Book Notices

Horned Snakes and Axle Grease: A Roadside Guide to the Archaeology, History and Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon

By Jerry D.Spangler and Donna K.Spangler (Salt Lake City:Uinta Publishing,2004.vi + 190 pp.$16.95.)

Nine Mile Canyon is one of the most impressive concentrations of archaeological and rock art sites in the world.There are an estimated one thousand rock art sites with more than ten thousand images and countless residences, pithouses,granaries,storage sites,towers,lookout stations,and other evidences of prehistoric and historic activity in the canyon.This nicely illustrated book is divided into two major parts:the first seven chapters look at the canyon’s environment,early scientific attempts to study the canyon,the Fremont culture,more recent archaeological interpretations of the canyon,hunting and gathering in the canyon,the arrival of Euroamericans,and classifying rock art styles.The second part of the book is a roadside guide to eighty-five sites within the canyon.A narrative description,photograph,driving distance,location,access,and ownership status is provided for each of the sites.

Karl Bodmer’s North American Prints

Edited by Brandon K.Ruud,Annotations by Marsha V.Gallagher,Essays by Ron Tyler and Brandon K.Ruud,Preface by J.Brooks Joyner.(Omaha:Joslyn Art Museum and Lincoln:The University of Nebraska Press, 2004.xvi + 382 pp.$150.00.)

As a twenty-two year old Swiss artist,Karl Bodmer was employed by the German scientist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied to accompany his 1832-34 expedition to the interior of North America and create a “faithful and vivid image”of America and its people.After landing in Boston and making their way to the Mississippi River,the party of Europeans journeyed up the Missouri River from St.Louis to Fort McKenzie near the Great Falls in Montana.The paintings by Karl Bodmer played an important role in shaping European views of Native Americans and the American West.This beautifully illustrated over-size book reproduces the eighty-one images painted by Bodmer and stands as a companion volume to an earlier 1984 publication entitled Karl Bodmer’s America.