The statue, being colossal and massive, strikes the beholder with
a feeling of awe. Some portions of the features would remind one
of the bust of De Witt Clinton, and others of the Napoleonic type.
My opinion is that this piece of statuary was made to represent
some person of Caucasian origin, and designed by the artist to
perpetuate the memory of a great mind and noble deeds. It would
serve to impress inferior minds or races with the great and noble,
and for this purpose only was sculptured of colossal dimensions.
The block of gypsum is stratified, and a dark stratum passes just
below the outer portion of the left eyebrow, appears again on the
left breast, having been chiseled out between the eyebrow and chest,
and makes its appearance again in a portion of the hip. Some portions
of the strata are dissolved more than others by the action of the water,
leaving a bolder outcroping along the descent of the breast toward
the neck. The same may, less distinctly, be seen on the side of the
face and head. I think that this piece of reclining statuary is not 300
years old, but is the work of the early Jesuit Fathers of this country,
who are known to have frequented the Onondaga Valley from 220
to 250 years ago; that it would probably bear a date in history
corresponding with the monumental stone which was found at
Pompey Hill, in this county, and now deposited in the Academy at
Albany. There are no marks of violence upon the work; had it been
an image or idol of worship by the Indians, it could have been easily
destroyed or mutilated with a slight blow by a small stone, and the
toes and fingers could have been easily broken off.
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