6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In regard to the use of copper, and the mining of it, by the Ameri- 

 can aborigines, may be made the following quotations and references : 



In the " Collections of the New York Historical Society," second 

 series, vol. i, is given a translation of the Italian account of the voy- 

 age of John de Verazzano along the coast of North America, from 

 Carolina to Newfoundland, a. d. 1524. When about at Narragan- 

 sett Bay and Harbor he makes these notes : " We saw upon them [the 

 aborigines] several pieces of wrought copper, which is more esteemed 

 by them than gold, as this is not valued on account of its color, but is 

 considered by them as the most ordinary of the metals, yellow being 

 the color especially disliked by them ; azure and red are those in high- 

 est esteem by them." Further on he says of another tribe : " In this 

 region we found nothing extraordinary except vast forests and some 

 metalliferous hills, as we infer, from seeing that many of the people 

 wore copper ear-rings." 



Henry Hudson's ascent of the river that bears his name is given in 

 the same volume, in the form of a journal kept by Robert Juet, mate. 

 Speaking of the natives, on page 323, Juet says : " They had red cop- 

 per tobacco-pipes, and other things of cojDper they did wear about 

 their necks " ; also, " They have great tobacco-pipes of yellow cop- 

 per " ; also, on page 300, Hudson himself says, " The people had cop- 

 per tobacco-pipes, from which I inferred that coj^j^er might naturally 

 exist there." 



Raleigh observed copper ornaments among the Indians on the 

 coast of the Carolinas ; Granville, in his voyage in 1580, observed 

 copper in the hands of the natives of Virginia, and made an effort to 

 reach the place Avhere they said it was obtained. After a toilsome jour- 

 ney into the interior, of some days' duration, the attempt was abandoned. 

 Heriot's "Voyage," in Pinkerton, vol. xii, p. 594, gives an account of 

 copper found " in two towns one hundred and fifty miles from the 

 main, in the form of divers small copper plates, that are made, we are 

 told by the inhabitants, by people who dwell farther in the country, 

 where they say are mountains and rivers which yield white grains of 

 metal which are deemed to be silver. For confirmation whereof, at 

 the time of our first arrival in the country, I saw two small pieces of 

 silver, grossly beaten, about the weight of a tester [an old coin aboijt 

 the weight of a dime], hanging in the ears of a Wiroance. The afore- 

 said copper we found to contain silver." McKenzie found copper in 

 use among some of the extreme northern tribes, on the borders of the 

 Arctic Sea, according to his " Second Voyage," page 333, as quoted 

 by Squier.* " They point their arrows and spears with it, and work it 

 up into personal ornaments, such as collars, ear-rings, and bracelets, 

 which they wear on their wrists, arms, and legs. They have it in 

 great abundance, and hold it in high estimation." Alexander Henry, 



*" Smithsonian Contributions," vol. ii, p. 117. Bancroft ("Races of the Pacific 

 Slope") mentions the mining of copper on Coppermine River, by existing tribes. 



