o 



36 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the Indian races never mined for mica or copper, neither did 

 they bury either of these articles with the remains of their 

 distinguished dead. — Larkin, p. 19 



The circumstance of the Conewango and the Red House A'al- 

 leys beino^ on and near the different routes to the soutliern riyers 

 may be the cause of the lavish distribution of copper in those 

 sections. — Larkin, p. 20 



He gave an account of the demolition of a large tumulus in 



the town of Cold Spring about 1820, as told him by the old 



Seneca chief, Gov. Blacksnake: 



Great quantities of relics, such as gorgets, flint axes, arrow- 

 heads, and a great number of copper implements artistically 

 wrought from masses of native copper which was brought from 

 the mines of Lake Superior, w^ere found with the bones. . . So 

 rich was this mound with decaying skeletons and relics of curi- 

 ous workmanship, that nciv, after more than 60 years have 

 passed away, fragments of human bones, arrowheads and cop- 

 per relics are found in large quantities at each successive plow- 

 ing. In the spring of 1879, a few days after the ground had 

 been plowed, in company with two boys we found 15 arrowheads, 

 a curious piece of copper, and nearly a peck of fragments of 

 human bones. — Larkin, p. 23 



In speaking of Oil creek he said: " In the year 1861 1 saw tools 

 found in different places on the creek which were comi)osed of 

 native copper, one of which weighed several pounds. It was 

 something like a drill, rather flat, pointed at one end and ap- 

 peared to have been hardened." — Larkin, p. 81 



Dr Larkin believed that the American elephant was tamed 

 and used by prehistoric races. " Finding the form of an ele- 

 phant engraved upon a copper relic some 6 inches long and 4 

 wide, in a mound on the Red House creek, in the year 1851 and 

 represented in harness with a sort of breast collar with tugs 

 reaching past the hips, first led me to adopt that theory."- — 

 Larkin, pref. The first quotation might imply that he had not 

 seen this; the other that he himself found it. Those acquainted 

 with native copper will at once conclude that some ingenious 

 imposition w^as i)ractised on him; one of those which every anti- 

 quarian sometimes encounters. 



Fig. 17 is not so well finished as some of this type and the 

 socket is square at the base. It is in the Bigelow collection 



