theory here referred to is that of Mathieu, which will receive
attention later. The "WiUiam Goodwin" of this writer is doubtless
Joseph Gooding, and the initial of Dr. Baylies is given wrongly.
The Rev. Mr. Smith now becomes apparently a mere copyist from
Gooding, while Gooding and Baylies are represented as makers of
independent drawings. They both undoubtedly had copies of the
drawing in their possession, as proved by the statements of KendaU
and of Miss Brown; and each very likely regarded it as "his own"
drawing. StUl another person seems to be introduced into this elusive
group by the Rev. Dr. WiUiam Bentley of Salem, who, in his Diary
' P. 1/5. I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for this discovery.

<///////

WINTHROP'S FULL SIZE IMPR
FROM MEMOIRS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES,

Plate XXIV

'// ^V/ // /

/'//^ /// ////////,'

'// /// , /

;10N FROM DIGHTON ROCK, 1788
4. II. PART II. ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 91
on October 13, 1807, speaks of "figures from the two Bayhes, who
have been attentive to the Dighton rock & live not far from the
spot on which it stands."^ The second Baylies would naturaUy
have been one of the Doctor's three sons, Samuel, William, or
Francis. Possibly one of them served as the second draughtsman.''
There is no other reference anywhere to either of them as having
made or helped to make a drawing.
W^en Dr. Thomas H. Webb in 1830 was collecting materials for
Professor Rafn's great work on the Norsemen, he visited Dighton
and there or elsewhere secured a copy of this drawing. If he ob
tained it from Joseph Gooding, who was stUl alive, and through him
or others learned of Dr. Bayhes's connection with it, this would
explain, except for the error in the name, why, on its publication in
the Antiquitates Americanse, it was called "Dr. Baylies and Mr.
Goodwhi's 1790."
The Rev. Charles Reuben Hale, Chaplain of the Naval Academy
at Newport, who assisted in making the Seager drawings of
1864, teUs us that this drawing was made "under the superin
tendence of Dr. Baylies."' This may be merely a repetition from
KendaU. The Doctor's son Francis, speaking to Yates and Moulton
in 1824 about the bird and circle, told them that "he had formerly
discovered them: they had also been seen by Dr. Baylies, and de
lineated by him on his map of the inscription." * This ends our Ust
of the most important authorities who give evidence that Dr. Bay
lies claimed or was reputed to have made a dravdng of his own. But
Dr. Baylies had assisted in the making of SewaU's drawing in 1768;
Dr. Bayhes, the Rev. John Smith, and the Rev. Samuel West all
assisted James Winthrop in 1788; and these three together selected
the lines, whUe Gooding and perhaps a younger Baylies executed
the drawings, for this version of 1789. There is no evidence that any
' Diary, 1911, iii. 322.
' Francis, author of the Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Pl3rmouth
(1830), would have been too young, having been bom in 1783. But his older
brothers, Samuel, bom June 22, 1774, and William, bom September 15, 1776,
were of about the same age as Gooding, the other draughtsman. See Hurd's
History of Bristol County (1883), pp. 234 f.
' Unpublished manuscript on Dighton Kock, 1865, in the possession of the
American Antiquarian Society.
¦• John V. N. Yates and Joseph W. Moulton, History of the State of New York,
1824, i. 84r-86.

92 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
one of them ever had a part in the making of any other dravnng.
Each one of the five, with the exception of West, has been named as
the maker, or co-maker with another, of this drawing; and until I
had discovered all of these quoted sources, some of the most impor
tant of which have come to my notice last of all and very recently,
the actual facts seemed very obscure and contradictory. This is
not the only instance where I have met a similar confusion of state
ment as to authorship of a single reproduction. One of the best
known photographs of the rock, taken in 1875, has been mentioned
so often under different persons' names, whether as maker, assistant,
reproducer, or merely sender of it to some one else, that I had at
tributed either this or some other unknown photograph to nearly a
dozen distinct persons before I succeeded in identifying it as one
photograph only, and in being sure as to who it was that made it,
and when it was done.
The drawing that accompanied the letter of the Rev. John Smith
to President Stiles, the one which Dr. Baylies sent to the Academy
and which cannot now be found, the Upham "Rev. Mr. Smith" of
the Massachusetts Historical Society, the "Baylies and Goodwin"
of the Antiquitates AmericauEe, and the "Gooding" of Miss Brown,
all turn out to be variants from one original chalking of the rock,
as indeed is evident on the face of it. Four of them are submitted
here for comparison,^ as well as a later copy published by Mallery,
derived from the one in Antiquitates.^ The comparison is instruc
tive as illustrating again a fact which was appreciated by Mr. Smith,
how markedly and inevitably free-hand copies by the same person,
or by others from his original, differ from one another. They bear
clear indications of having had a common source, of the same sort
as that which compelled us to conclude that Cotton Mather copied
from Danforth, and would have convinced us that Gebelin copied
from SewaU even if we had not assurance of it from other sources.
Yet with all their unmistakable resemblance, these five variants
present differences that are worthy of attention. The Upham
"Smith" is most markedly different from the others, particularly m
the taU of the bird and the general proportions of the figures, which
in it are flat and thin and somewhat differently shaped. It is clearly
1 Plates XXV and XXVI.
2 For the latter, see Plate II in Publications of this Society, xviii.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 93
a poor drawing from the same original source. In the others the
lines are firm and well drawn, and the differences between the four,
though existent, are very slight. It is noticeable that a curved line
below the body of the bird exists in the two "Smith" drawings only,
though in other respects the StUes "Smith" more closely resembles
the Antiquitates "Baylies" and the "Gooding." The Academy
"Baylies," we have seen, had the curve and the bushy tail in the
bird, like the Upham " Smith." The blot that appears on the " Good
ing" is a discoloration of the paper due to age; and on the Upham
"Smith" the rear part of the "quadruped" in front of the bird is
defective, owing to the fact that a small bit of the paper has broken
out on account of the corrosive action of the ink.
C. R. Hale, whose unpublished manuscript has been quoted, re
garded this as "one of the best, and, in some respects, the most
valuable of aU the copies of the stone published." One feature of
its importance Ues in the fact that it was the one used by Magnusen^
as the basis for his translation of the inscription as a record made by
the Norsemen; and that it was the one on which was based the only
detailed Indian reading of the writing that we have.^ Another in
teresting thing about it is that, whereas earlier drawings had intro
duced figures like I, X, M, W, 0, which might be letters or might
not, this one introduces in addition an unmistakable A joined into
an apparent monogram with an M, and also an R preceded by a
diamond shape. Both of these, supplemented by additions of later
artists, were made of definite use in support of the Norse Theory.
FinaUy, of all drawings, early or late, this is the only one showing
the "bird." Some have attributed its later absence to the wearing
away of that part of the rock. Apart from the probability that there
has been no appreciable erosion of the face of the rock in the last two
hundred years, unless on this lowest part of it,^ this' opinion is dis
posed of by the fact that some of the makers' own contemporaries
were unable to discover it, and the further fact that it is my belief
that, with a liberal use of selective imagination, I saw most of it in
1915 as plainly, perhaps, as these men did in 1789, and that I can

1 In Antiquitates Americanse, 1837.
2 By Chingwauk, in 1839. See Schoolcraft's History of the Indian Tribes,
1851, i. 108-120.
' See my previous paper, p. 238.

94 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
easily trace its faintly suggested lines in the Burgess photograph.^
As to the first of these two facts, we have the authority of Kendall:
Among the variations, observable in this [KendaU's] drawing, from
the drawings made before it, the most remarkable is the omission of the
figure of a bird, apparently of the crane species, which is very con
spicuous in the drawing made under the inspection of Judge Baylies.
But, though I had the advantage of conversing with this gentleman on
the subject, and though I visited the rock on six or seven days succes
sively, I was never able to discover this figure. Gentlemen, also, by
whom I was more than once accompanied; were equaUy unable with
myself to make the discovery.^
Kendall was trying, and successfully, to produce a drawing that
for the first time should be a faithful and reliable one; I, with no
such responsibility to deter me, in the interest of psychological un
derstanding rather than of archaeological accuracy, was willingly
giving free rein to my picture-constructing fancy.
Ezra Stiles's Memoir, 1790; Abiel Holmes, 1798
By far the most detailed and exhaustive treatment of this sub
ject by Dr. Stiles was contained in a paper which he wrote on June
8, 1790, for presentation to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences.^ It has never been published, although some of the non-
speculative portions of it have been quoted.^ The manuscript is
preserved among misceUaneous papers in the library of the Academy.
It was first sent to Professor Stephen SewaU, together with a letter

' See Plate I and p. 236 of my previous paper.
2 Travels, ii. 228.
' The paper consists of 13 closely written pages, followed by several pages
of drawings, not including any of Dighton Rock. It is entitled: "An Account
of two Inscriptions upon Rocks ia Kent and Washiagton in the Western part of
the State of Connecticutt, taken off 1789 by Ezra Stiles, and by him communi
cated to the Acad^ of Arts & Sciences;" is addressed "To his Excellency James
Bowdoin Esq. LL.D. President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences ia Boston
1790;" is dated "Yale CoUege June 8, 1790;" and is endorsed: "Dr. Stiles Me
moir, read Aug. 25, 1790."
* By Thomas H. Webb, in a letter of September 22, 1830, to Professor Rafn,
pubhshed in Antiquitates Americanse, 1837, pp. 359 f. The maia memoir is
accompanied by another much briefer one of the same date, describing a "stone
bust supposed to have been an Indian god; " and this latter was published in 1809
in the Memoirs of the Academy, vol. iii. pt. i. pp. 192-194.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 95
from which, in transmitting the memoir to the Academy on July
12, 1790, Sewall gives the following extract:^
I have prepared, & now forward to your care, the Memoir accompany
ing this, which I must ask you, in my name to present to the President
of the Academy of Arts & Sciences. ... I know I expose myself to be
considered as carryed away into imagination and conjecture. But I am
wiUing to risque this imputation, if I could stir up a general Inquiry &
examination on Rocks & Stones &c. &c. illustrative of the Antiquities
of America.
One of the two rocks described by StUes in this memoir bore a
Hebrew inscription, in connection with whose origin he discusses,
among other possibilities, the theory as to the Indians being descend
ants of the Ten Lost Tribes.^ But most of the paper is devoted to a
discussion of the rock at Scaticook in Connecticut, and its relation
to the one at Dighton. After a minute description,' in the course of
which he says that the characters were made "most certainly with
an Iron Tool, and that by Peeks or picking after the maimer of the
Dighton Rock," he then continues:
One end of the Dighton Rock has prickt upon it I HOWOO;^ yet no
one who ever saw it, beheves that the rest of that very antique Inscrip
tion or Character was wrought by an Englishman. [It is of very re
mote antiquity.] There was a period previous to the Age of Atlas, when
the maritime shores of Europe, on this side the piUars of Hercules,
around up to the Baltic, were colonized by aU the various languages of
Scythia & Japhet, & some Phcenician Navigators of the Derivation of
Shem. It was in this period I conjecture those navigated over to America
who made these Inscriptions. Of these original Nations there might be
some besides the Chinese & Egyptians, who, in their monumental writ
ings for ages, made no use of Alphabetical letters. Of this description
might be a ships crew from the Mediterranean or Europe, shipwreckt
in Narraganset Bay; whose mode of writing might be characters for
^ Preserved in the first Letter-book (1780-1791) of the Academy.
' This portion of the paper, with its discussion of various theories and final
acceptance of the view that the Hebrew characters were cut in the rock by re
cent Jewish searchers after mines, is quoted at length by Kendall in his Travels,
i. 242-246. Incidentally, Kendall remarks that among his countrymen Dr. Stiles
"has some reputation for credulity."
^ Fully quoted by Webb, loo. cit.
* The two O's here are dotted by Stiles: cf. p. 51, above. The passages in
brackets, which follow in the text, are condensations from Stiles's statements.

96 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
sentiment, but not for words — or possibly a mixture of both, as in the
Egyptian Hieroglyphics. There seems to be a mixture of Phenidan or
antient Punic letters, with symbol, & perhaps ideal character, in the
inscriptions at Narraganset. ATLAS, after the first discovery of his
great insular Continent, sent over four ships of settlers to colonize
upon it; which on their return, carried back the report, that the island
was overwhelmed & submersa ponto. One of these Vessels of Atlas
might have been shipvn-eckt at Narragansett.
The Dighton Rock & this at Scaticook may have been the reliquiae
of some National character, whether Alphabetical or Ideal, in current &
perhaps extensive usage on the other side of the Atlantic, ages before
the punic settlement of Carthage, & yet of the period of the Phcenician
Ages & of the memorable Atlantic war mentioned by Plato & Solon &
^lian & others, antecedent to the glory of Greece, of Carthage & of
Rome, & probably antecedent to the Trojan war, 1300 Years before the
Christian Mtsl. And tho' this species of National Character should
have lasted Several centuries after, it might have grown into Desuetude,
& have totaUy vanished from the whole world 2000 years ago. I have
made great inquiry these 20 years past for similar inscriptions to those
of the Dighton rock; but could never find accounts of any on the lAtoral
Tract, or Seacoast from Newfoundland to Florida; nor indeed in the in
terior parts of the Continent.
[He has heard of one at Lake Erie,^ and suspects it may be similar
to those at Scaticook and Dighton.] In which case I should consider it
a third specimen of the Dighton Rock Sculpture. AU which would shew,
that there once was a people, or the detachment of a People, which
traveld on 40*'' deg. of Latt. from Narragansett thro' Scaticook to Lake
Erie at least, if not beyond; & in their way charged a few rocks
with a Character, antiently familiar to some Nation in Europe or
Scythia, altho now lost for probably 3000 Years. [He mentions other
reported rocks, Indian markings on trees, stone idols, etc. ; and says the
inscriptions should be coUected.] Perhaps, tho' never to be read, they
may lead to Deductions of considerable moment, in tracing out the
Dispersions and Originations of Nations.
It is very evident that Dr. StUes was indeed liberally "carryed
away into imagination and conjectm-e." Like almost every one
else at the time, he was convinced of the great age of the inscription,
and was appealed to by the more speculative rather than the more
' The descriptions of this rock and of those mentioned later axe quoted bv
Webb, loc. cit., p. 360.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 97
conservative possibUities. This being true, there is nothing very
extraordinary in his conjectures. They offer rather an Uluminating
exhibit of the limitations of knowledge and the kind of evidence
widely accepted as valid in his day. Since then, the "general In
quiry" that he deshed to stir up has taken place, in part perhaps as
a result of his influence.
Abiel Holmes, in his Life of Ezra StUes, pubhshed in 1798, gave a
brief summary of opinions'about the rock that were then held. After
mentioning the copies by StUes and SewaU, and the Carthaginian
theory of G«belin, accepted by StUes, he continues:
Others suppose it rather an hieroglyphic inscription, than an alpha
betical character, and that, therefore, it may be the work of the Chinese,
or Japanese; whUe some seem inclined to conceive of it as nothing more
than the rude scrawls of some of the Indian tribes, commemorating their
military atchievements, or hunting parties.'^
Samuel Harris's Hebrew Theory, about 1807
Before the close of the eighteenth century a number of Oriental
scholars had made a study of Dighton Rock, and it is probable that
they sought eagerly and dUigently to discover Oriental characters
among the marks represented as engraven upon it. Of the Mr. La
Croze from whom Greenwood expected so much, we hear nothing
further. Gebelin was the only one thus far who seemed to have
succeeded. It remained, apparently, a continued puzzle to Dr.
Stiles, although he "compared it with all the oriental Paleography;"
Kendall assures us, on the authority of Dr. Bentley, that "professor
Sewell had seen nothing on the rock, which reminded bim of any
ancient alphabet; " and Sewall himself, as we have seen, regarded it
as the work of Indians, although he later mentioned the Phoenician
theory non-committally to Gebelin. The latter mentions in this
connection the well-known story of Diodorus, to the effect that
venturesome Phoenician saUors were driven by a tempest and came
to an island many days' saU westward, where they found navigable
rivers, fertile soU, and many houses. Early in the nineteenth cen-
1 P. 119. In connection with the last mentioned view, he refers to the Monthly
Review, May, 1784, p. 424. There is nothing on this page pertinent to the sub
ject. But on p. 360 (vol. hoc. 1784) is a description by WiUiam Bray of the "Indian
Method of Picture Writing" on a tree. This is probably what is intended, al
though it makes no mention of Dighton Rock.

