Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/236



two appear to have beeen made by bruifling the stone ¥rath some instniment Group three were evidently made by picking into the stone with some flinty or other hard substance, so long ago that the dark gray characters have become somcswhat worn and covered with a coating of black as solid as the stone in which they were carved. They all present the i^pearance of an orderly arranged and do" quent statement One series of these Inscriptions, which begin with a sunrise and extend westward ending In a sunset, seem to Indicate the events of some memorable day. Among the characters which are as well defined as the sculpture in the Roman catacombs of the third centuiy, are a crescent, a five-pointed star, the letters **P*, an **0— 0*\ a pine tree, a coyote head with a cryptic body, a deer, a lizard, a branch of foliage, also a chart approximately two feet wide and three feet long—^presenting apparently the consecutive account of an event full of significance to some intelligent race. Who the people were that carved these ancient iQrmbols, when they lived, or what meaning they strove to convey may never be known. But research promises further light on the interesting life of a people who abode here and flourished in the remote ages.

Prd^ortc Burial Mounds Explored, The earliest e±plorers of Oregon found many small elevations, which because of their' form and contents were termed Prehistoric Burial Mounds. The mounds were usually near streams, and some were covered with big trees; and, strange as may seem, the mounds were of so great age that the oldest Indian had no knowledge respecting their antiquity, which points to the fact that some race which preceded the American Indian might have built and occupied them. Possibly the western Indians are descendants of the Mound Builders. Researches were made in Linn County, Oregon, however, as early as 1883, by Dr. J. L. Hill, J. G. Crawford. G. W. Wright, Rev. P. A. Moses aiid others, which led to discoveries relative to the location, shape, and probable pur-