CHAPTER XI. 



IMPLEMENTS OF M E T A L . 



The first inquiry suggested by an inspection of the mounds and other earthworks 

 of the West, relates to the means at the command of the builders in constructing 

 them. However numerous we may suppose the ancient people to have been, 

 we must regard these works as entirely beyond their capabilities, unless they 

 had some artificial aids. As an agricultural people, they must have possessed 

 some means of clearing the land of forests and of tilling the soil. We can hardly 

 conceive, at this day, how these operations could be performed without the aid 

 of iron ; yet we know that the Peruvians and Mexicans, whose monuments emu- 

 late the proudest of the old world, were wholly unacquainted with the uses of that 

 metal, and constructed their edifices and carried on their agricultural operations 

 Avith implements of wood, stone, and copper. They possessed the secret of hard- 

 ening the metal last named, so as to make it subserve most of the uses to which 

 iron is applied. Of it they made axes, chisels, and knives. 



The mound-builders were acquainted with several of the metals, although they 

 do not seem to have possessed the art of reducing them from the ores. Imple- 

 ments and ornaments of copper are found in considerable abundance among 

 their remains ; silver is occasionally found in the form of ornaments, but only to 

 a trifling amount; the ore of lead, galena, has been discovered in considerable 

 quantities, but none of the metal has been found under such circumstances as to 

 establish conclusively that they were acquainted with the art of smelting it. No 

 iron or traces of iron, except with the recent deposits, have been discovered ; nor 

 is it believed that the race of the mounds had any knowledge of that metal. The 

 copper and silver found in the mounds Avere doubtless obtained in their native 

 state, and afterwards worked without the intervention of fire. The locality from 

 which they were derived seems pretty clearly indicated by the peculiar mechanico- 

 chemical combination existing, in some specimens, between the silver and copper, 

 which combination characterizes only the native masses of Lake Superior. In 

 none of the articles found is there evidence of welding, nor do any of them appear 

 to have been cast in moulds. On the contrary, they seem to have been hammered 

 out of rude masses, and gradually and with great labor brought into the required 

 shape. The lamination, resulting from hannnering the baser metals while cold, is 

 to be observed in nearly all the articles. But, notwithstanding the disadvantages 

 which they labored under, the mound-builders contrived to produce some very 

 creditable specimens of workmanship, displaying both taste and skill. 



No articles composed entirely of silver have been discovered : the extreme 

 scarcity of that metal seems to have led to the utmost economy in its use. It is 