98 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
tury a new and apparently fruitful attempt was made to compare
the old alphabets with the Dighton characters, and to wrest from
the latter then- hidden meaning. This was done by Samuel Harris,
Jr., of Boston, who, if we may believe the enthusiastic praises of his
contemporaries, must have been the most incredibly profound lin
guist of aU times. He exammed Winthrop's copy of the inscription,
probably about 1807, and found on it a niunber of Hebrew words
written in the old Phoenician characters. Whether he believed that
the rock was a confirmation of the theory concerning the Phoenician
saUors, or of that connecting the Indians with the Ten Lost Tribes,
we cannot be sure.
The first mention of Samuel Harris in this connection seems to
occur in the Diary of WiUiam Bentley, under the date of October
13, 1807:
I had the company of Mr. Kendall, an Enghsh Gentleman visiting
our country. He gave me the best view I had ever had of the Dighton
Rock. ... I shewed him Mr. Harris' letter & the authority of the
Palmyrine Characters to which the Marks were compared. Mr. Ken
dall saw no resemblance of the letters. I maintained that it always
stood at the edge of the water from his account of the river near it, &
the Ohio rocks with marks are in the same position & these rocks he
intends to visit.'
Samuel Harris was born in Boston, May 12, 1783. He had a short
career of great brilliance and promise; but was drowned while stiU
a student at Harvard, on July 7, 1810. Dr. Bentley first makes
mention of him in his Diary on September 18, 1805. Thereafter he
speaks of him a number of times in the Diary.^ When he first knew
of him, Harris was "a self taught young man," an engraver "who
has displayed taste in his profession." "From his extraordinary
attainments" he was "assisted in a public education." "I expected
in him the Greatest Orientalist our Country has ever produced. He
was a modest, inquisitive, indefatigable man." He also teUs us that
> iii. 322-323. There is apparently aUusion here both to Samuel Harris and
to Thaddeus Mason Harris. It was the latter who saw the Ohio rocks in 1803
and described them in the Journal of his Tour. It was probably the former who
compared the "Palmyrine Characters" with the marks on Dighton Rock- for
he must have reached his conclusions at just about this time by some 'such
comparison. ,
» iii. 191, 194, 322, 530, 632.

'¦"tr::>

mil M

BAYLlES-SMITH-WEST-GOODING-BAYLlESlj DRAWING OF 1789, SNilj
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM THE OBKln

Plate XXV

; DRAWING, 1789, SMITH-STILES COPY
1ITH-UPHAM COPY
SINALS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON EOCK HISTOKT 99
Mr. Harris furnished him with "many curious letters" (alphabetic
characters) ; and this fact seems to make it finally clear that, in spite
of the allusion to the Ohio rocks, Samuel was the Harris he spoke of
Ln the passage quoted. This is of importance only in that it is the
orUy indication as to the approximate date of Samuel Harris's in
terest in Dighton Rock.
We learn more concerning him in the laudatory notices which ap
peared on the occasion of his untimely death. Accoimts of it are
given in the Columbian Centinel of Boston,^ and in the Harvard
Lyceum.^ It appears that he entered college at the age of twenty-
five as a Junior Sophister in 1808, after only thirteen months of
preparation.' "His attachment to oriental literature began be
yond his own remembrance. . . . He made notes of all curious facts.
At the age of 16, he had amassed an incredible number of manu
scripts." He had read everything accessible in ten Asiatic languages,
and had a moderate acquaintance with others; was perfect in Latin,
Greek, French, Italian, and could read other European languages.
He was " a phUosophical linguist, an accurate phUologist, a complete
historian, a profound antiquary, a perfect mythologist." As an anti
quary, his "researches were almost unbounded and inconceivable."
He left behind an "immense mass of manuscripts. . . . Among
his papers, there are some facts respecting American antiquities,
which are peculiarly valuable, and whose loss would probably
be irretrievable."
It was this extraordinary being, too learned for full credence in
his inconceivable attainments, who was to make luminous the long
veUed mystery of the Dighton message. I am sorry to say that the
resiUt wiU disappoint us. All that has been reported of his actual
views is given in the foUowing passage from Kendall:
A Hebrew scholar, in Boston, has made a drawing from Mr. Win
throp's drawing, (for the rock he has not seen,) in wliich he shows that
1 July 11, 1810, p. 2/3-4.
2 For July 28, 1810, pp. 33-41. The quoted passages below are taken from this
source. ' The following entry, under date of October 3, 1808, is taken from the Faculty
Records: Samuel Harris of Boston, aged 25 years May 12, 1808, having been examined
as a candidate for the Junior Class,
Voted, that the said Harris be accepted for the said Class; and that he be re
quired to pay into the College Treasury $120 for advanced standing (viii. 155).

100 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [JAN.
one of the figures is a king; another, his throne and canopy; a third a
priest; a fourth an idol, a fifth a foreign ambassador, &c. and, in the in
tervening parts, he points out Hebrew characters, composing words,
which words explain the figures; as the king — the priest — the idol. . . .
A single glance at the rock would have robbed him of aU disposition to
support the hypothesis. "^
To this we can add only the statement made by Edward Everett,
whUe Governor of Massachusetts, in a review of the Antiquitates
Americanse, to the effect that "the late Mr. Samuel Harris, of this
city, a very learned Orientalist, thought he found the Hebrew word
melek (king) in those characters, which the editor of the work before
us regards as numerals signifying CXXXI."^
In the Library of Harvard University are preserved all that are
known of the manuscripts left by Harris. The papers on American
antiquities, considered as so precious by the writer in the Lyceum,
are not among them. There can be f oimd only one sheet which offers
any clue at all that might aid in the attempt to view the inscription
through Harris's eyes.' We need not entertain any thought of a
possibility that Harris's theory is correct; and yet we cannot be con
tent to leave it without doing our best sympathetically to under
stand it and to see what he thought he saw. Consequently I have
studied this sheet with much care. It contains a column of characters
that are labeUed "American," and that have been copied from such
parts of Winthrop's reproduction as might be thought to have an
alphabetical value. It is evident that Harris regarded them as an
cient Phoenician forms of Hebrew letters. At first sight the list does
not give much promise of being serviceable to us; and I could make
nothing of it until it occurred to me that it might be arranged in
alphabetical order. In this case, the first character, resembling an
X, would be Aleph; the last, presented in the two forms N and T,
would be Tan. With this as a starting point, and assuming that
wherever two or three forms are given together they are to be taken
as variants of one letter, I assigned a plausible value to each of the
characters m Harris's list, by comparing it with tables of ancient
forms of Hebrew letters given in a book nearly contemporary with
1 Travels, ii. 219 ff.
' North American Review, 1838, xlvi. 188.
' See Plate XXVII. Professor Kittredge searched among the papers and
discovered this one for me. It is numbered "MS Am 747 F."

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 101
Harris,^ and with such lists of Phoenician characters as Harris him
self had compUed,^ two of which are "Palmyrine" and may possibly
1 Kopp's Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit, 1821, ii. 377-398.
' These were found for me by Professor Kittredge. He describes and com
ments upon them as follows:
In Vol. II of the Harris MSS (H. C. Library, MS Am 746 F, II) there are
eleven such alphabets. I append a Ust:
(I) Foi. 16. Column headed "Phenician Hebr &c which are not in my hsts
ut credo Astle" [i. e. Thos. Astle, The Origin and Progress of Writing, London,
1803, Tab. I, opp. p. 64. AtStle heads the hst of symbols (which H. hasn't copied
entire): "Phcenicium Hebr; antiq: sive Samaritanum."]
(2) Foi. 16. Column headed "Punic." [Source not given, — but the alphabet
is practically identical with the column headed "Punicum" in the plate of Astle
just referred to. Astle is certainly the source.]
(3) Foi. 18. Column headed "Palmyran Barthelemi." [I. e. the celebrated
Academician I'abb^ Jean Jacques Barthllemy, author of Le Voyage du Jeune
Anacharsis. This alphabet occurs (1) in Barth^lemy's paper "Reflexions sur
I'alphabet et sur la langue dont on se [servoit autrefois k Palmsre," Mto. de
I'Acad. des Inscriptions, XXVI, pi. 1, opp. p. 596; (2) from Barth^lemy in the
French Encyclopedic, Recueil de Planches, II, pt. i, 1763, plate V (6). Of the
first of these, the essay is republished in his CEuvres, Paris, 1821, IV. 19 ff, and
the alphabet is in the Atlas des CEuvres Completes de J. J. Bartheiemy, Paris,
1822, pi. 2.]
(4) Foi. 18. Column headed "Phoenician or Ionic Duret." [This is from a
plate on p. 336 of Claude Buret's Thresor de I'Histoire des Langves de cest
Vnivers, Iverdon, 1619.]
(5) Foi. 18. Column headed "Phoenician . . . Spanheim." At the foot of
the column H. has written "See Postellus." [I haven't found this alphabet in
any work of either of the weU-known Spanheims. The same thing, however, is
found in GuiUaume Postel's De Poenicoriun Literis, Paris, 1552, first plate.
The book was in H. C. Library in Harris's day, having been given to us by Thos.
Hollis in the 18th century.]
(6) Foi. 18. Column headed "Phoenician fro inscrip in Malta & medals
Barthelemy." [This is either from Barthflemy's pi. IV (1) in his paper "Re
flexions sur quelques monumens pheniciens, et sur les alphabets qui en resultent,"
Mem. Acad, des Inscriptions, xxx. 405-427 (also in CEuvres, IV, 40 ff., and in
Atlas, pi. 8 (I)), or from the copy of his alphabet in Encyclopedie, as above,
plate V (2) — I think from the latter.]
(7) Foi. 18.. Column headed "Phoenician from Sicilian coins . . . Bar
thelemy." [Either from same monograph, plate IV (2) — see also Atlas, plate 8
(2) — or from the reproduction in Encyclopedie, as above, pi. V (3).]
(8) Foi. 18. Column headed "From inscription in Cyprus Pocock Fr En-
cyclo." [This might be from same monograph of Barthelemy, pi. IV (3) — see
also Atlas, plate 8 (3) — or from Encyclopedie, as above, pi. V (4), but H. credits
it to the latter.]
(9) Foi. 18. Column headed "from an inscrip lately at Malta Ency Franc."
[From Encyclopedie, as above, pi. V (5) — see also Atlas, plate 22.]
(10) Foi. 18. Column headed "By Rev* S. Henley from coins &ca." [From

102 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
be the ones to which Bentley referred. Five letters of the Hebrew
alphabet were of course left out, as the list is that much short of
completeness. Then I looked into a Hebrew lexicon ^ for equivalents
of the words that Harris was reported to have found. Among them,
the following were given: for ambassador, 'BD or ShLCh (to be sent) ;
for idol, TzYR; for priest, KHN; for king, MLK. In my table of
equivalents, the Y or yod is omitted, hence TzYR would become
TzR; the B is lUie a figure 9; D lUie 4 and the other character with
it on the list; H lUie the inverted F; K like 6; L lU^e L or V (and also
like inverted forms of these, in some of the variants given by Kopp) ;
M lUce M; N like the next foUowing character, an O with a vertical
line above it, or a lower case d; '(Ayin) has three forms, one an out
line cross; Tz is somewhat like Y; R like the third character from the
bottom, an O with a vertical line running downward from it; Sh like
the trident; and Ch probably like the eighth character from the top,
immediately above the 6.
If now we examine the Winthrop drawing, we shall find at its
extreme left the cross form of Ayin; a httle below and rightward,
two curved lines that might be regarded as imperfectly formed 9's,
and thus two B's; and to the right of them the two forms of the letter
D. If we assume that the ancient artists might write their words in
differently either right to left or left to right, this may be read 'BD,
'BD, "ambassadors;" and the two human figures at the extreme
right will doubtless be their portraits. The other name for ambassa
dor may also be found, if one is good-natured enough to overlook its

Samuel Henley's Observations on the Subject of the Fourth Eclogue, the Alle
gory in the Third Georgie, and the Primary Design of the Aeneid of Virgil: with
incidental Remarks on some Coins of the Jews, London, 1788.]
(11) Foi. 24. Column headed "Pahnyrene" and credited to "Universal
Magazine July 1755."
Bartheiemy's two memoirs were accessible to Harris, for vols. 26 and 30 are
in a set given us by Jasper Mauduit of London in 1768. The set of the Ency
clopedic referred to was given to us by Thos. Lee of Cambridge, Mass. in 1784.
I am not sure that Duret was in our library in Harris's time. Harris must also
have had access to the Rev. John Swinton's papers on Phoenician in Philosophical
Transactions, vols. 50 and 54, for these volumes were given to us by Thos. Hollis
in the I8th century.
' An English-Hebrew Lexicon, bemg a complete verbal Index to Gesenius'
Hebrew Lexicon as translated by Prof. Edward Robinson, D.D., Prepared by
J. L. Potter, A.M., 1872.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON EOCK HISTORY 103
inexplicable dismemberment, in the trident (Sh) near the right-
hand upper end, the L to the left of the head of the seated figure,
and the character for Ch just below the L. The large human figure
at the left represents the idol; and leftward near its head we find
unmistakably the letters TzR, "idol." The small human figure at
its feet is the priest. To the right of him is an O with a short vertical
line considerably above it, which together may be an N; the inverted
F is an H; and a 6 or K with triangular body can be separated out
of the complex figure next to the right. Thus we may possibly have
here a very poorly formed KHN, "the priest." Near the centre of
the drawing is a clear M; to its left, a sort of inverted V or L; and
next leftwards, with its lines running on unnecessarily into other
figures, a 6 with square body, or K. This is probably the word that
Harris interpreted as meaning "Melek," king. The human figure
rightward from it is doubtless the king himself. Above his head is a
combination of triangular figures, easUy taken as representing the
canopy; and lines ruiming downward from it, terminating in a sort
of seat, form the throne. The king appears to stand in front of the
throne, under the canopy. If wide separation of letters counts for
nothing, a much more satisfactory MLK can be found in the same
M, an L below it, and a perfectly formed 6 much below that.
I find no other plausible combinations that might be taken as
Hebrew words. WTiat I have given are rudely drawn, arid their in
terpretation far fetched. It may well be that, having no knowledge
whatever on this subject except such as an unskilled amateur may
readUy glean from a very superficial examination of a Hebrew
lexicon and a few lists of ancient characters, I may have failed to
reproduce the vision of Samuel Harris. Nevertheless, I can find
nothing else whatever on Winthrop's representation that I can twist
into any resemblance to Harris's ideas; and I have found in a fairly
plausible manner all the words that he is reported to have seen and
aU the symbolic figures that he is reported to have interpreted.
I offer this, therefore, for what it may be worth, as a serious and
detailed reconstruction of what Harris is said to have seen. With
knowledge of so many other highly fanciful readings of the stone's
mysterious message that have been seriously advanced both before
and after this one, I do not hesitate to believe that Harris would
have been capable of advocating such a one as I have given. But

104 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
we must agree, of course, with Kendall's judgment that there is no
soundness in it. It is merely a psychological curiosity, and as such
deserves our best attempt at restoration. It is regrettable that
Harris's own exposition of it cannot be found, for that would be
interesting reading. Edward A. Kendall, 1807
In 1807 and the following year there travelled through the north
ern part of the United States an Enghshman, Edward Augustus
Kendall, whose intelligent observations on what he saw were em
bodied in a three-volume description of his travels. He was
particularly interested in sculptured rocks, several of which he per
sonally inspected; and to Dighton Rock he made several successive
visits. His conclusions concerning them are given in a published
letter that he wrote in 1807,^ and in the record of his Travels.^ In
all the history of observation, depiction, and speculation concerning
this subject, no one has surpassed and few have equalled this Eng
lish traveller in freedom from ill-supported imaginings, in accuracy
and detail of observation, in saneness of judgment and soundness of
argument, in fulness of treatment and in correctness of feeling for
what constitutes scientifically warranted hypothesis. Except that
there is a much larger accumulation of pertinent facts at our service
now, though these have not yet been brought together compre
hensively and exhaustively, we might almost appeal to Kendall as
a final authority to-day. Moreover, he was the first person to por
tray the lines of the rock with the faintness and uncertainty that
characterize the originals; and consequently, in truthfulness and
absence of unreliable personal interpretation and distortion, his
picture is surpassed only by the Burgess photograph, secured by a
method which was not available to him.
Nearly aU of his discussion is still of importance; but the two
accounts can be combined into one, and I wiU further condense it as
much as I can. The rock, he says, is an insulated mass of fine-

