ANCIENT COPPER-MINES OF ISLE ROY ALE. 603 



of these excavations bore the marks of an axe, the bit of which must 

 have been about two inches in width. Fragments of charcoal and 

 partially consumed sticks abound. The bark of the white birch is still 

 preserved, though the interior woody portion is wholly rotted. At 

 McCargoe's Cove, Captain William Jacka discovered a wooden shovel 

 or paddle, which showed by its worn and battered side that it had been 

 used in moving dirt. The blade was four and three quarters inches 

 wide, and about twelve inches long. The handle had been broken, 

 but still showed the length of about a foot. It was all i^erfectly 

 wrought and smooth, and very true in form. A rounded ridge on the 

 upper and lower sides of the blade extended along its middle, tapering 

 off along the same sides of the shaft or handle upward. It was wet 

 and swollen when found, but, on drying, it shrank to a width of three 

 fourths of an inch, and curled out of shape. A restoration of this 

 ancient paddle or shovel is seen in Fig. 2, as drawn under the direc- 



FiG. 2. Ancient Paddle, used bt the Miners on Isle Eoyale tor moving Dirt. 



tion of Captain William Jacka, and a cross-section of the blade in Fig. 

 3 : a represents the upper side of the blade, and the ridge, evidently 

 designed to strengthen the instrument, extends to within an inch or 

 two of the end, and gradually and smoothly sinks to the level of the 

 surface. This shovel was found within a few feet of one of the large 

 masses of copper, in the summer of 1879. 



Dr. G. K. Galley also discovered a j^iece of string, about a foot long, 

 made of some raw-hide, supposed to be of the caribou, tied in the mid- 



FiG. 3. Transverse Section of the Blade of Ancient Miner's Tool, from Isle Rotale. 



die by " a square knot and a half -hitch." This lay under one corner 

 of the copper mass found in May last (1879), and seemed to break on 

 being pulled out, but the remainder could not be secured. When ex- 

 amined, this string seemed to possess the fiber and much of the strength 

 of dried raw-hide, a circumstance that will not allow the assignment of 

 a very great antiquity to the date of the last mining. Caribou were 

 on the island till a few years ago, and are now common on the shore 

 directly north of the island. 



In regard to the main implements of the mines, the stone hammers, 

 they seem not to have been made for the purpose for which they were 

 used. Great numbers of them are found in moving the dirt which the 

 miners handled. They are of various sizes and forms, but generally 



