I wrote an article for Dr. Absalom Peter's Magazine, expressing my
dissent from the very fanciful explanations of the Dighton Rock
characters, as given by Mr. Magrusen in the first volume of the Royal
Society of Northern Antiquarians, published at Copenhagen. It appears to
me that those characters (throwing out two or three) are the Indian
_Kekewin_--a species of hieroglyphics or symbolic devices, still in
vogue among them. To this view of the matter Mr. Bancroft assents. "If
you have a proof-sheet of your article on the Daneschrift, send it me.
All they say about the Dighton Rock is, I think, the sublime of
humbuggery."
What is said in the interpreted Sagas, of the Skroellings or Esquimaux
being in New England at the date of Eric's voyage (A. D. 1001) is, I
think, problematical. Those tribes are not known to have extended
further south than the Straits of Belleisle, about 60 deg., or to parts of
Newfoundland. The term deduced from the old journals appear to belong to
the Esquimaux proper, rather than to the New England class of the
Algonquins.
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