ANCIENT COPPER-MINES OF ISLE BO YALE. 609 



of the bast-fibers of certain plants, and have been preserved by " the 

 antiseptic action of the salts of copper," the cloth having been 

 wrapped about copper axes and nuggets prior to being placed in the 

 mounds.* It appears to be "a kind of hemp, possibly the Aiyocy^ium 

 cannahinum^ formerly used by the Aztecs," or perhaps, as suggested 

 by Colonel D. A. Robertson, of St. Paul, the fibers of Urtica gracilis. 

 Cloth of equal fineness is still made by several of the Indian tribes, 

 particularly by the Navajoes of New Mexico ; and nearly all of the 

 tribes are known to have had mats and even carpets, woven of various 

 sedges or of bast-fibers. They are still made by the Chippewa Indians 

 in northern Minnesota. 



The sculptured objects taken from the mounds, even those of the 

 human face, are generally cut in some very soft stone, or are made of 

 clay. They are equaled in skill and design by the sculptured pipes 



YiQ. 8. From photograph of an image found in the valley of Root River, near Lanesboro, Minne- 

 sota, April, 1880. The mound from which it was taken also contained stone arrow-heads, one 

 copper ditto, clay-burned pipes, amous: tlie remains of a large number of human skeletons. 

 The image was evidently made of clay burned to be very hard. The back or reverse side is 

 nearly flat. The nose is partly broken off. 



and hatchets the Indians have been known to make ever since the 

 Columbian discovery, and particularly by those made of the famous 

 red pipestone or Catlinite f of Minnesota. As illustrative of the sculpt- 

 ure of the mound-builders. Fig. 8 is here presented. This is from a 

 photograph of a representation of the human face taken from a mound 



* R. J. Farquharson, " Recent Explorations of Mounds near Davenport, Iowa," 

 " Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science," vol. xxiv, 

 p. 305. 



f Mr. Farquharson (" American Association for the Advancement of Science," vol. xxiv, 

 p. 306) speaks of a green variety of Catlhiife, which, on the contrary, is always red. 

 Other American archaeologists have in the same way spoken of Catlinite (?) pipes found in 

 the mounds, but w^hich by the descriptions given are precluded from being Catlinite. The 

 Chippewa Indians of Minnesota make pipes of a greenish argillitic slate, obtained near 

 VOL. XIX. 39 