1 Account of the Writing-Rock in Taunton River; in a letter to the Hon. John
Davis, Esq., Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809 iii.
165-191. The letter is dated Hallowell, October 29, 1807.
2 Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States, in the years 1807
and 1808 (1809), ii. 219-232, iii. 205-222.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 105
grained gray granite or grunstein.^ Its foot, in front, is ten or twelve
feet from low water mark, and its top is covered at extreme high
water, to a depth of two or three feet or more. The face measures
eleven feet seven inches at the base, five feet one inch in extreme
height, and is inclined at an angle of about 60° to the horizon. The
thickness increases from one inch at the top to about six feet at the
base. The weight, he conjectures, is five to six tons.^ The base is
sunk to a smaU depth, in some parts perhaps two feet, below the
surface of the soil.^ The color externally varies from dark purple
red above to lighter gray or green below, according to the duration
of its exposure to the air; internally, it is light gray. The smooth
face is due to nature, not to artificial smoothing and fashioning.
The hnes are pecked in by a pointed tool, harder and less brittle than
the very hard and brittle rock (M 165-169, 189).* In all probabUity,
the tool was of no better material than stone ^ (T ui 211). The

1 These terms are both of them erroneous. Recent geologists have frequently
caUed it graywacke, which, I am informed, is correct so fax as it goes, but is too
vaguf and elastic a term to be definite. The rock is really a gray sandstone,
mediirm to coarse grained, of about medium toughness and hardness; and can
be accurately characterized not by any one term but only by a rather lengthy
description. ' Elisha Slade of Somerset (quoted by R. D. Anderson in America not dis
covered by Ciolumbus, p. 21) gives the foUowing measurements in 1875: Angle of
inscribed face to horizon, 47°; of surface sloping toward the shore, 25°; mean
height on face above ground, 1.293 metres (4 ft. 2.9"); mean length on its surface
(not face), 1.768 metres (5' 9.6"); mean width of face, 3.384 metres (II' 1.2");
contents above ground, 3.871 cu. metres (lS7 cu. feet); weight, 9071.023 kilo
grams (nearly ten tons). Viewing the rock, one looks about S.S.E. by the com
pass, whose variation here is 11° 03' west of north. See also Stiles, p. 63, above.
' In the summer of 1915, I dug to the extreme base. At the northerly end,
the lower edge of the face is above the beach. It thence slopes gradually down
ward, dipping imder the beach at a distance of about three feet, and at its south
erly end reaches its greatest depth, which is sUghtly less than one foot verticaUy
below the beach level.
* An M indicates that the preceding statement or statements are taken from
the paper in the Memoirs; a T, from the Travels;
' E. G. Squier supports this view in the British Ethnological Journal for
December, 1848, quoted in the National IntelUgencer, March 27, 1849, p. 2. He
compares the Dighton inscription with others on rocks upon the Guyandotte
and Ohio rivers. In these latter occur iron seams, which were too hard for the
instruments used for pecking, — hence not iron tools. The tools of the Indians,
he says, "though rude, are, nevertheless, adequate to the chipping of nearly
every variety of rock to the sUght depth required in these rude memorials. The
tough syenite hatchets which they used previous to European intercourse with

106 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
depth of the lines never exceeds )/i inch, their breadth varies from
}/2 to one inch. They are cut en creuz, that is, hollowed not in tri
angular form as by a chisel, but in the form of a segment of a cylinder
(M 170). They are "sufficiently conspicuous to attract notice, from
the deck of a vessel sailing in the channel of the river" (T ii 223).'
The sculptures at the base, if such there were, are now entirely worn
away. A little above, they discover themselves but faintly; whUe
those at the summit are very perfect (T ii 222).
He does not believe that the level of the soU immediately sur
rounding the rock has materially altered, and shows the absurdity
of James Winthrop's claim that the people, by digging around it,
had let in the tide upon the rock. "The rock obviously stands as it
originaUy stood." As a reason for its intermittently submerged
position, he suggests that preference may have been given "de
liberately to such, as were actually liable to be overflowed. ... A
river was the only highway; and a rock, placed out of the reach of
the tide, would have been speedily overgrown" (M 178).^ As to
the surface of the rock and the clearness of the inscription, he is con
vinced that "no material alteration, within the preceding century,
has really taken place. The decay no doubt is continual; but it is
very slow" (M 187).^ He believes, therefore, "that this is a monu-
them, and for some time thereafter, cut sandstone readUy, and with Uttle injury
to the instruments themselves; and it is very hkely that the graywacke of the
Dighton Rock would yield more readily than is generaUy supposed to their con
tinued apphcation."
If Squier's opinion is not sufficient, the foUowing cannot faU to convince
(from a paper on Weather and CivUizations, by EUsworth Huntington, in the
BuUetin of the Geographical Society of PhUadelphia, 19 16, xiv. 17): "The great
est ruins of the Western Hemisphere are located in Guatemala and Yucatan. . . .
Consider the degree of abiUty shown by these monuments. Of course the figures
appear to us somewhat crude. Yet one who examines them closely wiU find that
they display high artistic merit. They show a people who were original and in
ventive, a people who did not hesitate to attempt big things. Remember that
the Mayas who built these monimients and the numerous great buUdings asso
ciated with them had no iron tools, and must have used stone implements."
' I have not tested the accuracy of this statement, but I have serious doubts
as to its being true. It may be that in some Ughts and from some near-by posi
tions it might be possible.
2 Squier, m the ^aper just quoted, and others have caUed attention to the
number of inscribed rocks that occur in positions which make them subject to
being sometimes submerged.
' In this I agree, though contrary opinions have very frequently been ex
pressed. This fact, however, does not necessitate accepting KendaU's conclu-

^

DRAWING OF 178
FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE POSS
DRAWING OF 1
FROM ANTIQUITATES AHERICANAE. 1837. TAB. XII NO VIII

Plate XXVI

). GOODING COPY
:SSION OF MISS SOPHIA r. BROWN

89, WEBB COPY
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON EOCK HISTORY 107
ment of an antiquity antecedent to the settlement of Europeans on
this continent; and I am of opinion, that it is of an antiquity con
siderably higher" (M 173; T ii 229).
In discussing the artistic merit of the work, Kendall draws some
conclusions that do not fully convince me, since I lack sufficient
technical knowledge, and must leave the question to expert opinion.
"The execution," he says, "is nothing extraordinary; but it is not
entirely unworkmanlike" (M 169). "The figures are less iU drawn,
than they are uncouth and unaccountable. . . . The want of will
is more certain, than the want of capacity. The curved lines have a
freedom not to be equalled by every hand among ourselves." But
the existence of curved lines in sculpture, he believes, proceeds
"from imitation of the other graphic arts, in which the material and
the instrument used are of a nature to give less check to the sugges
tions of the fancy." Hence he concludes that the design of this
rock "has proceeded from an artist not unacquainted with pen or
pencil; or at least from one, whose taste has been influenced ... by
the use of those instruments, in other hands than his." The presence
of pedestals for each of the three figures bearing human heads also
argues for acquaintance with more perfect forms of art (M 171 f).
"This artist was not the most accomplished workman of his tribe.
I could even believe, that he was without the usual and. convenient
tools and instruments. I think that he was not unacquainted with
works of art, of a better and higher character" (M 180 f).^
Of the particular figures in the inscription, Kendall discusses only
one at length. This is the quadruped near the centre, which Gebelin
called a beaver, and which has since then been variously interpreted
as a deer, a bull, a lynx, a leopard, a map of the Atlantic coast of
Europe, and the constehation Pegasus. Kendall's opinion of it is
interesting. "Its body is crossed, in nearly equal divisions, with
bars or stripes. It is spotted. Its head is long and delicate. It wears
horns. Its feet are paws. Aheady we see reason to suspect, that
sion as to the antiquity of the inscription, since very shaUow markings made
subsequent to the coming of the whites would have presented an identical ap
pearance. I have discussed this question in an earUer connection (PubUcations
of this Society, xvin. 238, 239).
'¦ If KendaU was justified in these conclusions, they would seem to be one of
the best arguments against his beUef in the antiquity of the work, and in favor of
the view that it was executed some time between 1600 and 1680.

108 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
this is a creature of fancy, made up of members of different animals;
and this must assuredly be the case, if the line above its back, and
which is wanting in all the previous draughts, forms, as it strikes the
eye, the wing of an insect" (M 183).
A number of legends having some bearing on the origin of the
inscription were coUected by Kendall, and are worthy of preserva
tion. The first seems to be a variant of Danforth's story of the
"wooden house;" the others make their first appearance here. "As
to traditions, there is, though but in a few mouths, an Indian tradi
tion, which purports, that some ages past, a number of white men
arrived in the river, in a bird; that the white men took Indians into
the bird, as hostages; that they took fresh water for their consump
tion at a neighbouring spring; that the Indians fell upon and slaugh
tered the white men at the spring; that, during the affray, thunder
and lightning issued from the bird; that the hostages escaped from
the bird; and that a spring, now called White Spring, and from which
there runs a brook, called White Man's Brook, has its name from
this event" (T u 230; M 182). Kendall found the spring, about a
quarter of a mile to the northeast of the rock, and the brook enter
ing Taimton River a little above the rock.^ One neighbor told him
that it was a hot spring; another, that it was intensely cold; while
he foimd it.of ordinary temperature. No one in the vicinity was ac
quainted with the legend of the bird, but another story was given
him to account for the name, to the effect that a white hunter,
being overheated, drank from the spring and died in consequence
(T u 230).
Respecting Asonet neck, on which the rock is seated, the tradition is,
that it was a place of banishment a'mong the Indians; ^ but whether the
practice of banishment was known to the subjects of King Phihp, I
leave to those, who are more conversant in Indian pohty. . . . The
tradition of the bird may have some foundation in the adventures of an
early exploring voyage; with another relation, that a ship's anchor,
nearly eaten away by rust, was many years since discovered near this
place; and with the still more obscure account of a ship's ribs, which
lay and rotted there (M 181 f).
' So far as I can leam, there is no name now attached to either the brook or
the spring. I can discover no one who ever heard of the names here given, though
they seem to have been familiar in Kendall's day.
2 See PubUcations of this Society, xvui. 244 ff.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY . 109
According to some, one of the first English vessels that navigated
these seas passed a winter at the anchorage near this spot; and the
sculptures, as they say, are of the workmanship of the crew: or an Eng
lish vessel (as the story is changed) was stranded here; and the rock was
sculptured in memory of the disaster (T ii 224).
In our survey thus far, we have met with a number of more or
less definite theories as to how the inscription originated. Douglass
believed, Berkeley, according to the English Review, was told, Lort
inclined to accept, and Greenwood denied, that it was the work of
nature enly. Samuel Harris seems to have beheved, and Samuel
Sewall may have entertained the thought, that it was due to the
Indians as descendants of the Lost Tribes. Smibert, Stiles, and
T. M. Harris held that some at least of the Indians were of Tartar
origin; and Vallancey argued that as such they made the writing.
Apart from views as to their origin, the Indians were held responsi
ble for it by Cotton Mather, according to Douglass, by Lort at first,
by Professor Sewall, and by George Washington; though none of
them gave any detail to this view. Others who mentioned or denied
this theory will be discussed below. Some view of Oriental origin
was apparently held by Greenwood, and was doubtless entertained
by many others; it was given definite form in the Carthaginian-
Phoenician theory of Gebelin, suggested by Professor Sewall and
accepted by Stiles. I have found no one who advocated the Chinese
or Japanese as the artists, but the theory is mentioned by Professor
Sewall, by Gebehn, and by Holmes. Prince Madoc is mentioned by
Stiles, and must have been suggested by some as the author, because
Kendall expressly rejects him. Early European sailors appear as
possible claunants in the traditions enumerated by Kendall.
Several motives were assigned to the Indians for the sculpture, —
though not every one who mentions them himself accepts the theory:
that they did it in idle sport (Greenwood; Sewall; John Winthrop);
in sharpening their arrows (Greenwood; Berkeley according to Du
Simitiere) ; as a memorial of some solemn occasion (Greenwood) ; as
a record of hunting (Holmes) or of battle (John Winthrop; Holmes).
Definite denials of the possibility that the Indians could have done
it were based by Greenwood and by Gebelin on the arguments: that
they were too lazy; that they left no other similar monuments; that
they possessed no adequate tools; that it was beyond their skiU;

110 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
that they had no knowledge of its existence or nature; that it depicts
objects unknown or unfamiliar to them.
To these many theories Kendall adds two that are new, though
the first was vaguely suggested by James Winthrop's tale of the
search for treasure. "The unlearned believe that the rock was
sculptured by the order of a pirate,^ either Captain Kyd or Captain
Blackbeard, in order to mark the site of buried treasure; and the
shore, for more than a hundred fathom on a side, has been dug, in
the hope of a discovery" (T ii 223). "It is, I believe, acknowledged,
that forty years ago much labour was expended in digging about the
rock with the view described" (M 179). The second theory is this:
" Some Mohawk Indians, having been shown, as it is said, a draught
of the inscription, declared its meaning to be, that a dangerous
animal, represented by the animal on the rock, had been killed at
the place immortalized; that the human figures represent the per
sons, whom the animal killed; and that the others denote other parts
of the affair.^ An objection to this interpretation will be perceived
... in the trivial appearance and humble situation of the animal,
which it is attempted to make the hero of the piece" (M 182).
Here is an extraordinary collection of theories clustering about
the old rock like barnacles. Kendall proceeds to clear them all
away as worthless, except the one acknowledging the Indians as the
responsible parties. This view he develops and defends in much
detail. "There is not, in reality, the smallest reason to doubt, that

^ Although the fact doubtless has no bearing on the truth of these legends,
yet it is not without interest to note that there was a genuine pirate indirectly
associated with Assonet Neck, — Thomas Tew of Newport, who "in point of
gallantry was inferior to none " (Capt. Charles Johnson, History of the Pirates,
London, 1814). John O. Austin (Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, p.
394 f; 160 AUied FamiUes, pp. 236-240) thinks that "perhaps" he was a
brother of Henry Tew of Newport, who in 1688 purchased two of the six lots on
Assonet Neck from the original proprietors (Bristol County, Northern District,
Land Records, Book 1, pp. 70, 71).
^ I have been unable to trace this story to its source. One other, and a very
detaUed, reading of the inscription by an Indian expert is on record, — that by
Chingwauk in 1839, described by Schoolcraft in his Indian Tribes, i. 108. Ken
daU attempted to secure an interpretation by Indians, but without much success:
"Indians themselves, even of the same language and country as those by whom
it was probably executed, are unable to offer any explanation of its meaning.
From such Indians, I have in some instances obtained conjectures as to particular
parts, but never any satisfactory gUmpse of the whole" (T iii. 214).

