This kind of
writing, if it deserves the name, was common throughout the continent,
and many specimens of it, scratched on the plane surfaces of stones,
have been preserved to the present day. Such is the once celebrated
inscription on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, long supposed to be a record
of the Northmen of Vinland; such those that mark the faces of the cliffs
which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, and those that in Oregon,
Peru, and La Plata have been the subject of much curious speculation.
They are alike the mute and meaningless epitaphs of vanished
generations.
I would it could be said that in favorable contrast to our ignorance of
these inscriptions is our comprehension of the highly wrought
pictography of the Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system.
It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. They
manufactured for writing purposes a thick, coarse paper from the leaves
of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec
book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes.
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