Perhaps no human document has ever appealed more strongly to the human intellect and imagination of the student, the scholar, and the layman of all countries than have the hitherto untranslatable inscriptions on that monument of the past, Dighton Rock. This mute
mysterious record ot dead days, often believed also to be one of dead
tongues and dead pepples, stands near the northwesterly corner of Assonet
Neck, on Taunton River, Berkley, Massachusetts. For far more than
two centuries it has given rise to numberless and conflicting theories as
to the language, matter, and translation of the petroglyph. The author.
ship of the characters cut into the stone has been attributed variously
ro prehistoric man, to the inhabitants of lost Atlantis, to the ten untraced
tribes of Isracl, to the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Norsemen, the
Druids, to pirates, to missionaries, to the ancient Romans, and even to
Christ Himself.
The clashing views of former investigators awakened in Dr.
Delabarre some thirteen years ago a desire to run to earth every written
account of this bafling inscribed rock. But his researches uncovered
so many unreconcilable solutions of the problems involved, and so con-
vinced him of the inadequacy of previous investigations, that he deter-
mined to undertake a thorough investigation of his own, in order to
satisfy himself as to the true meaning of the intricate incisions. This
illuminating volume is the result of that determination, a volume that
places the earliest record known in New England in the dignified posi-
rion it should assume in the world of archaology.
Although the major part of this book by Dr. Delabarre is devoted
to Dighton Rock, his researches, as the sub-title of the work indicates,
were also directed toward other inscribed rocks of New England; the
Mount Hope Rock, the Written Rocks of Tiverton, Mark Rock in
Warwick, and miscellaneous written rocks and stones, each bearing rec.
ords that challenge attention.
Indeed, in order to have an appreciation of the interest aroused by
Dighton Rock alone, one has but to consider the volume of literature
that has grown about the theme. An important feature of this book
is comprised in the Bibliographies compiled by the author. More chan
600 titles are cited, beginning with Cotton Mather first printed account
and illustration of the inscription, 1690, and extending to the present
time. In these Bibliographies will be found publications on the subject
of the petroglyph that have appeared every year since 1800. In them
Dr. Delabarre is represented by 16 titles; the first, chronologically, being
his paper on Dighton Rock, read before the Old Colony Historical
Society, October 9, 1915, and the last this volume, which is a new pre-
sentation of the theme, with his latest interpretations. It includes the
Miguel Cortereal reading of one of the records on Dighton Roch, with
fresh evidence that places its validity now practically beyond question:
the decipherment of other records on the same rock: a translation of
the mysterious Mount Hope inscription, and an evaluation of the gen-
eral significance of the other petrogly phi writings of New England.
This masterly historical study of the testimony of the rocks, a sub.
ject of so many-sided an appeal, so fascinating in its archaological and
speculative interest, should command a vast and attentive audience.
The volume is made especially graphic by the 108 illustrations that
beautify and clarify it, comprising maps and charts, reproductions of
representative drawings and photographs of the inscriptions, enlarge-
ments of new photographs enabling the reader to verify the inscriptions,
and other rare and important pictorial matter.
36.00
WALTER
NEALE
PUBLISHER OF GENERAL LITERATURE
37 East 28th Street, New York