The Mount Pisgah (U.S.) Stone Carvings

Abstract

THE number of NATURE dated June 15 (p. 160) contains some statements relating to the curious stone carvings discovered by Mr. M. S. Valentine in the neighbourhood of Mount Pisgah, North Carolina, and now exhibited by him in Europe. Before leaving the United States, Mr. Valentine brought his specimens to Washington, in order to have them examined by Prof. Baird, the Director of the United States National Museum, and by myself. I am therefore enabled to express an opinion concerning them. Having been for many years in charge of the largest existing collection of North American antiquities, I can safely assert that they are totally abnormal in character, that is, unlike any pre-Columbian stone carvings thus far found in the United States. They neither show the characteristics of the stone sculptures discovered in mounds, nor do they resemble the well known specimens of modern Indian art. In short, they are not typical at all, unless, indeed, we deem them sufficiently, important to form a type for themselves. Such an importance, however, I cannot concede to them, believing that they originated in comparatively modern, certainly in post-Columbian, times, and were made by a few individuals of the Indian, or, perhaps, even of the Caucasian, race. The rude attempts at imitating animals of the Old World are conclusive evidences that the makers either had seen such animals, or knew at least that they existed.