ANCIENT COPPER-MINES OF ISLE ROY ALE. 61 j 



in his " Travels," page 195, states that the Indians obtained copper at 

 Lake Superior, " which they made into bracelets, spoons, etc." De 

 Soto found copper hatchets in possession of some of the tribes along 

 the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which they stated they obtained from 

 a province called Chisca, far to the north. Claude Allouez, in 1666, 

 visited Lake Superior, and states that " it happens frequently that 

 pieces of native copper are found, weighing from ten to twenty pounds. 

 I have seen several such pieces in the hands of savages; and, since they 

 are very superstitious, they esteem them as divinities, or as presents 

 given to them to promote their happiness, by the gods who dwell be- 

 neath the water. For this reason they j^reserve these pieces of copper 

 wrapped up with their most precious articles. In some families they 

 have been kept for more than fifty years ; in others they have de- 

 scended from time out of mind, being cherished as domestic gods. 

 For some time there was seen near the shore a large rock of copper, 

 with its top rising above the water, which gave an opportunity for 

 those passing by to cut pieces from it ; but when I passed that vicinity 

 it had disappeared. I believe that the gales, which are frequent, like 

 those of the sea, had covered it with sand. Our savages tried to per- 

 suade me that it was a divinity who had disappeared, but for what 

 cause they were unwilling to tell " (Foster and Whitney's " Report on 

 Lake Superior," Part I, page T). Dablon, in his " Relation " for 1669- 

 '70, states that " the savages did not agree as to the source of the cop- 

 per. Some say that it is where the river [Ontonagon] begins, others 

 that it is close to the lake, in the clay, and others at the forks and 

 along the eastern branch of the river." Again, Dablon gives an ac- 

 count of its being reputed to occur on an island about forty or fifty 

 leagues from the Saut toward the north shore, opposite a place called 

 Missippicoatong (Michipicoten ?). The savages related that the isl- 

 and was a floating island, sometimes near and at other times far off. 

 These statements, with other particulars, make it very probable that 

 the Indians of Lake Superior were familiar with the localities prior to 

 their acquaintance with the French, and that the place here described 

 can be no other than the even then celebrated mines of Isle Royal. 



Jacques Cartier in 1535 spent the winter at or near Quebec, and 

 learned several facts concerning copper that was in possession of the 

 Indians, which he has given in his "Brief Recital." They made an 

 effort to explain to him where the copper came from. They gave 

 Cartier to understand that there were large quantities where they 

 obtained it, situated on a bank of a river near a lake. One of the 

 chiefs drew from a sack a piece of copper a foot long and gave to 

 Champlain. "This was quite pure and very handsome." He said 

 they had " gathered it in lumps, and having melted it spread it out 

 in sheets, smoothing it with stones." * The Indians at Montreal and 



* Champlain's "Voyage du Sieur de Champlain," Paris, 1613, p. 246, as quoted by 

 Slafter. 



