352 iVNCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



metal of a lighter color and inferior hardness.* It is very natnral that 

 these gold-seeking adventurers should have anticipated everywhere 

 traces of that valuable metal ; and concerning the statements of the 

 Indians in relation to the melting, it is well known how apt the crafty 

 natives always were to regulate their answers according to the wishes 

 of the inquirers. Yet, notwithstanding these improbabilities, the fact 

 remains that the natives of the present Southern States used imple- 

 ments of copper some centuries ago. Indeed, I have seen in the col- 

 lection of Colonel Charles C. Jones, of Brooklyn, copper articles of the 

 above description, obtained in the State of Georgia. When Henry 

 Hudson discovered, in 1CU9, the magnificent river that bears his name, 

 he noticed among the Indians of that region pipes and ornaments made 

 of copi)er. ''They had red copper tobacco-pipes, and other things of 

 copper they did wear about their necks." Robert Juet, who served un- 

 der Hudson as mate in the Half-Moon, relates these details in the jour- 

 nal he has left bchind.f Additional statements of similar purport 

 might be cited from the early relations concerning the discovery of 

 iS"orth America. 



While Messrs. Squier and Davis were engaged, more than twenty 

 years ago, in surveying the earthworks of the Mississippi valley, more 

 especially those of the State of Ohio, they found in the sepulchral and 

 so-called sacrificial mounds a number of copper objects, which they have 

 described and figured in the work containing the results of their iuvesti- 

 gations.| They also met small pieces of the unwrought natural metal 

 in some of the mounds. The copper specimens obtained during this sur- 

 vey were formerly in the possession of Dr. Davis, one of the explorers, 

 and I had frequent occasion to examine them. At present they form a 

 part of the Blackmore Museum, at Salisbury, England, to which insti- 

 tute Dr. Davis sold his valuable collection. They are either implements, 

 such as axes, chisels, and gravers; or bracelets, beads, and other probably 

 ornamental objects, exhibiting quite peculiar forms, which were, perhaps, 

 owing to the singular methods employed in fashioning the copper into 

 definite shapes. The axes resemble the flat celts of the European bronze 

 ])eriod. and doubtless were fastened in handles like the latter. Some 

 of the bracelets of the better class are of very g(jod workmanship, the 

 simple rods which form them being well rounded and smoothed, and 

 bent into a regular circle until their en-ds meet. I have seen quite simi- 

 lar bronze bracelets in European collections. The objects just described 

 obviously have been fashioned by hammering; others, however, con- 

 sisting of hammered coi)per sheet, received their final shape by pressure. 

 To these belong certain circular concavo-convex discs, from one andone- 



' Narratives of the Career of Heruando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida, as told 

 by a Knight of Elvas, and in a Relation by Luys Hernandez de Biedma, Factor of 

 the Expedition. Translated by Bnckingham Smith. New York, 1868, p. 72. 



tJonrnal of the Voyage of the Half-Moon, in Collections of the New York Historical 

 Society, Second Series, Vol. I, 1841, p. 323. 



t Ancient Jilonuments of the Mississippi Valley, i^p. 19G-207. 



