DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 389
soon to publish the results of his investigations in the field of Brazilian stone inscriptions. In said letter, which was published in the daily press, Ramos calls attention to the fact that he has succeeded in decipher- ing the inscriptions which appear in vols. I and L of the "Revista do Institute Historico do Brasil;" i.e., those of the Gavea mountain and of the deserted city in the Hinterland of Bahia; further all the inscriptions which were copied by P. Francisco de Menezes as well as those of the "Pedra Lavrada" (carved stone) of Parahyba, etc. He has also de- ciphered many symbols and inscriptions on ceramic wares as well as an inscription on the rocks which he recently discovered on the banks of the Rio Urubu. Ramos regards all these inscriptions as prehistoric. In the work which he is about to publish he will add the picture inscrip- tions of Rocky Dell creek (U. S. A.) and that of the island of Lagosta in Dalmatia which were published in "Le Tour du Monde," i. Sem. 1860, and which he likewise claims to have succeeded in deciphering. He recognizes a great similarity between these inscriptions* and those of Brazil. Also the inscriptions of the Rio Chalinga (Chile) which were discussed in Vol. 28, Ser. II of the publications of the Scientific Society of Chile he has deciphered paleographically. Ramos' work will comprise two volumes of 520 pages each and will contain 875 figures. This work, in which the author discusses with great clearness the definite significance of hundreds of Brazilian stone inscriptions will naturally be awaited with much interest by the scientific world.
In a paper presented in 1916 before the 5th Brazilian Geographical Congress of Bahia by the engineer Dr. Theodore Sampaio he discusses the stone inscriptions in the valley of the Paraguassu. In his introduc- tion he calls attention to the two opposite viewpoints obtaining in the interpretations of stone inscriptions of South America on the part of anthropologists and Americanists. Certain ones, among whom we might mention Richard Andree, Garrick Malley, Theodor Koch-Griinberg and the native investigator Dr. Alfredo de Carvalho, are of the opinion that these inscriptions possess no symbolic value, but are simply scrib- blings made on the rocks as a matter of diversion by the natives in order to beguile their many hours of leisure. Other investigators regard these rock inscriptions as symbolic representations dealing with the history of the American peoples; said representations still being meaningless to us due to the fact that we lack as yet the key to their solution. In part, Dr. Sempaio discusses colored representations of the most varied types. Of these he has presented many reproductions. His conclusions, which, to be sure, he declares to be by no means final, are the following:
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