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 111
these sculptures are of Indian work" (T ii 224). "I am decidedly
of opinion, that this monument is in no respect derivable from the
opposite side of the Atlantic. I discern in it nothing of the alphabets,
or the drawing, or the taste of Europe, or Asia, or Africa" (M 174).
Moreover, the existence of other similar rocks in the interior of the
country is fatal to this theory. If we look to a " nation more ancient
and more cultivated, than the Indians, inhabitants of this country,
. . . they have left nothing behind to give a tongue to their works"
(M 180). "I am of opinion, that it was wrought on some solemn
occasion, or for some solemn purpose, either civil, military, or religious.
It may be a memorial, a monition, or an offering of piety" (M173). "I
confess myself but little sanguine, as to the prospect of interpreting, in
any minute manner, this inscription " (M 190) . This elaborate monu
ment of an unknown transaction is unreadable, as are all historical
representations or sculptures, without first knowing the story it is in
tended to portray. Any sculpture, representing, for example, the
Death of Hercules, or the Judgment of Paris, "would be uninteUigible,
as to its historical part, if we were not previously acquainted with the
action which it is intended to describe " (T ui 214) . As the main sup
port to his belief, he describes some simple sculptures on rocks at
BeUows Falls. " It is to these sculptures that I appeal, as to conclu
sive evidence of the Indian origin of the Writing Rock. They are too
rude, too insignificant, and too evidently vsdthout depth of meaning, to
be attributed to Phoenicians or Carthaginians. No person will . . .
contend, that there is anything, here, above the level of the Indian
genius. But, if Indians were the authors of these sculptures, then
Indians were the authors of the Writing Rock also. The style of
drawing is the same; the style of sculpture is the same. . . . From
these sculptures it appears, that . . . the ancient Indians had in
struments with which they were able to cut even granite. . . .
These sculptures, so obviously the work of idle hours, and for the
accomplishment of which the rudest artist, once provided with a
tool, must be allowed to be competent, supply us with the fact, that
the Indians were able to sculpture rocks, and that when they did
sculpture them, the sculpture resembled the sculpture of the Writ
ing Rock" (T iii 205 f). Confirmatory evidence is found in the ex
istence of a sculptured tree of known Indian origin, and in a list of
thirteen Indian sculptures in America (T iii 207, 221).

112 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
There were rumors of another sculptured rock close by the one
under discussion. Several persons had heard that a little to the
south and further out in the stream was a more fully inscribed rock.
All persons agreed in naming as the author of this account a Mr.
Perry, who for fifty years had visited aU the rocks in the stream in
search of oysters. But Mr. Perry had never seen such a rock, and
on the score of his experience, he denied that any such rock was to
be found. "It turned out, that no sculptured rock had been dis
covered; if we except a slab, which lies to the southeast of the former,
within the distance of twenty feet. On the upper comer of this is a
figure, resembling a cross, or the letter X, and one or two others"
(M 183); the others being 00 (T h 231). ^
Kendall sharply and justly criticizes the earher drawings of the in
scription. "All the copies differ, in extraordinary particulars, from
each other and from the original. ... It must be inconceivable to
those, who have never seen the rock, that these differences can ap
pear in the draughts, without impeaching the veracity of the gentle
men, by whom they have been severally made. Nothing however
is more possible. Some of the errors indeed are such, as can have
proceeded only from haste and inattention; but a great majority
are consistent with the most elaborate but ill directed endeavours."
When the supposed lines of the inscription are marked with printers'
ink, as James Winthrop did it, or with chalk, as was done for so
many of the earlier drawings, and these lines are then copied, "it
does not follow, that the figures are the same with those, engraved
upon the rock. The chalker is in the situation of a restorer of an
cient readings; he undertakes to connect and to supply; but the real
antiquarian will prefer the original, with all its obscurities and chasms.
An attempt at restoration is one thing, and may be valuable; but a
true copy is another. I attempted the use of chalk myself; but I

> This prostrate slab, lying apparently flat on the beach and projecting only
three or four inches above it, is in re9.Uty a flat-surfaced boulder. I dug down
along its side in the summer of 1915 to a depth of about three feet without reach
ing its base, further work being rendered impossible by water seeping in. It is
a curious fact that it is of the same material aa Dighton Rock, and its surface in
shape and dimensions, is closely similar to the inscribed face of the latter. It is
not unpossible that the two formed originaUy one boulder that later spUt apart.
This same slab, we have seen, was described in 1767 by Dr. StUes, who drew
its characters in a manner somewhat resembling XR.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 113
found that I completely confused the sculpture,^ and that the first
thing necessary was to wash all the chalk away.^ The inscription is
to be copied only with the pencil" (M 185 f). "The diversities of
the copies . . . are not always to be attributed to the fault of the
copyists, but often to the obscurity of the sculpture, in which every
man will see something different from every other. Under these
circumstances no perfect copy can ever be made" (M 189). "An
other occasion of diversity in the drawings is the style of execution.
Professor Sewall's drawing ... is performed with a feeble and hesi
tating hand, and therefore greatly injures the original, in which the
lines are bold and determined. Mr. Winthrop's impression . . .
shows only a congeries of disjointed members; whereas, in the origi
nal, the whole is connected and complete. Judge Baylies's drawing,
on the other hand, is finished with all the graces of penmanship, and
hence enhances the flow and freedom of the design, as well as the
neatness of the execution" (T ii 227). The divergences in the copies
cannot be due to the wearing away of some of the figures, for the
decay of the rock is too slow, and, moreover, some flgures are shown
only in the later drawings, others are presented with greater dis
tinctness in them, and still others are wanting in the intermediate
drawings only (M 187).
He adopted an entirely new method in producing his own sketch,
done in oil. It presents fewer and dissimilar figures, as compared
with earlier draughts. This appearance is due in part to the fact
that figures drawn in black upon a white ground appear fuller than
in a finished picture; partly to his inability to discover all, that some
gentlemen have seen. But it arises especially —
from my willingness to leave in indistinctness, obscurity, and invisi
bility, what is indistinct, obscure, and almost wholly invisible, on the
rock. The figures, which are distinct in my transcript are distinct in
the original. To these I have given definite forms; while in the other
instances my chief care has been to depict the obscurity of the original.
If you find yourself obUged to approach close to some of my figures,
and can at last arrive at no certainty as to their outlines, I must beg
1 "that I falsified the figures at every touch" (T u. 226)..
''¦ These remarks are especiaUy pertinent criticisms of aU the modem repre
sentations of the rook by means of photography. The Burgess photograph is
the only faithful one that I know, because for aU the others the rock was first
prepared by chalking.

114 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
you to remember, that this will always be your situation, when examin
ing the rock itself. If, on the other hand, I have sometimes made defi
nite that, which in the original is undefined; if I have rendered incapable
of being seen in more than one form that, which on the rock may be seen
in twenty, my excuse must be found in the extreme difficulty of the at
tempt to make a representation of any object, without giving it a shape.
. . . My sketch contains many inaccuracies; some in the colouring;
some in the outlines and fissures of the rock; and some in the figures
themselves; but notwithstanding, I believe it to be free from important
errors, such as might frustrate my design of conveying a faithful idea
of the] contents, style, execution, and condition of the inscription
(M 184 f). '
Kendall was firmly convinced of the value of this monument and
that it ought to be preserved. He strongly recommends its removal,
or at least that of its sculptured face, into the care of some public
establishment in Boston. Not many years later, both Yates and
Moulton and the reviewer in the North American Review, who
will receive attention shortly, also urged that steps be taken toward
its securer preservation.
'The engraving which accompanies the letter in the Memoirs,
made "from Mr. Kendall's painting, or representation in oil colours"
(M 189), is bound in at the back of the volume, and measures 9}4
by 23 inches. Like the painting as he describes it, it carries out his
intention of leaving indistinct and obscure what is indistinct and
obscure on the rock, and thus possesses a merit and reliability lack
ing in nearly all other reproductions. The possibilities of the photo
graphic art, and the fortunate production of one photograph among
them all without chalking of the rock, alone made it possible to im
prove upon his result. What appears to be the original painting, to
which the engraving, probably, is very faithful, is preserved in the
Peabody Museum at Harvard University!^ It conforms in every way
to Kendall's description, including the following feature: "The lower
corner, on the left, being fractured, I have made use of the space, to
introduce a reduced figure of the whole rock."
Both painting and engraving, 'reproduced by photogravure, are
shown in Plates XXVIII and XXIX. With these should be com-
> I am informed that about 1848 the American Academy donated the contents
of Its "Cabmet" to the Peabody Museum; and probably the KendaU paintmg
was included. ^

Plate XXVII

1^

:a'

i
A
-»)X^ j< ^
< ^^"^^--i!;^^>^x
HARRIS'S COPY, ABOUT 1807, OF THE ALPHABETIC CHARACTERS SHOWN ON WINTHROP'S DRAWING OF 1788
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 115
pared the reproduction made by Rafn in the Antiquitates Americanas
in 1837, which unfortunately has been used instead of the engraving
in the Memoirs as the basis of later reproductions. This one I do not
show, but it is closely followed in the cut that appears as one of the
nine in Mallery's plate shown in Plate II of my earlier paper. Com
parison of the latter vsdth Plates XXVIII and XXIX will show how
badly Kendall has been misrepresented to all modern readers. It is
not Kendall, but Kendall interpreted and made clear, and therefore
falsified. It will be noticed that it lacks the "insect's wing" on the
quadruped, which is one of the features that he particularly men
tions; and is wholly untrue to the original in that it neglects his chief
care, to leave the portrayal faithful to its original even in its indis
tinctness and ambiguity. Aside from his success in this, what is
worthy of chief notice in Kendall's version is the introduction of a
fuller set of alphabetical characters in the middle portion, where
later observers thought that they discovered the name of the Norse
explorer, Thorfinn. Kendall renders it simply "ORINX." Of
thirty attempts known to me to depict this portion of the inscription,
about 85 per cent agree with Kendall as to the diamond shape that
I transcribe as an O; only 2 show an R, 3 others something similar,
all the rest nothing like it; in the next position, no one has anything
hke an F, 14 have an I, 4 others some other character, and 6 have
nothing; KendaU presents a misshapen N, and all the rest nothing
like that letter; in the final place, all but one give an X. Opinion
is almost unanimous that there is nothing there that resembles
(Th)ORFINS, ORINX, or any other definite alphabetic characters.
John Davis, 1809
In the same volume with Kendall's letter. Judge Da'vis,^ to whom
the letter was written, attempts an even more definite and elaborate
explanation of the rock as an Indian memorial. He believes it to be
the representation of a hunting scene. From the uniform corre
spondence of the copies, there are some figures or characters, he says,
which we may conclude to be exact. "Of this description are the
large triangular figures, which appear on every copy of the inscrip
tion." They are conspicuous and strongly marked. Moreover
1 An Attempt to Explain the Inscription on the Dighton Rock, Memoirs of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, iu. 197-205.

116 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
there are several human figures, and one representation of a quad
ruped, in which all the modern copies agree. Davis found a clue to
the meaning of the triangles in a description of a gigantic trap used
by Indians in hunting deer on a large scale, given in Champlain's
Voyages. "They inclose a part of a forest with stakes, interwoven
with branches of trees, and leave but one narrow opening, where
they lay snares." This space is triangular; and beyond its angle
they enclose another triangle. Then, with great noise and shout
ing, they drive the deer before them into this trap, where some are
snared, and others shot at ease. Roger Williams, also, speaks ^ of
from twenty to three hundred Indians hunting deer in company,
dri'sdng the woods before them. Hutchinson describes a similar
practice: "Besides their bows, they had other devices to take their
game; sometimes by double hedges a mile or two in length, and a
mile wide at one end, and made narrow by degrees, until they came
to a gap of about six feet, against which they lay hid to shoot the
deer, as they came through, in the day time; and at night they set
deer traps, being springs, made of young trees." ^ La Hontan de
scribes such enclosures, made on an isthmus, between two lakes.
Across Assonet Neck a trap of this sort might be framed with the
same advantages as in that delineated by La Hontan; and no por
tion of our country perhaps was more favorable for the amusement
and exploits of the hunter. Deer were, and still are, abundant.
The river, neighbouring ponds, and forests abounding in game, would
render this vicinity a desirable and favorite residence for the Indians.
To such places, it appears from Roger WiUiams, they were in the habit
of resorting in large companies for hunting, fishing, and fowling, at par
ticular seasons of the year. During the intervals of leisure, incident to
such occupations, as the art of designing was not unknown and not un
frequent among the Indians of this country,' it seems altogether natural
and probable, that some one or more among the companies, successively
resorting to this spot, should be disposed to make a dehneation, com
memorative or indicative of their favorite employment. ... I am in
duced to beheve, that the very apparatus, described and sketched by
Champlain, was designed to be expressed by those resembling figures
on the rock. . . . If this be admitted, it gives a key to the whole. The
' 1 Massachusetts Historical CoUections, ui. 233.
' History of Massachusetts (London, 1765), i. 471.
' He cites several instances and authorities in evidence of this.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 117
quadruped (probably representing a deer), the bird,^ which many ob
servers find there, and the arrow heads,'' aU become consistent append
ages. The human figures represent the hunters: and, without any ex
travagance of the imagination, I think we may trace a river, with wears
across it, for the taking of fish.' ... I think I can see the sort of nx)ose '
. . . and the Zoj-frap^ [described in writiags which he designates. He
also mentions, as probably a spring-trap made of young trees, the large
figure on the left of Mr. Winthrop's copy, with interior appendages.^
The many smaU circles in Winthrop may possibly represent holes in
the ground, which the Indians often made near pathways in order to
attract attention and serve as reminders of important events.] Other
marks of more irregular form I conceive to be merely the marks or
signatures, appertaining to particular tribes, famUies, or distinguished
individuals. . . . After the arrival of our ancestors and an intercourse
with them, many of the Indians were fond of taking Enghsh names.
Massasoit named his two sons Alexander and PhUip. Those, who were
able, would be proud to employ their English name, or at least the
initial, when caUed upon to affix their signature. I have a deed given
by Wanasittas, aUas Alexander, in which he signs by affixing the letter
A to the seal. This may help us to account for the Roman capitals,
that, appear on the rock, particularly in Mr. Kendal's copy.' On the
whole, I cannot but think it highly probable that general Washington's
opinion " of this inscription, given when he saw a copy of it in the college
museum, is correct, and that it was the work of the native Indians of
our country. It appears to me to have been designed to represent and
commemorate exploits of hunting; and that the characteristic signa
tures of some of the principal actors were added.
^ There is one suggested in the Winthrop copy near the top, as weU as the one
in the BayUes-Smith-Gooding drawing.
2 Several can be imagined in both of the drawings just mentioned.
' Probably the shaded figure (not so reproduced by Rafn, MaUery, etc.) just
above the M near the centre in Winthrop.
* Many such are discoverable in Winthrop.
6 Just to the right of the head of the left-most human figure in Winthrop.
^ The shaded figure with two circles and free Unes running upward?
' I have coUected a considerable number of Indian "marks" or signatures
affixed to deeds; many of them from the pubUshed Plymouth Colony Records.
There are six such "marks" aflBxed to a paper testifying that Assonet Neck was
owned by Piowant in 1673 (xu. 242). Alexander, and PhiUp, and some or aU ot
these six, would be among those whose initials we should expect to discover, if any.
It is very easy to find, or to ioaagine, their presence there. But it is manifestly
impossible in the case of any one of them to be sure that it has such a source.
8 Communicated to Davis by the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, who was with Washing
ton in visiting the coUege. See pp. 81-82, above.

