354 ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



tlwellings, «S:c., are wanting, and the small number of cliaseable animals, 

 indeed, offered but little inducement to a protracted sojourn. The ques- 

 tion, at what time the natives ceased to resort to the mines, has been 

 answered in various ways. Mr. Whittlesey is of opinion that from five 

 to six hundred years may have elapsed since that time, basing his argu- 

 ment on the growth of trees that have sprung up in the rubbish thrown 

 out from the mines ; Mr. Lapham, on the other hand, believes in a con- 

 tinuance of the aboriginal mining operations to more recent periods, and 

 thinks they were carried on by the progenitors of the Indians still in- 

 habiting the neighboring parts, although they possess no traditions 

 relative to such labors. Probably as early as the first half of the sev- 

 enteenth century the French of Canada entertained with those tribes a 

 trade that provided the latter with iron tools, and the ornaments and 

 trinkets so much coveted by the red race. Thus, the inducements to 

 obtain copper ceased, and the practice of procuring it being once dis- 

 continued, a few centuries maj' have sufficed to efface the tradition from 

 the memory of the succeeding generations. Yet, like many other points 

 of North American archaeology, this matter is still involved in obscu- 

 rity, and it would be hazardous, at present, to pronounce any decided 

 opinion on the subject.* 



The occurrence of native copper in the United States is not confined 

 to the shore of Lake Superior. As I am informed by Professor James 

 D. Dana, it is also met, in pieces of several pounds' weight, in the valley 

 of the Connecticut river, and likewise, in smaller pieces, in the State 

 of jSTew Jersey, probably originating in both cases from the red sand- 

 stone formation. Near New Haven, Connecticut, a mass was found 

 weighing ninety pounds. Such copper finds may have furnished a small 

 part of the metal worked by the aboriginal inhabitants; its real source, 

 however, must be sought, in all probability, in the mining district of 

 Lake Superior. It is a remarkable circumstance that the native copper 

 there occurring sometimes incloses small masses of native silver, a jux- 

 taposition which, as I believe, is not to be observed at any other place 

 in the United States ; and just such pieces in which the two natural 

 metals are combined have been taken from a few of the tumuli of 

 Ohio. 



Thougli copi)er articles of Indian origin are comparatively scarce in 



*The ludians certaiuly are a forgetful race. The traveler Stepliens, who has exam- 

 ined and described the grand ruins of ancient buildings in Yucatan and the neighboring 

 states, maintains — and I believe on good grounds — that these erections, at least in 

 part, are the work of the same Indian populations with wUom the conquistadores 

 (Hernandez de Cordova, Grijalva, Cortes) were brought into contact during the six- 

 teenth century. The present descendants of the builders of those magnificent works 

 have preserved no recollections of their more advauced ancestors. AVhenever Stephens 

 asked them concerning the origin of the buildings, their answer was, they had been 

 erected by the antiguos ; but they could not exi^laiu their destination ; they were un- 

 acquainted with the meaning of the statues and fresco paintings, and manifested in 

 general a total ignorance of all that related to their former history. 



