Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

486 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
from any accidental hollow at first and then con-
tinually deepened by the pebbles
and sand whirled
round and round in them by the surging and eddying
waves of the cataracts during the season of flood. 1
Although we have no elements wherefrom to
o
determine positively the date and mode of execution
of the picture-writings, those questions seem to me
to have been involved in unnecessary mystery.
The instruments used in scraping such deep lines
in the granite were probably chips of quartz crystal,
which were the hardest cutting-instruments possessed
by the aborigines of South America. In
the Amazonian plain I know of but two extensive
deposits of large rock-crystals one of which is a
good way up the Rio Branco, and the other is at
the foot of Mount Duida, near the village of Esme-
ralda, therefore in the immediate neighbourhood of
the Casiquiari.
on the Pacific side of the Andes, namely,
I know also of but one such deposit
hills of Chongon near Guayaquil ;
in the
yet pieces of
quartz, some of which have served as knives, others
as lance- or arrow-heads, are found strewed about
the sites of ancient towns and settlements through
several degrees of latitude. Whatever the instrument
used by the Indians of the Casiquiari, it is
difficult to assign any limit to the time required for
the execution of the ; figures but any one who has
seen an Indian patiently scraping away for months
at a bow or a lance before bringing it to the desired
or who knows that it has
symmetry and perfection,
taken a lifetime to fashion and bore the white
1
[The supposed tracks of animals are doubtless works of art like the other
figures, probably clue to a desire to imitate the well-formed impressions of feet
that the hunter must continually meet with during his search for game. ED.]