ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 351 



bronze, that i:)eculiar composition which the Mexicans and Peruvians 

 employed, their state of civilization doubtless would have been much 

 higher when the whites arrived in their country. They lacked, how- 

 ever, as far as investigations hitherto have shown, the knowledge of 

 rendering copper serviceable to their purposes by the process of melt- 

 ing, contenting themselves by hammering purely metallic masses of 

 copper with great labor into the shapes of implements or articles of 

 decoration. These masses they doubtless obtained principally, if not 

 entirely, from the copper districts of Lake Superior.* Owing to the 

 arborescent or indented form under which the copper occurs in the 

 above-named region, nearly all copper articles of aboriginal origin ex- 

 hibit a distinct laminar structure, though quite a considerable degree of 

 density has been imparted to the metal by continued hammering. It 

 must be admitted, furthermore, that the aborigines had acquired great 

 skill in working the copper in a cold state. From an archajological 

 point of view this peculiar application of natural copper is certainly 

 very remarkable, and, therefore, has often been cited, both by American 

 and European writers. To the native population, however, the com- 

 paratively sparing use of copper cannot have afforded great material 

 aid, and its chief importance doubtless consisted in the promotion of 

 intercourse among the various tribes. 



The first travelers who visited North America saw copper ornaments 

 and other objects made of this metal in the possession of the natives, 

 and very scrupulously mention this fact in their accounts, while they 

 often leave matters of greater importance entirely unnoticed. This can- 

 not surprise us, considering that the first discoverers were possessed of 

 an immoderate greediness for precious metals, and therefore also paid 

 particular attention to those of less value. The Florentine navigator, 

 Giovanni Verazzano, who sailed in 1524, by order of Francis the First 

 of France, along the Atlantic coast of North America for purposes of 

 discovery, noticed, as he states in his letter to the French king, on the 

 persons of the natives pieces of wrought copper, "which they esteemed 

 more than gold." Many of them wore co])per ear-rings.t In the nar- 

 rative which the anonymous Portuguese nobleman, called the Knight of 

 Elvas, has left of De Soto's ill-fated expedition (1539-'43) it is stated 

 that the Spaniards saw, in the province of Cutifachiqui, some copper axes, 

 or chopping knives, which apparently contained an admixture of gold. 

 The Indians pointed to the province of Chisca as the country where 

 the people were familiar with the process of melting copper or another 



* Some of the natives of the northernmost part of the United States, lately pur- 

 chased from Russia, worked copper before the European occupation. Their iudustry 

 was, of course, entirely independent of that here under consideration. (See, for in- 

 stance. Von Wraugell, Biissische Besitzungen an der Nordwesfkmte von Amerika, St. Peters- 

 burg, 1839.) 



+ The Voyage of John de Verazzano, in Collections of the New York Historical So- 

 ciety, Second Series, Vol. I, New York, 1841, pp. 47 and 50. 