118 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
This interpretation by Judge Davis is worthy of more than mere
passing notice. Sewall, Washington, and Kendall were the only
ones thus far who had adopted the unpopular view that the cuttings
on the rock were made by Indians. In spite of the poetic appeal of
theories that plausibly ascribe them to some people or other of long
ago and far away, we have had to recognize repeatedly that accumu
lating evidence is removing more and more completely all objections
urged against the Indian hypothesis, and that all competent archaeo
logical authorities now agree that there are no sound reasons for re
jecting it. We need not regret this loss of any special poetic appeal,
for there is infinitely more poetry in the developing symphony of
the total truth than in any little melody of a particular enticing but
unfounded theory. But if the Indians were the sculptors, we are
naturally eager to know what meaning, if any, they desired to con
vey. If we do not like to believe that the rock presents nothing
more than idle and meaningless scribblings of various dates, then
probably we must agree that Kendall was right in saying that with
out knowing the exact story in advance there is no possibility that
the intended meaning can be restored. His Mohawk tale is too
trivial and unappealing for acceptance. Chingwauk's expert read
ing, already referred to but yet to be presented in full, interprets the
inscription as a record of Indijan battles. It is plausible enough, but
in that respect it stands exactly on a par with nearly a score of rival
readings; and it depends, moreover, for its acceptability on the false
assumption that one particular drawing can be relied upon in all
of its detaUs. Davis's references to the triangular traps and to In
dian signatures depend only on features common to all of the draw
ings, and of all suggested interpretations are at least as ingenious
and plausible as any. Yet again we must say, with Kendall, that if
there is any meaning there we must first know the story before we
can read it. VoN Humboldt, 1810; Job Gardner, 1812
Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt makes mention of
Dighton Rock in his Vues des Cordilleres,^ published in 1810. The
original not being easily accessible to me, I take my account of his
» Vues des CordUlSres et monuments des peuples indigenes de I'Am^rique, i.
180.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 119
remarks from an English translation.^ "In the immense extent of
the new continent," he says, "we see nations which have reached a
certain degree of civilization; . . . but amid these marks of civiliza
tion, and this progressive perfection of language, it is remarkable,
that no native people of America had attained that analysis of
sounds, which leads to the most admirable, we might say the most
miraculous of all inventions, an alphabet."
In support of this statement he appeals, among other things, to
Dighton Rock, which, though he does not expressly say so, he seems
to regard as a work of the natives. His knowledge of it is drawn
solely from the paper by Lort.^ He says he has carefully examined
the four drawings exhibited by the latter, "so dissimUar, that it is
difficult to recognize them as copies of the same original." He
speaks of Gebelin's theory, promulgated "with that enthusiasm which
is natural to him, but which is highly injurious in discussions of this
kind;" and of its acceptance by "the learned Dr. Stiles."
Far from recognizing a symmetrical arrangement of simple letters
and syllabic characters, I discover a drawing scarcely traced, like those
that have been found on the rocks of Norway, and in almost all the
countries inhabited by the Scandinavian nations. . . . From the whole
of these facts it results, that there exists no certain proof of the knowledge
of an alphabet among the Americans. In researches of this kind we can
not be too careful not to confound what may be the effect of chance, or
idle amusement, with letters or syUabic characters.
In 1812 a new drawing was made, by Job Gardner, a resident of
Dighton.^ I have found no description of the circumstances of its
production. It appears to have been first mentioned by Thomas H.
Webb in a letter of 1830 to Professor Rafn, printed in Antiquitates
Americanse;* and the drawing itself was reproduced in the same

1 Researches, concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient In
habitants of America, with Descriptions and Views of some of the most Striking
Scenes in the CordiUeras. Written m French by Alexander de Humboldt, &
Translated into English by Helen Maria WiUiams, London, 1814, pp. 149-154.
The Introduction by von Humboldt is dated Paris, AprU the 12th, 1813.
2 Archaeologia. See p. 76, above.
' See Plate XXX. I leam nothing concerning this Job Gardner, except that
a present resident of Dighton, born in 1830, when he was a boy knew Gardner
as a maker of globes in an old shop on the river-front.
* Antiquitates Americanse, 1837, p. 358.

120 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
work. It appears, however, to have been previously lithographed.^
It is distinctly inferior to some of the drawings that had already been
made; yet I find it chosen, without mention of its author, as the basis
of the illustration of Dighton Rock used by Ira HUl ^ in 1831, by
Benson J. Lossing' in 1859, and by Samuel Adams Drake* in 1875.
"Prince of Atlantis" Theory of Mathieu, 1817
Our history is enlivened now with a weird new theory, advanced
"with that enthusiasm which is so highly injurious in discussions of
this kind," and supported by no other evidence than the fact that
"it might have been." In 1817 or thereabout, Charles Leopold
Mathieu published in Nancy a translation of a Chinese poem,^ and
included with it a disquisition concerning the.inhabitants of Atlantis,
whom he regarded as the carvers of Dighton Rock and the founders
of a dynasty in China. I have been unable as yet to discover a copy
of the book itself. But it was reviewed in the American Monthly
Magazine,^ where the passages concerning Dighton Rock seem to
have been transcribed in full and in the original French. The re
viewer says of it: "There are some fanciful speciUations, on a point
concerning our own country, contained in a note, that have a bold
ness that commends them to consideration, and are supported by a
corresponding confidence of assertion. If they faU to convince, they
will serve to amuse." Mathieu's story is somewhat as follows.
The characters used in Chinese numeration are the same as those
on Dighton Rock, which was inscribed in the year of the world 1902
(B.C. 2102), "according to the translation which I have been enabled
to make by means of the art of reading hieroglyphics which I dis
covered." This numeration is the same as that of the Romans, who
derived it from the Pelasgians, a people who came originally from
Atlantis, where they inhabited the western coast of the island. It
appears to have been carried to China by that In, son of Indios,
King of Atlantis, mentioned in the American hieroglyphs as chief of
' According to Webb, in Antiquitates Americanse, p. 358.
2 Antiquities of America Explained, pp. 71 ff.
• Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, pp. 633-635.
* Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast, p. 416.
» Le Printemps, premier chant du Po&me Chinois, Des Saisons, traduit en
vers Frangais, et m&& d'aUusions au Regne de Louis XVIII. 28 pages.
» American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, 1817, i. 257.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 121
the expedition which had come there to make a treaty of alliance
and of commerce with the Americans. Another In was chief of the
t.
eighth of the hundred first famUies of China in the time of Yao, in
the year 2296, forty-eight years after the Ogygian deluge during
which Atlantis was submerged. The Chinese, who used these
numerals in their most ancient books, could not have derived them
from the Romans, who were never in China. History names no peo
ple from whom they could have received them. "The fact would
have remained inexplicable, had it not been for my translation of
this Atlantic hieroglyph of Dighton. . . . The two persons named
In were of the same family, as I wUl shortly prove in a book that I
am about to publish." At the time of the first mentioned In, who
inscribed the Rock, Atlantis was still in existence, and its inhabit
ants carried on an extensive intercourse with the four quarters of
the globe, thus spreading everywhere a knowledge of their language
and their numeration.
Although a detailed translation is here hinted at, yet it is not given
in the review. It is very likely that Mathieu's knowledge of the ap
pearance of the inscription was derived from Gebehn's reproduction,
and that he found his numerals and his words in the line beginning
with the three X's, and in the short line immediately underneath
that. Indeed, if we disregard some connected characters, it is easy
to discover the name IN in either of these two lines. But this is as
far as we can go in attempting to correlate Mathieu's tale with the
characters on the Rock, unless we can find it given with greater
exactness in his book.
Remusat, Yates and Motjlton, Warden, Assall,
1823-1827
Edward Everett, in the North American Review for 1820,^ made
an unimportant reference to Dighton Rock, and said that "if some
means be not speedUy taken by the friends of American Antiquity
to secure it from its present exposed situation, [it] wiU, before long,
be quite worn away by the river." For the year 1823, we find a
hitherto unpublished letter in the possession of the American Anti
quarian Society, written on February 4th by M. J. P. Abel R6musat,
Secretary of the Soci6t6 Asiatique of Paris, to Dr. Benjamin B. Carter
1 X. 227.

122 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
of New York. The writer regards the Dighton inscription, a copy of
which Dr. Carter had sent him, as one of the greatest curiosities of
the kind in his collection. But he entertains no expectation that it
can be deciphered.
Those who have tried to discover in such figures either Phcenician
letters or vestiges of Chinese writing, are really acquainted with neither.
In my opinion it is very doubtful if any letters or regular symbolic
signs occur there. I know nothing that resembles these American in
scriptions so much as some sculptures similarly "graven on rocks along the
large 'rivers of Siberia and of northern Tartary. Some of them have
recently been published in Russia, but no one pretends to read them.
It would require an (Edipus to accomphsh it.
In the following year, 1824, Yates end Moulton published their
History of the State of New York ^ in the first volume of which, on
pages 84 to 86, they discuss the Dighton Rock, accepting it as Phoeni
cian. They refer first to a number of previous discussions,^ and quote
Mathieu's account at some length, making the curious error of
identifying as one person the two Ins to whom Mathieu refers as
living nearly four hundred years apart. They continue: ^
From a personal examination of this rock in October, 1824, and a
comparison of its characters, with those delineated by judge Winthrop
and by Dr. Baylies, and from the positive resemblance of some of these
characters to those described by Dr. Clark as having been found in
Cyprus (see his Travels, ii. 130-131), we are inclined to believe that
the Dighton inscription is of Phcenician origin. It is a connected chain
of hieroglyphics and rude letters of the ancient alphabet. Of the figures
given by Clark, those which resemble very much the letters and figures
P. W. X. 7. 9. and those of the triangle and trident (the synonymy of
Neptune), are quite apparent. There are also letters like A. M. O. and
several figured images. The bird, the ancient symbol of navigation, its
head directed upwards, and the circle (the emblem of eternity, or it
may indicate here the full period of a voyage), we did not observe, be
cause of slime and mud covering this part of the inscription.
1 "Mr. Moulton is in fact the sole author of this scarce book," according to
Sabin (xu. 440).
2 One of these, to "Col. Duane's speculations on this subject," I have been
unable to discover.
' I con3ense the account, without indicating omissions and other changes
made for the purpose.

/kx4/n

'^,099

Plate XXVIII

¦¦>t^2y

%e'Ju?ifdeJdi<?7t//0^/Y^

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 123
The copy taken by Mr. Kendall seems to have been imperfect; and
the opinion which some visiters have expressed, that the inscription
was the work of the native indians, if at least of any known race, seems
to be very questionable. If it had been so, is it not probable that similar
inscriptions would have been found throughout the country? The
present one stands alone. The natives could not render any account of
its origin, when the Europeans discovered the country."^ It is probably
the most remarkable relick of antiquity in North America, and it ought
to be secured, so that it may be perpetuated. [Here foUow references
to the story of Diodorus and to certain Phoenician inscriptions which had
been enumerated by Dr. BeUerman.] At present, it stands Kke other
vestiges of a remote people, covered with mystery and hieroglyphics.
David BaUie Warden wrote a paper on American antiquities in
1825, and devoted a page or two to Dighton Rock.^ He describes
it; reproduces Winthrop's copy and mentions KendaU's oil-painting;
quotes the opinions of Mathieu and of Yates and Moulton; and con
cludes: "It is difficult to discover, in these strange triangular figures,
either human heads, Phoenician characters, or proofs of the origin of
the American peoples."
The first mention of our Rock in the German language of which I
am aware was made in 1827 by F. W. AssaU.' He says:
What Winthrop wrote concerning the curious characters on Dighton
Rock, over which so much fuss has been made among the would-be wise
men of America and France, deserves no further notice. I have seen
many of these so-caUed "Written Rocks" in the western part of America,
and the hnes scratched upon them have everywhere been taken by the
ignorant for hieroglyphics. Their overhanging cliffs served in unfavor
able weather as shelter for the aboriginal hunters, who whiled away the
time by scratching on their roofs and walls, with arrows or other imple
ments, the outhnes of aU sorts of living creatures, as weU as they knew
1 The invaUdity of this opinion as to KendaU's drawing, and of these argu
ments concerning the Indians, have already received attention.
2 Recherches sur les Antiquity des Etats-Unis de L'Am&ique septentrional;
in RecueU de Voyages et de M^moires, pubU^ par la Soci^tg de Geographic, 1825,
u. 438, 439: Monument curieux qui a fait croire k quelques auteurs que les Pheni
ciens ont visits I'Amlrique. Planche XII.
» Nachrichten uber die frilheren Einwohner von Nordamerika und ihre Denk-
maler, gesammelt von Friedrich WiUielm AssaU, Berghauptmann des Staates
Pennsylvanien. Herausgegeben mit einem Vorberichte von Franz Joseph Mone
ord. Prof, der Geschichte und StatistUi zu Heidelberg. Mit einem Atlas von 12
Steintafehi: Heidelberg, 1827, pp. 71 ff.

124 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
how. These figures faded to faint traces, others were made near them
and over them. White hunters, French, German and English, added
distorted writings, and these in turn were gradually obhterated, until
the whole took on the appearance of "curious hieroglyphics." There
were tricksters, too, who played their part, and fooled the half-educated
American hunters after hieroglyphics and antiquities.
Beginnings of the Noese Theory, 1829; the Rhode Island
Historical Society
On June 15th, 1829, Professor Rafn, in behalf of the Royal Society
of Northern Antiquaries of Denmark, addressed to various learned
societies in the United States a request to inform him whether any
vestiges of the Norse voyages to America could be discovered. The
response of the Rhode Island Historical Society was especially com
plete and important. A committee appointed by it, headed by its
secretary. Dr. Thomas H. Webb, made two new drawings of the
Dighton Rock in 1834,^ and sent long and careful descriptions. These
were published in 1837 in a sumptuous volume called Antiquitates
Americanse. The inscription was given a detailed interpretation,
and was used as a strong support to the belief that the Vinland of
the Northmen was on the shores of Narragansett Bay. Our present
account demands a mention of these incidents; but their further
consideration wUl be a lengthy one, and must be reserved for a new
chapter in our history.

' There are two universaUy accepted errors concerning these drawings. One
is that they were made in 1830, as Rafn mistakenly asserted. The second and
more serious error is that the "View of the Assonet Inscription Rock; J. R.
Bartlett delineavit" and "The Rhode Island Historical Society's 1830" draw
ing as published in Antiquitates Americanse are rightly so named. What the
Society actuaUy sent to Professor Rafn was importantly different in both cases.
To the original drawings he added in both cases conjectural lines of his own. In
the case of the "View" he gave no indication of this. On the other drawing,
however, he made it possible to distinguish his own additions; but even so it
ceased to be "The Rhode Island Historical Society's" drawing, and became
Rafn's own. Some writers have recognized the fact of the additions. But many
omit the peouUarities of marking that serve to distinguish them, and mistakenly
oaU the whole the "Society's" drawing, giving a seriously misleading impres
sion as to what was actuaUy found on the Rock. This is the case in the repro
duction shown on Plate II of my previous paper. In a later paper the originals,
photographed for me in Denmark, and Rafn's reproductions from them wiU be
shown side by side.

1917] middle period op dighton rock history 125
Ira Hill's Jews and Tyrians, 1831
Our next authority is one of whom we may say, with the reviewer
of Mathieu, that if his speculations fail to convince, they will at
least serve to amuse. He adds a picturesque touch to the variety of
theory that serves to keep this Dighton narrative alive and kaleid
oscopic. Gebelin and Mathieu had been bold and positive enough
in making their "translations," and the latter had even fixed the
date of the inscription to the exact year. But our new translator
surpasses this feat, by determining it to the very month, and equals
Gebelin in assigning a definite meaning to ahnost every mark on the
rock. Ira HiU was one of those whose waking dreams are taken as reali
ties. The type was characterized in our study of Gebelin. Such
people see pictures in jumbles of lines, and instead of then proceed-.
ing to dismiss these and see others in their place, as they easily
might, the very formation of the first, whether purely fortuitous or
suggested by a theory that appeals to them, at once inhibits the
alternatives from arising. So they develop a more or less consistent
story, and are convinced that it alone is the story that the maker of
the lines intended to relate. Though put forward as a serious scien
tific discovery, such an interpretation contributes nothing to genuine
scientific understanding of the subject it pretends to elucidate. Yet
it is itseK not only deserving of scientific study as a theory, but is
also a work of art, and as such sometimes entitled to a due apprecia
tion. It is thus that our Dighton Rock attains so deeply rooted and
widely varied interest. It invites our attention now as a subject of
archaeological investigation, again through its historical develop
ment, then as an object lesson in psychology, and frequently as
demanding, not scientific seriousness and criticism, but aesthetic
enjoyment. In 1831 Ira Hill gave a fine example of one of these word-pictures.^
The colors that he mingled on his canvas were drawn from "the
1 Ira Hill, A.M., Antiquities of America Explained. Hagers-Town [Md.],
1831. Pp. ix. 131.
Ira HUl is mentioned as an A.M. of the class of 1808 of the University of Ver
mont, in its General Catalogue. He was tutor there I809-I810; teacher ia Mary
land; died 1838. I find no further information concerning him. His book is
mentioned as "a very curious and VERY SCARCE volume" in the Brinley
Catalogue, 1881, iii. 95.

