478 WHITTLESEY ON THE WEAPONS AND 



If the collection of Dr. Reynolds originally belonged to the race of the Mounds and the 

 ancient miners, the remarks I have already made upon the use of such weapons will apply 

 to them. They may have been designed for dispatching wild animals only ; the}' are not so 

 exclusively warlike as to warrant us in coming to a certain conclusion that they are imple- 

 ments of war. 



In Europe, ethnological writers distinguish the progress of mechanical arts among men as 

 the " Ages of Stone," of " Bronze," and " Iron." 



In the Western States the ancient inhabitants did not follow this order of progress, or 

 rather did not progress, but relapsed. Here the age of copper corresponds to the European 

 "Age of Bronze," to which the Age of Stone has here succeeded. The only metals the 

 mound-builders have left us are native silver and copper. They know no alloys of the latter 

 metal, as the Eastern nations did. Copper was sometimes melted accidentally in burning 

 the rock, as it is now upon the calcining pile ; but the old miners never turned this fact to 

 account by melting ore for the purpose of refining it, neither did they possess metallurgy 

 enough to reduce lead ore. 



On the old continents, where only the ores of copper were known, having none in a native 

 state, they were compelled to melt it. Thus they soon discovered the alloys of tin, lead, 

 and zinc, of which their mechanical tools were made. Here the ancients had nothing harder 

 than native copper. The Age of Stone is generally considered as the most ancient and 

 primitive condition of man. This is represented by stone-axes, but more particularly by 

 flint implements, such as knives, hatchets, arrows, and spear-heads ; but the flint implements 

 of Ohio appear to be almost exclusively the work of the present race of Indians. 



No one can affirm that there were not human beings on this soil before the race of the 

 mounds; for although there are no sufficient evidences of such a people, modern researches 

 all tend to increase the antiquity of man. Where these investigations will terminate it is 

 not easy to divine. The flint implements of the recent drift period in England and France 

 suggest the idea of man's presence on the earth, at a period as remote as the era of the 

 Mastodon, Megatherium, Megalonyx, and many other extinct animals. 



But in this country the most ancient tools are no more ancient than the artificial struc- 

 tures of man. Among those which were wrought of stone, there are very few which are 

 conclusively shown to belong to the mound period. Of those which Mr. Squier has de- 

 scribed, nearly all were fabricated from quartz or obsidian. Very few of the flint implements 

 which are so abundant in the Northern States can be traced to the Mounds. No race has 

 been known to be so low in mechanical skill as not to make tools of flint. Such tools are 

 an evidence not of an elevated but a debased condition. 



The Esquimaux of the North and the digger tribes of California are skilful in developing 

 perfect arrow-heads from nodules of flint. All the contrivances of the race of the Mounds 

 intended for practical purposes, display skill of a higher order. In the instances where 

 cutting implements of stone are found in their works, they do not appear to have been for 

 general use either in peace or war. 



This people had a passion for the ornamental ; they were also of an agricultural genius, 

 which indicates peace and quietness. There are abundant evidences that they were highly 

 religious. Their native ingenuity was not exhausted in contrivances for successful hunting, 

 but for successful cultivation of the soil. About one half of their great earthworks appear 

 to have been connected with religious observances or with reverence for the dead. Prep- 