126 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
Word of God," from current speculations about the Indians, their
origin, and their monuments, and from his own vivid imagination.
The result he hung, as so many of his kind blunderingly do, in the
Halls of Science instead of in the Galleries of Art. If we simply cor
rect this unfortunate mistake in classification, which tempts us to
criticize rather than to enjoy his creation, we can contemplate the
result with as unqualified an admiration as we accord to a tale by
H. G. Wells or to a detective story based on the very latest psycho
analytical investigations. Like a true impressionist, he seems never
to revise his lines; hence his sentences are not always grammatical,
and he is not always consistent with himself. Even the drawings
accompanying his text were made with an artistic impatience that
prevented him from pausing to compare them with the originals
and with what he had written, and thus need revision. He copied
his drawings, though he does not say so, from the Job Gardner ver
sion of the Dighton inscription. Since he omitted in a few cases
some of the lines that are essential in order to follow his text un-
derstandingly, I have taken the hberty of replacing the omitted
portions by dotted lines in my reproduction of the four cuts that
accompany his chapter on Dighton Rock.^
We need to survey nearly the whole book,' in order to appreciate
the setting of his discussion of the inscription. It begins with a
description of the world before the general deluge and an attempt
to explain the causes of longevity, of the flood, and the like. After
a brief discussion of the situation of mankind after the deluge, he
devotes a chapter to the first settlement of America. Here he con
cludes that in days as ancient as those of the reign of Solomon,
Phoenicians — a mixture of Tyrians and Jews — were driven to
these shores and became the ancestors of Indians. Next he de
scribes the Indians, and then the remains of antiquity in our coun
try. These are all "but Fac Similes of what have been discovered
in the central and northern parts of Asia." But the conclusion is
not that the Tartars or the Chinese crossed the Pacific and made
these monuments; but that "all the nations of the earth migrated
from the Western parts of Asia, where Noah and his famUy first
cultivated the soil near where the Ark rested when the waters sub
sided. AU then spoke the same language, and if any modes of writ-
1 See Plate XXX.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 127
ing were known, we must conclude all had the same characters."
The unprogressive Chinese retained the primitive characters. So
also did the Phoenicians or Tyrians, the parent stock. Hence the
resemblance. As a proof that the Indians of America are descendants
of ancient Jews and Tyrians "we will give a simple explanation of
the characters found, when our country was first discovered by Eu
ropeans, engraved on a rock" in Dighton. "Some have pretended
that they are similar to those hieroglyphics used by the ancient
Pelasgians. Some have traced them back to the early periods of the
ancient Trogans. Others make them out of Carthaginian origin.
Some have found them of ancient Egyptian descent, while others
have made them nearly allied to the old Persian characters." ^
In the first book of Kings ^ it is related that the Tyrians were
skilled navigators, with knowledge of the seas, and that in company
with Jews they made distant voyages in the service of king Solomon.
It was a company of these who made on Dighton Rock a detailed
record of their experiences. The characters must be read from right
to left. The two figures on the right of the first engraving, or page
of the record, are designed to represent the Jews and the Tyrians.
The latter are the stouter, both in body and in skiU in navigation.
The Jews were under their leadership or guidance, as shown by the
marks at the bottom and from the shoulder of the first figure, which
are as traUs indicating following after. The Tyrians were soldiers
or officers, as well as mariners, as appears by the weapon affixed to
the breast of the figure representing them. That they were in the
service or pay of the Jews appears from the character extending
from the head of the latter, and passing over the head of the
1 I have found in the Uterature of the subject no other aUusions to some of
these theories. The Pelasgian reference may be to Mathieu's speculations. The
Egyptians are not named, to my knowledge, before 1838. The "Trogans" and
Persians are entirely new to me.
2 I Kings, Chapter 9:
26. And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside
Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.
27. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge
of the sea, with the servants of Solomon.
28. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and
twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.
10 : 22. For the king had at sea a navy of Tharahish with the navy of Hiram:
once in three years came the navy of Tharshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory,
and apea, and peacocks.

128 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
former. The dots and cross mark at its end represent the time of
service on which they had agreed, "which according to our in
terpretation was twelve years." The long, crooked and crossing
lines extending from the figure representing the Tyrians, were de
signed to show the long and intricate voyage which the same Tyrian
crew had already performed, occupying two months or moons (two
dots), begun at full moon (the upper circle), during the ninth year
of the reign of Solomon (the 8 followed by the curved line).
The second engraving shows the wandering of the fleet after the
new voyage began. Its upper end is the east end of the Mediterra
nean. Some of the party left the ship here at the point indicated
by a short mark. The two long descending lines are the north and
south coasts of the Mediterranean, and their meeting point below
represents the Straits of Gibraltar.^ At the right of the upper end
of the figure is a much branching line and a short detached line, and
these represent the graves or green fields of Egypt, the last land they
beheld in that part of the world. The curved, line joining them to
the main figure is the river Nile. At the left of the upper end of the
figure is a small triangle representing a battle-axe; and the detached
curve to the left of it is a serpent with head directed toward the
axe, — showing that the crew met a hostile nation here. The two
lines which cross the Mediterranean at this upper end show that
they crossed the sea from north to south, and then returned to the
north; the meeting point of the two lines representing one of the
ancient cities, perhaps Carthage, which then adorned the southern
coast. At the lower end of the figure, outside the Straits of Gibral
tar, are many leaves, vines, or branches, indicative of a fertile and
pleasant country. Those to the right represent the coast of Africa,
where they tarried for one moon (one dot). To the left of the Straits
is the coast of Europe, along which they sailed for two moons (two
dots). The first detached line here represents the Canary Isles,
which they visited. The curved lines to its right and above it are
the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and France. The last detached line
at the left is England. The cross just above shows their intention
of crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and the circle is a sign that they
set forth at full moon.

1 Both KendaU (Travels, u. 223) and Lathrop (see above, p. 81) speak of the
PiUars of Hercules in connection with the sculptures on the rock.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 129
The third engraving shows their wanderings on the ocean in
every direction, without a compass and with much suffering for
five moons (the five dots scattered within). At the extreme left is
the indication of their discovering land — a branch erect over char
acters which denote bonds of union and of joy; and they remained
four moons where they first landed (four dots at the extreme left).
Some of the characters here may possibly be Masonic.
In the fourth engraving, the detached figure to the right of the
head (a branch with two leaves and a cross stroke) shows that after
their toUs and wanderings the two peoples, Jew and Tyrian, united
into one nation. The time is indicated by the lower detached figure
to the right — an 8 with two marks attached above, denoting ten,
and two dots within — the second month of the tenth year of the
reign of king Solomon. The human figure is their king. On his
breast are three dots, which may represent his heart. A line repre
senting a serpent is in his breast, and its head is inclined to and near
the heart, which clearly shows that he was a wicked man. He
reigned for three moons (the three dots above his head). Then, at
the date indicated,^ this first American tyrant was slain for his
cruelty by means of an arrow (shown entering his head from a bow
at the left). "May the example of those who first set foot upon
American soU, more than three thousand years ago, be remembered
by every American, and that they will not suffer a tyrant to rule
over them even till three moons have finished their courses."
HUl's book is rare now, and its theory, so far as I have discovered,
has received but the barest mention, and by one or two writers
only. This fact, as well as my desire to present fully every theory
and interpretation of this strange and fertUe rock that can be dis
covered, must be the excuse for devoting to it a space so dispropor
tionate to its importance. We are not finished yet with such purely
imaginative and thinly supported speculations, but must imme
diately consider another one, and will meet with further examples
in later chapters. Rightly taken, they serve the double purpose of
entertaining us as poetic fancies, and, as "horrid examples" of

' HUl inconsistently counts fifteen moons from the time of departure from
Asia to the time of union of the peoples, and assigns the date to this event. But
his own enumeration of the dots (dark or new moons) proves that he is reckon
ing from the time of leaving the Straits of Gibraltar to the death of the king.

130 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
scientific intoxication, driving home forcefully the lesson so hard to
learn of what to avoid in scientific method.
In the year 1836, there is mention in the American Monthly
Magazine ^ of a stone found in Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1833,
with characters thought to resemble those on Dighton Rock. The
reviewer says, however, that this turned out to be the work of an
insane man, who had been allowed to ramble about in the woods,
and who cut meaningless figures upon rocks. In the same volume ^
is a short paper entitled Antiquities of North America, signed by the
initials J. S. The same paper appears again in 1837 in another
magazine,' signed this time in full by "John Stark, Esquire, of
Galena, lUinois." He beheves in the view that America was peo
pled from Central Asia before the separation of the continents; and
that later other hordes came by way of Behring's Straits, drove the
earlier inhabitants southwards before them, and gradually took
possession of the country. He describes at length the skeleton found
at Fall River about three years before, later made famous by Long
fellow as the "Skeleton in Armor." "That the body was not one of
the Indians," he says, "we think needs no argument." It may
have been of the Asiatic race. " But we rather incline to the belief
that the remains belonged to one of the crew of a Phoenician vessel."
He then concludes:
The spot where they were found is on the sea-coast, and in the im
mediate neighborhood of "Dighton Rock," famed for its hieroglyphic
inscription, of which no sufficient explanation has yet been given; and
near which rock brazen vessels have been found.'' If this latter [Phceni
cian] hypothesis be adopted, a part of it is, that these mariners — the
unwiUing and unfortunate discoverers of a new world — Uved some time
after they landed; and having written their names, perhaps their epi
taphs, upon the rock at Dighton, died, and were buried by the natives.

1 N. S., i. 315 n.
2 i. 67.
' American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, Boston, 1837,
ui. 433.
* Stark gives no authority for this statement, and I find no one else making
such a claim. It may have been a variant of KendaU's story about a ship's
anchor having been found there.

Plate XXIX

^.¦YS'

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 131
EGYPTLi.N Theory of Dammartin, 1838
There remains yet one more person whose interpretation may best
be examined in this connection. His exposition appeared a year
after the publication of the Antiquitates Americanse, with which
event we propose to begin the next chapter in this history. But for
many reasons it seems better to present it in connection with these
earlier theories, which it resembles in principle, than in its exact
chronological order. The reader may be already wearied with these
detaUed but groundless translations and think them sufficiently
iUustrated by the cases of Gebelin and of HUl. But mankind is
prone to error, and error of this particular type is very prevalent in
the world stUl. The only way in which such worthless reasonings
can be deprived of their appeal is to exhibit them in repeated in
stances, to balance them against one another, to show that against
each one that appeals can be brought up numberless others founded
on the same essential groimds that are fiUly as plausible as it, and
that therefore each is worthless except as an interesting imaginative
exercise — as an exhibit in the HaUs of Art instead of in the legiti
mate field of Science. We cannot escape the need, therefore, of a
detaUed presentation of this new theory; and we may hope that it
may prove to the reader as well fitted to interest and to instruct as
have the theories already dealt with.
We are now about to be informed with elaborate detaU that the
ancient stone was carved by Egyptians, that its puzzling characters
have a sacred significance, and that they represent the position of
the heavenly constellations as calculated for the time of the winter
solstice, in celebration of the advent of a New Year. This view was
advanced in 1838, by Moreau de Dammartin, who pubhshed it,
though without the plates necessary for its comprehension, in the
Journal de I'lnstitut Historique; and again separately, with the
plates, as an undated "autotype Lithograph" — a fac-simile of
his hand-written manuscript — probably at about the same time.^
Dammartin is apparently ignorant of all versions of the inscription
' Moreau de Dammartin, La Pierre de Taunston, in Journal de I'lnstitut His
torique, 1838, ix. 145-154.
ExpUcation de la Pierre de Taunston, Par Moreau de Dammartin (Seine et
Mame), membre de I'lnstitut historique. Passage MoU^re No. 5. Paris (n. d.).
28 pp. fold. pi. 8°.

132 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [JAN.
except SewaU's, and this he reproduces from Gebehn, with a new
numbering of the figures designed to facilitate reference to them. In
a second plate he gives illustrations explanatory of some of his in
terpretations. Both of these plates are reproduced herewith.^ In
order to foUow his exposition clearly and to judge of its value, we
need the aid of some star-atlas; and probably that of Flamsteed will
serve the purpose best, since we may assume that it was accessible
to him.^ It wUl be well, in proceeding with his own narrative, to
point out in footnotes any cases in which we find him seriously in
error in claiming that a particular figure on the rock can be found
in the consteUation named if we join its stars together by means
of appropriate imaginary lines. In all cases where this is not done,
it may be assumed that he is at least approximately correct in claiih-
ing a correspondence. Unfortunately, on account of its minute
descriptive details, it is impossible to condense his account as much
as we might wish. The following is, however, a condensation and
not a literal quotation. I have wished to give enough to make it
possible to follow all of his details; but the reader who does not care
to do this can gain a good general idea by reading the introductory
paragraph and the first sentence under each of the six numbered
groups. The explanation that we shall give of this curious monument will show
that it is the work of a nation foreign to America; and consequently
that this land was visited long before Columbus by inhabitants of the
Old World. The monument appears to us to be a fragment of the
oriental celestial sphere, or an astronomical theme for a given moment,
i. e., for December 25*'' at midnight, epoch of the winter solstice. We
are persuaded that, even if we are mistaken in some detaUs, on account
' Plates XXIII and XXXI. It should be noted that aU of the figures on the
second Plate are mirror-wise reversed.
* I made use of the following:
Richard Hinckley AUen, Star-Names and their Meanings, 1899.
J. Fortin, Atlas Celeste de Flamsteed, 2nd edition, Paris, 1776. Probably a
later edition would be preferable; and a discoveiy of the edition that Dam
martin himself used would be indispensable, if there were any occasion to take
his argument seriously. Brunet (Manuel du Libraire, 1861, u. 1280) records a
third edition, Paris, 1795. There is a copy of this edition in the Boston PubUc
Library, the title reading in part, "Atlas Celeste de Flamsteed, pubh6 en 1776,
Par J. Fortin, . . . Troisifime Edition, Revue, corrigge & augment^e par les
Citoyens Lalande & Mechain. A Paris, . . . M.DCC.XCV."
Richard Schurig, Tabulae Celestes, 2te Auflage, 1909.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 133
of the probable imperfection of the copy, which perhaps offers but a
feeble and imperfect idea of this monument, which is in part destroyed
or effaced, yet these errors wiU in no way afPect the general truth of our
explanation. We divide the figures of the inscription into six groups.
First Group: The central and highest portion of the monument, con
taining the constellations and parts of constellations near the pole of
the ecliptic. — The most remarkable feature of this group is the two
lines crossing at right angles (1, 2, 4, 5), whose common section forms
the pole of the ecliptic, as this is indicated on the planispheres projected
on the plane of the equator. One of them (1, 2) is the meridian that
passes from the beginning of the taU of the Great Bear and by the nose
of Pegasus, a fact which led us to recognize the Great Bear in the seven
stars joined by a dotted line (3). The other hne (4, 5) corresponds to
the meridian which goes from the Club, of Hercules to Taurus. It passes
by the head of the Dragon (6), separating it from the body, whereas the
first separates the part which forms a loop and which is called the second
vertebra (7). The curve (8) near the head of the Dragon is formed of
stars constituting the left thigh, arm and side of Hercules. We have
indicated by dotted lines the disposition of the Dragon about the pole.
The straight hne (9) opposite the curve of the Dragon appears to be a
part of the Milky Way, in which is found Cygntis, whose stars form a
cross (10). Beyond this line is a rude square (11) which Gebehn took
to be a Phoenician letter Kaph, and which, in our opinion, represents
the Chair of Cassiopea, a constellation which, according to our explana
tion of the origin of alphabets, has been the origin of all the alphabetic
and hieroglyphic Kaphs, ancient and modern. The point outside the
figure appears to designate the star of the back of the chair, situated
exactly on the upper western colure. The point or smaU circle accom
panied by a short line, higher up (12) — the hne being on the projec
tion of a straight line leading from behind the ship Argo through the
two superior stars, and directed toward the star near the equator, called
the thirteenth of the Ship by Flamsteed, and toward the Polar Star —
can represent nothing else than the star Castor, one of the Twins, tute
lary deity of mariners. Ursa Minor also is figured on the monument
near the pole star, by a kind of Kaph which recalls its quadrilateral por
tion (13).^ To the right of the Great Bear is seen a space enclosed by
three Unes (14), which we suppose to be a diagram of the stars of the
left arm of Bootes, including that of the shoulder. The star 16 would
then be that of the extremity of the hand, which is situated on the merid
ian passing through the eastern node; 17, the star of the head of Bootes;
1 The figure does not resemble the consteUation.

134 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
18, his staff, whose end is divided into two parts because of the stars of
his right hand; 19, the star of his right shoulder placed upon a meridian.'
The line which joins this point to the other figures is a portion of this
meridian, i. e., the part between the star of the shoulder and the one a
little higher up on the same meridian at the level of the star of the head.
The long curved line (20) is a tracing which, starting from the star of
the left shoulder of Hercules (Ingeniculus, Kneeler), nearest the tropic
of Cancer, passes through his neck, then through his right hand, near
which it ceases, interrupted by the circular group of stars of the head of
the Serpent of Ophiucus (21); begins again on the opposite side, goes
round the lower stars of Corona Borealis, and rises to the star of the
neck of Bootes, passing through the upper star of the meridian of the
right shoulder, of which we have spoken.^
We notice here that the figure in the form of a cross, outlined by
figures 6, 7, 8, 14, greatly resembles an ancient monument in Sweden.
It represents a serpent doubly folded back on itself (Planche 2, fig. 1),
at the centre of which is found the outlined cross of the American monu
ment. The serpent, symbol of the Dragon of the pole, as is proved by
comparison with other runic funereal monuments (PL 2, figs. 2-6),
commemorates the death of the sun and the birth of the new sun, and
thus also death in general, and the passage to a new hfe.
Second Group: The lower portion at the left of the monument, con
taining the constellations whose rising on December 25*'' announces
the birth of the new sun: Argo, Virgo, Hydra, Bootes. At midnight of
this date the sun is in Capricorn, and at the lower meridian. Aries and
Pegasus are setting in the west; and the star Janus, the Genius who
opens the new year, announces it by rising. This star is at the feet of
Virgo, of which it forms a part.
The most remarkable figure here is the bust of a woman (22), repre
senting Virgo. On her breast is a sort of ancient men, or trident, formed
by the tracing of the nineteen stars of fifth and sixth^magnitudes which
command the star called Vindemiatrix, and whose arrangement is
shown (PL 2, fig. 7). The figure resembhng a little bird, below this
men, is likewise formed by stars in the vicinity of Vindemiatrix (PL 2,
fig. 8). Two free stars are indicated by the two points above the bird.
The head of Virgo is covered by a long curved hne (23, 24, 25), corre-

> The most arbitrary drawing of lines through this constellation faUs to give
the figure caUed for.
^ The stars arranged as here caUed for do not take at aU' the outline shown
on the figure of the inscription referred to, as wiU be more definitely shown in
criticizing Dammartin's results as a whole.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 135
sponding to Hydra. The circles described by this curve (24, 25) are
the Cup and the head of Hydra.^ The point terminating the line recaUs
the star near the equator; for the head and neck of Hydra, including the
three stars separated from the head by the equator, form the Arabic
figure 2, exactly recalled in the monument. Near the bust of the Virgin
is the figure of the httle Horus, her son. A point, recalling probably the
star Janus,^ which would be on the horizon and would form part of the
constellation called Mons Menalus, would be indicated by figure 26,
formed of five stars arranged in a circle and with a tail whose motive is
given by the stars nearest to Janus and serving to identify it. Figure 27
represents a rude outline of Bootes,' who is called the father and the
foster-father of Horus. At the top of the drawing (28) is the ship Argo,
three stars of which are indicated: (1) that of the rudder, or Canopus;
(2) that of the top of the mast, Procyon, the thirteenth of the Ship,
touching the equator; (3) in front, Sirius, similarly represented between
the horns of the Cow in a boat in the circular Zodiac of Dendera.''
If one traces the stars of the head of Virgo in imitation of the Virgin
of the monument, it leaves in the centre of the figure three stars, ar
ranged in the form of eyes and mouth, and also three other stars forming
the brow, of which one touches the meridian passing through Coma
Berenices. We believe we see in these stars the origin of the fillet with
which the heads of some Egyptian representations of Isis are ornamented
(PL 2, fig. 9);
Third Group: The lower centre, containing the constellations on the
western horizon at the birth of the sun. — The first animal is Aries (28),^
characterized in a very singular manner, as is seen in Planche 2, figure
10. The httle circle terminating this figure recaUs the double star of the
head, which is on the meridian separating Aries from Pisces. It is cer
tainly a poor drawing, yet the taU is a faithful representation of the stars
' The proportions and directions are very imperfect, and utterly wrong in
their relations to Virgo and Horus. The Arabic figure 2 is very good as described.
There is no consteUation Horus mentioned in our books. But the stars between
Virgo and Corvus could be arranged easUy to form this figure; and AUen (p. 462)
speaks of Isis, the equivalent of Vu-go, as being sometimes represented as "clasp
ing in her arms the young Horus."
2 No star of this name is mentioned in the books consulted. From the descrip
tion, it would appear that probably 16 Librae is meant.'
' See previous note on Bootes.
* AUen, p. 123: "Great prominence is given to Sirius on the square Zodiac
of Denderah, where it is figured as a cow recumbent in a boat with head sur
mounted by a star."
' It wiU be noticed that the number 28 occurs twice; but the one intended in
each case is easUy recognizable. There is no number 15.

136 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
disposed in the form of an elongated V.' The second animal (29) is
Pegasus, easily recognizable by the four points alluding to the stars of
the quadrUateral. The curved line rising from its withers appears to
represent the wings that are usually given to it. It corresponds also
through its horns to the horned horse of the Hebrews: it is thus that
they depicted Pegasus. The lines going out from between the horns
are the continuation of stars included in the river of Aquarius. In
figure 30 it will be easy to recognize the foot of Aquarius, separated
from his body by a portion of the ecliptic (31). The curved figure 32
is the outline of stars in the lower part of Capricorn, separated from the
head, here invisible, by a portion of the equator. Figure 33 is Ephaptus; ^
34, the Vase of Aquarius; 35, terminating the right hand upper part of the
group, is a part of the bow of Sagittarius, of his arrow, and of the me
ridian which separates the latter from the bow, and on which are joined
both the circle of the ecliptic and the tropic of Capricorn. The point
where the lines cross at 36 being the western node of the sphere, the
drawing below this can be nothing else than a crudely represented part
of the Whale. Figure 37, detached from aU the others, recalls the Fishes
and the bands that bind them together.
Fourth Group : The three figures at the right lower end, not included
among the constellations, but forming the three personified decans of
the sign of Capricornus. — This part of the picture is of the greatest
interest, supporting the above explanations, and serving to enlighten
us as to the origin of the constellations, the first elements of astronomy,
the personification of the spirits placed in the celestial sphere, the causes
of their various attributes, and the numberless traditions to which they
have given rise.
The first figure highest up (38) is very significant. It is the god
Priapus, the Faun, the great Pan, etc., and, above all, Orion. It is the
latter, because this constellation is represented in the Eg3rptian Zodiac
of Kircher by a satyr or faun with goat's feet, with a shepherd's crook,
and with a syrinx or fiute of four tubes, represented with seven on cer
tain monuments. If one draws lines joining together properly the stars
of this constellation, including also the stars of the Hare, the result will
be a figure exactly hke that of the American monument (PL 2, fig. 11).'
1 The author's own diagram in Planche 2 is the best comment on the absurdity
of this identification.
2 I do not find this consteUation mentioned, either in the books cited or in the
dictionary of Larousse.
' This result is fairly exact, except that Flamsteed shows no such arrangement
for the stars of the head, some internal stars are neglected, and some lying out
side of the picture of Orion in Flamsteed are used.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 137
Behind the lower part of Orion there are eleven stars, which, joined two
and two by perpendicular lines nearly paraUel, form the flute of Pan,
or the four-tubed syrinx, ending at the tail of the Hare. If now one
joins by similar lines the stars of the body of the Hare (PL 2, fig. 12),
one will obtain an instrument with seven tubes ahnost as regular as the
first.'^ Orion was represented in this decan, the third of the month of
December, because the rising of his belt announces the beginning of the
year. The second decan (PL 1, fig. 39; PL 2, fig. 13) presents a diagram of
the stars of the consteUation Antinous, emblem of the new sun which
he precedes in rising in the morning. The eagle placed above Antinous
seems to bear him in its claws. Here it is the Dolphin, which is found
indicated above the head of Antinous, as can be recognized by the disposi
tion of its principal stars in the form of the letter N. The two characters
joined to the head of this decan by a horizontal hne (40) should be con
sidered as designating the attributes of the personage. We see in them
a type of Bootes reversed, and of the head of the serpent of Ophiucus
(21); but here this type is considered as the symbol of writing, and pro
nounced em chai by the Egyptians. The little mark detached from one
of these figures is the expression of a little group of stars situated in the
Tropic of Cancer between Corona Borealis and the head of the serpent
of Ophiucus, and related in direction to two stars of the right leg of
Bootes. It served as type for the sacred naU of the Romans, which
they attached each year to the walls of the temple of Minerva; and
may be compared to the keys of Janus and of Cybele, indicating the
opening of a new era.
The last two figures (41, 42) grouped together as emblems of the first
, decan of December are the tracings of the stars of Canis Major and of
Canis Minor. These two dogs were called the Barkers or Warners. They
owe their use in this decan to their position opposite that of Capricorn;
for their passage across the upper meridian indicates that of Capricorn
and the sun across the lower meridian. These types, so original in form,
appear at first sight to have little correspondence with the celestial Dogs.
However, if we put on paper in their respective places (PL 2, fig. 14) the
stars of Canis Major, except those beyond the meridian passing through
the head of Procyon, whose stars should occupy this place; add to them
the three lower stars of the fore feet of the Unicorn, the star of the head

1 The seven-tubed syrinx cannot be formed out of the stars of Lepus as figured
in Flamsteed, though by using stars outside its picture, a vague approximation
to it can be made. It is no easier if one uses aU the stars of Lepus in Schurig,
whichever way they are turned.

138 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
of the Dove and those of the Ohve Branch that it holds in its beak, and
then the four stars of Argo nearest the Ohve Branch; and then join
them together properly, we wiU obtain a figure exactly lUse figure 41,
without leaving any star unused. It will be the same with the stars of
Procyon or of Canis Minor (PL 2, fig. 15), to which should be joined the
six stars of the breast of theiJUnicorn, and the two smaU stars above the
head of the Little Dog. The star at the extreme right in this figure is
the thirteenth of the Ship, as in figure 12. The summit of the lower
triangle recaUs the stars alongside the equator, and the prolongation of
its hypothenuse serves to discover a small star in front of the fore feet
of Sirius and placed exactly on the first meridian, as is also the star of
the eye of Columba in the picture of Canis Major.
Fifth Group: the hieroglyphic zone (43) in the centre of the monument,
representing the Egyptian formula EM-CHAI-EN-NE-NOUTE,
which may be rendered: Here are the portraits of the gods, the divine
(sacred, celestial) writings. — The derivation of this meaning is ex
pounded at some length on the second Plate (fig. 16). All of the letters
of the alphabet were derived from the consteUations, and the ones that
are here used owe their forms and significations to this source.'
Sixth Group: the left end, containing three monograms which appear
to indicate a date. — Figure 44 (PL 2, fig. 18) is the hieratic-hiero
glyphic group rompe, the year; 45 (fig. 19) is the number ment, ten; 46
(fig. 20) is son, day of the month; and 47 (fig. 21) indicates the number
of the month — possibly the fourth, whose thirtieth day corresponds to
the solstice. Figure 17 of the second Plate is another Egyptian formula
for a date, placed here for comparison.
What I have tried to do, and what I wish the reader to try to do,
in examining the argument of each new advocate of a theory, is to
consider it sympathetically, andto see that from his point of view
the interpretation is justified. Only we must afterwards realize
that numberless conflicting views are justified in exactly the same
manner. Considered uncritically, it is no doubt true that, without
too discouraging distortion, every identity claimed by Dammartin
can be verified if each figure, or in many cases each small part of a
figure, be taken independently, without regard to its relation to the
rest. Sympathetically and not critically regarded, every feature of
Dammartin's interpretation can find a plausible excuse for its adop-
• This fact is demonstrated by the author (to his own satisfaction) at length;
but his detaUed exposition may be dispensed with here, as irrelevant to our
purpose.

J7l. J/.'-. /^/ / //.-// //// ./--¦; /. '// '/- ,

RAFN'S REPRODUCTION OF LIT]
FROM ANTIQUITATES AHERK
HILL'S PRESENTATION OF THE JOB GARDNER DRAWING (
FROM IRA HILLS ANTIQUITIES OF AMERICA EXPLAINED. 183]

Plate XXX

^OGRAPH BY JOB GARDNER, 1812
ANAE. 1837. TAB. XI. NO. VII
3F 1812, WITH DOTTED LINES ADDED BY E. B. DELABARRE
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETV OF MASSACHUSETTS

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 139
tion. But the secret of such success as he actually attains is evi
dently due to the fact that any desired figure can be found in any
constellation, especially if, in difficult cases, neighboring stars are
brought in to make the task easier; and that symbolism is so elastic
as to make it possible to assign almost any meaning to' any figure.
The outlines of figure 22 can be found readily in Virgo; but the tri
dent and bird must be considered independently, for the picture
does not give them in their true relation to Virgo as a whole. The
upper triangular figure is the worst in this respect.^ If we start with
8, we find it represents well the portions of Hercules claimed for it.

if we hold Flamsteed's chart 8 with its left side do-wn. The line that
goes from 8 up to the right and curves around to 21 must now be
found independently of 8. Letting it start at the lower end of 8,
instead of the summit of its curve, where it belongs, and turning
the book a little clock-wise, we rise from the shoulder of Hercules
through neck and hand (but not through arm) around to the head of
Serpens, in conformity with the drawing. Now we must turn our
book to its regularly correct position, at right angles to the first, in
order to curve from 21 around through Corona in correspondence
with the curve of 20. When we reach the extreme right of 20, we
turn the book again to its second position, in order to rise to the staff

' See Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 is the portion of the inscription under dis
cussion, as drawn in Dammartin's Plate. Figure 2 shows the actual arrange
ment of the stars mentioned by him, as reduced by pantograph with fair accuracy
from Schurig. Complete accuracy is not essential for the argument, in this or
the foUowing figures. Consequently, having first made them for my own satis
faction only, I have not revised them for pubUcation.

140 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
of Bootes (18), which is then correctly shown. Now we tum to chart
7 and hold it upside-down (which is upside-down for chart 8 also)
in order to get the rest of Bootes (16 and 17) as the drawing, accord
ing to Dammartin, shows it. By such means we could find in the
monument everything that Dammartin tells us is there. But by
such means we could find any desired figure in any portion of the
heavens chosen at random.
In order to Ulustrate the truth of this assertion, I decided that I
would find his figure 39 on any chart in Flamsteed to which I might
chance to open the book. By pure chance it opened at chart 20, and
easily gave the figure desired.^ We have only to smooth it out now
a little, even less perhaps than our
author did with his corresponding
figure, to obtain a faithful duplicate
of the drawing in the inscription.
As to gi'idng it appropriate symbol
ical meaning, we should find no diffi
culty in doing that, as we shall real
ize shortly. If one example of this
sort is not enough, a con'vincing
plentifulness of others will soon be
given. Dammartin's theory has such mag
nificent possibilities of novelty and charm as an addition to our
collection, that it is a real disappointment to find in him so much
purely fanciful speculation, so naively arbitrary an assumption that
the particular figures found by his active imagination are surely the
ones intended by the inscriber without any alternative, such a care
less, high-handed, slap-dash apphcation of his theory without regard
to accuracy and consistency, so complete an adoption of the methods
of his delightful but unconvincing predecessors Gebelin and Hill.
It would have been a satisfaction to discover that, however freely
he used his vigorous imagination in discovering desired lines among
the stars, he yet refrained from violently wrenching them from their
places. Had he been a true magician, and his account of the rock
a Word of Power that could compel the motions of the starry worlds
in their distant orbs, the resulting disjunction of their harmonious
' See Figure 3.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON EOCK HISTORY 141
relations would have led to an utter wreck of the universe and a
tumbling of all the worlds into a tangled chaos. But luckUy the
heavenly bodies still hold their appointed places, and his incanta
tions were but the idle fancies of a truth-distorting dream. His
account must be taken piecemeal to give it any plausibility, and
we must be -prepared to accept any change in the relative direc
tions and distances of the stars in order to force them into position
in our figures, to draw numerous imaginary lines marked by no real
stars, to disregard entirely the relative positions of constellations.
Worst of all, after we have the theory presented we find that its
meaning is too trivial to be attractive. So elaborate a depiction of
the constellations should commemorate something more important
than the advent of a new year. It does not take much ingenuity to
de'vise a much better theory than that of Dammartin, along similar
lines of interpretation. I have entertained myself with an attempt
to accomplish this, and it may not be uninstructive to record the
result and demonstrate that it can be done. If worth doing at all,
then we should select a theory that will be attractive in itself and will
involve a wealth, consistency and appealingness of symbolically
expressible meanings that may fit all the details of the inscription;
and in applying it to the latter, keep each figure consistent with
itself at least.
There is nothing in the world so rich in symbohsm as is the ex
pression of a religious faith, especiaUy if it be of a mystical order;
and the deeper mysticisms or esoteric forms of all rehgions are, for
certain profound psychological reasons, everywhere and in all times
essentially alike. We can assign to our rock no more important
function than to serve either as a record of some remarkable his
torical event, or as a chart designed by the enlightened missionaries
of some superior faith to aid them in teaching the difficult myste
ries of their doctrine to a barbaric tribe. • Let us assume that it was
for the latter purpose that the rock was carved; that it was done by
Egyptians nearly 5000 years ago; and that the esoteric teachings of
their faith are correctly described in any convenient source that we
may select. There are two smaU books, one by W. K. Adams and
the other by S. G. P. Coryn,^ that wUl serve admirably for this pur-
1 W. K. Adams, The Book of the Master; or, the Egyptian Doctrine of the
Light Bom of the Virgin Mother, 1898.
jS. G. P. Coryn, The Faith of Ancient Egypt, 1913.

142 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
pose, and we need not concern ourselves as to whether they are in
any respect right or wrong in the beliefs that they express. Let us
allow the Egyptian formiUa of Dammartin to stand as correct, for
it is probably as ingenious and defensible as any that we could de
vise. But the rest of the inscription will represent the Celestial
Sphere, not for its own bare sake, but as an aid to teaching through
symbols the deep mysteries of a religion. It 'wiU symbolize the
Pathway of Initiation into the Di-vine Mysteries, and wUl have
three scenes: (1) The ordinary worldly life of the Unregenerate, the
Dweller in Darkness, the Soul not yet awakened to aspiration toward
the Spiritual Light. This wUl be symbolized by the constellations
grouped about the northern pole of the equator. (2) The Way of
Initiation, whose successive stages will be represented by the twelve
signs of the Zodiac. (3) The Scene of Judgment, and the attainment
of the ultimate Union with the Divine Light. Our books tell us
that this was the essence of the teaching of the Egyptian religion;
and something of the sort is the teaching of all Mysticism. In what
follows, we wUl condense from the books a sufficient account of the
Egyptian belief, and of the stages of Initiation, to serve our purpose;
and will combine it with our other assumptions.
Scene 1 : The Worldly Life. — The visible creation is the counter
part of the unseen world. It traces out the path whereby the Just
passes through Initiation, Illumination, and Perfection, necessary to
fit him for endless union with Light, the Great Creator. The axis
of the earth is for man the prime measure of space and the standard
rule of the Depths. Hence the North Star is the simplest symbol
of the Universe. But about 2700 B.C., Alpha Draconis, sometimes
called the Life or Judge of Heaven, was less than 10' from the exact
northern pole.^ This star could be seen, by day as by night, from
the bottom of the central passage of the Great Pyramid of Cheops
at Ghizeh, in 30° of north latitude, as well as from the corresponding
points in five other like structures. The central point of the double
triangle on the rock will therefore symbolize this star, and thus fix
the date of the inscription. The lines that pass through it wUl
represent the meridians that pass through the four points of Solstice
and of Equinox, and will thus symbolize the entire Heavens, the
Universe, the Great Pyramid, the whole Life of the Soul, the Light
1 AUen, loc. cit-., p. 206.

1917]

MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY

143

V

144 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
of All. About it wUl be grouped the northern consteUations in proper
array; and we can actually fit them there without very great dis
tortion.^ Our arrangement is certainly far more consistent than
that of Dammartin. We obtain it for the most part from Flam-
steed's Chart 1, filling in some detaUs from later charts. We follow
Dammartin's copy of the inscription, except in a few details. Our
figure possesses a unity of composition and meaning, which his
lacks: — it is the World, in truth a World of Light, but not yet so
linown to the as yet Unilluminated Soul. The deviations of the
figure in the inscription from this faithful representation of the
northern constellations, we may assume, are no greater than would
have resulted naturally from any attempt to depict them on stone
so long ago.
Scene 2: The Way of Initiation and Purification. — This wUl be
represented on the monument by the signs of the Zodiac in orderly
sequence from Scorpio to Capricornus, leaving Sagittarius for later
use. It will take no long examination of the pages of Flamsteed to
convince us that all the desired figures of the inscription can be found
readily in the consteUations assigned to them, and no drawings
are necessary, therefore, to prove this.^ A properly trained (or, we
may better say, unrestrained) imagination, as we have already rec
ognized, can discover any desired figure in any sufficiently complex
collection of stars; and our figures are there, with sufficient closeness,
if we wish to find them. We may have to remark in a few cases, as
did Dammartin: "It is certainly a poor drawing, yet it faithfully
characterizes the constellation;" we can plausibly attribute all de
ficiencies to the unsldlled makers of the rock-cuttings; and our re
sults will be far more unffied and consistent and full of meaning
than those of Dammartin. As to the meanings of these eleven
stages (the twelfth comes into the next scene) in the Path of Initia
tion, of Struggling toward the Light, the following features, gleaned
from our chosen authorities, will suffice. Our choice of constella
tions to represent the stages is not derived from them. We must
bear in mind that the true Mystic can find any desired symbolism

' See Fig. 4. This figure was reduced by pantograph from Schurig. Free-hand
drawing from Flamsteed gave a figure somewhat nearer to that of the rock, but
not so accurate. It is the latter drawing, however, that is assumed in the text.
' I have verified this statement, of course, by actually making the drawings.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 145
in almost anything; and so we are at fuU liberty to select any Zo
diacal sign we please to represent any mystical stage or meaning.
Yet the choice is not wholly arbitrary, but conforms fairly well to
meanings usually assigned to these signs in Universal Symbolism.
The Aspirant to Initiation must fibrst earnestly feel the need of it,
through catching a faint gleam of the Light that creates, sustains
and iUuminates the World; and this is implied as occurring at the
end of his experience with the previous scene, where Light and Or
derliness are symbolized, but not yet comprehended. He must
then, as a first step on the Path, pass through preliminary exercises
of meditation, self-mastery, and spiritual discipline, and become
"dead to the flesh," as he has been always thus far "dead to the
Light." This is rightly portrayed by Scorpio (46), always a symbol
of Death, but also of coming Regeneration. Then he is buried for a
time (the mystical period of Quiet, of SUence, of "watchful waiting"),
as symbol of his death and nothingness; and thus prepared for the
reception of Truth. This stage is weU represented by Libra (45, 44),
which symbolizes Justice, but also EquUibrium, Light, and Truth.
In the third stage he is permitted a vision of the end of his pilgrim
age, — of Isis, the Divine Love, the Perfection that is his far-off
goal. Virgo (22) is the natural symbol here. He is now a new-born
Soul, who (as the infant Horus, son of the Virgin Light and Love),
with Divine Strength to sustain him (for which reason the inscrip
tion gives two separated figures here [26, 25], both represented by
Leo), sets out on the adventures of his new life. The seven foUow
ing constellations (27: Cancer; 28: Gemini; 29: Taurus, with parts
of Orion; 36: Aries; 37: Pisces; 34, 30, 31: Aquarius; 33, 32: Capri
cornus) wiU represent the Wanderings of the Soul in the Under
world, the Path to Perfection, imtU he reaches the Judgment of
Osiris. The reconstruction of the Inner Man must be effected, and
this can be accomplished only through real and bitter conflict with
all of his spiritual enemies. Only by arduous preparation and con
flict of light and darkness does the soul become bom at last into the
Eternal Light. The enemies of spiritual progress are many and
strong and persistent, are often disguised as Angels of Light; and
each must be overcome in tum. Their number is not restricted to
seven; but for the purpose of symbolization, this number may well
be selected.

146 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
Scene 3: The Judgment of Osiris. — At last the end of the Wan
derings is attained. The Wanderer has overcome his foes. He
reaches the gates that lead into the fields of Aanru, the Heavenly
Abode, the Union with Light. We see him standing at the portal
(42). Here he meets Anubis (41), the jackal-headed Opener of the
Ways, he who guards the heavenly secrets. The challenge of the
latter being met, he enters the Judgment Hall, where sits Osiris on
his Throne (39), and Thoth, the Recorder, the Eternal Wisdom, the
Mind and WiU of God (38). Before them he makes his eloquent
plea of being worthy. But first his heart must be weighed in the
balance against the feather of the Law; and this is portrayed in
figure 40, which pictures weU the heart, the balance, and the feather.
It also, together with figure 35, represents Sagittarius, the final
constellation of the Zodiac, — symbol of the Bowman who shoots
straight to his goal; and symbol also of Temperance, Balance, Equi-
hbrium attained. This ordeal passed, and his heart being declared
of full weight, he is admitted into Aanru, and receives the Crown of
Illumination (symbolized by § of the inscription), and is permitted
to know the secret Law of the Starry Orbs and of Human Lives, de
veloping through all their trials and changes in harmonious progres
sion according to the Divine Purpose. Thus he comprehends at
last the true Meaning, Purpose and Justification of the Universe,
from which he set out in darkness in Scene 1, as is implied by the
direction of the arrow placed above these figures at the right end
of the inscription. His conscious Union with the Eternal Light,
which is The AU, is complete. Conclusion
There is, of course, no truth in this attractive and consistent in
terpretation, as an actual translation of the characters on Dighton
Rock. But if it is not true, then certainly its many rivals, whether
of earlier date and already considered, or yet to be advanced by
Magnusen and Rafn and later translators, have no stronger claim
to acceptance. A fuU score of more or less definite translations of
the rock's message have been offered; but not one of them is founded
on arguments more sound than have been advanced for this one.
They will be interesting to examine, as they come along. But we
shall be prepared to reahze that they are all based upon the same

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RAFN-S REPRODUCTION OF
THOM ANTIQUITATES AHERICANAE. 1B37 TAB vi .,
¦ "*o- XI. NO. IV. E
PLANATORY OF HIS INTERPRETATION
, PIERRE DE TAUNSTON. 1838. PLANCHE 2
F SEWALL'S DRAWING. 1768
ENGRAVED FOR THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OP DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 147
methods of interpretation which we have in this instance arbitrarily
adopted, and thus have no better right to be accepted than this one
has. In fact, no acceptable meaning has ever been assigned to any
of the characters on the rock; and it is very possible that they never
had any very definite or important meanings. If they were not
mere idle scribblings, then probably they were made at various
times, very likely, though not necessarily, after Europeans had sup
plied iron tools, and had meanings, if any at all, that were individual,
trivial, and unregrettably impossible to translate. Except to satisfy
a craving for insignificant detail, there would be then no need to ask
for an explanation of the exact meaning, or idle meaningless origin,
of any figure.
In considering Kendall, I summed up the theories which had been
advanced up to his time to account for the inscription.^ Our
further survey has added to them, besides his own and the two addi
tional ones mentioned by him, only a few more. That it was un
readable, however originating, was claimed by StUes, by KendaU, by
Yates and Movdton, by Remusat, and apparently by Warden. That
there were believers in Trojans, Persians, and Egyptians as its origi
nators, we are informed by HiU. The Pelasgian inhabitants of At
lantis are made responsible by Mathieu. The Phcenician theory is
advocated in a changed form, making the sculptors not Carthagin
ians, but Tyrians and Jews, as HiU's own -view. Yates and Moulton
also are inclined to attribute the inscription to Phoenicians, and
argue that the Indians left no simUar inscriptions and knew nothing
as to the origin of this one.^ Dammartin assigns to it an Egyptian
origin, and holds that it was a picture of the constellations, cele
brating the advent of a new year. Da-vis beheves that it portrays
the Indian sport of hunting by wholesale, and contains also their
marks or signatures. Von Hmnboldt caUs attention to its resem
blance to markings on rock made by Scandina-vian peoples, and a
Committee of the Rhode Island Historical Society opens the way
by a new drawing to the promulgation of the celebrated theory that
was destined to appear next in order, namely, that Thorfinn the
Norseman made the record in the year 1008.
Besides this last named opinion, we have yet to meet the conten-

» See pp. 109-110, above.
' Stark is another believer in the Phoenicians.

148 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Jan.
tion by Jomard in 1840 that the inscription was made by the an
cient Libyans; another advocated in 1863 that it was the work of
a Roman Catholic missionary at some time about 1520; still others
by Onffroy de Thoron that it had a Phcenician origin, and by Lundy
that it was due to Chinese travellers; and the development of a
better comprehension of what the Indians themselves actually ac
complished. These later periods of discussion will not be lacking in
interest. They witness the hottest and most prolific controversies
that the hoary rock has occasioned; the announcement by Rafn
that aroused so tremendous an interest and so protracted a dispute,
influencing belief strongly even down to the present day; and the
making of numerous new reproductions, including the introduction
of photography. These and other features wiU render the con
tinuation of our narrative at least not less absorbing and instructive
than it has been thus far.
List op Plates ACCOMPANTiNa this Paper
iXIX Stiles's Drawing, June 6, 1767, from the original in the Yale Uni
versity Library, between pages 50-51.
XX StUes's Drawing, July 15, 1767, from the original in the Yale Uni
versity Library, between pages 58-59.
XXI Stiles's Drawing, July 16, 1767, from the original in the possession of
the Massachusetts Historical Society, between pages 66-67.
XXI Stiles's Drawing, July 16, 1767, dorse, from the original in the posses
sion of the Massachusetts Historical Society, between pages 66-67.
XXII SewaU's Drawing, 1768, from the original in the Peabody Museum,
Harvard University, between pages 74r-75.
XXII Lort's Reproduction of Sewall's Drawing, 1768, from Archaeologia,
1787, VIII, Plate XIX, between pages 74-75.
XXIII Gebelin's Reproduction of Sewall's Drawing, 1768, from Gebelin's
Monde Primitif, 1781, VIII, Planche I, between pages 82-83.
XXIII Dammartin's Reproduction of Gebelin's Reproduction of SewaU's
Drawing, 1768, from Dammartin's ExpUcation de la Pierre de
Taunston, 1838, Planche 1, between pages 82-83.
XXrV Winthrop's FuU Size Impression from Dighton Rock, 1788, as panto-
graphicaUy reduced by him, from Memoirs of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, 1804, II, Part II, between pages 90-91.
XXV BayUes-Smith-West-Gooding-BayUes Drawing, 1789, the Smith-
StUes copy, from the original in the possession of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, between pages 98-99.
XXV Drawing of 1789, the Smith-Upham copy, from the original in the
possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, between pages
98-99.

1917] MIDDLE PERIOD OF DIGHTON ROCK HISTORY 149
XXVI Drawing of 1789, the Gooding copy, from the original in the posses
sion of Miss Sophia F. Brown, between pages 106-107.
XXVI Drawing of 1789, the Webb copy, from Antiquitates Americanffi, 1837,
Tab. XII, No. VIII, between pages 106-107.
XXVII Harris's Copy, about 1807, of the Alphabetic Characters shown on
Winthrop's Drawing of 1788, from the original in the Harvard Col
lege Library, facing page 114.
XXVIII KendaU's Painting in OU, 1807, from the original in the Peabody
Museum, Harvard University, between pages 122-123.
XXIX KendaU's Engraving from his Painting in OU, 1807, from Memoirs
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1809, III, Fig. 13,
between pages 130-131.
XXX Rafn's Reproduction of Lithograph by Job Gardner, 1812, from Anti
quitates Americanse, 1837, Tab. XI, No. VII, between pages 138-139.
XXX HUl's presentation of the Job Gardner Drawing of 1812, with dotted
lines added by E. B. Delabarre in places where some of Gardner's
lines were omitted by HUl, from Ira Hill's Antiquities of America
Explained, 1831, between pages 138-139.
XXXI Dammartin's "Second Plate," explanatory of his Interpretation, from
Dammartin's ExpUcation de la Pierre de Taunston, 1838, Planche
2, between pages 146-147.
XXXI Rafn's Reproduction of SewaU's Drawing, 1768, from Antiquitates
Americanse, 1837, Tab. XI, No. IV, between pages 146-147.

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