IN NORTH AMERICA. 193 



trenches in the woods had long been covered and contained no visibh; 

 copper. They possessed only an antiquarian interest to which the 

 Indians were strani^ers. and also, as Father Dablon relates, his Indian 

 iViends were not disposed to give more information than they could 

 lielp. 



The first systematic exploring or "i)rospecting" party to search for 

 the Ontonagon lode was sent out from (Quebec about the same year that 

 Father Dablon described the place, viz, 1G()9. The expedition returned 

 without accomplishing its object for want of time, and was met on Lake 

 Erie by La Salle's jyarty going to tne Mississippi. No mining was done 

 there until a hundred years later under Alexander Henry, 



The foregoing extracts from the account of Cartier's voyage, the 

 Abbe Saga rd, the Jesuit Relations, and Margiy, show the continuity 

 of the ancient or pre-Columbian raining on Lake Superior and the mod- 

 ern. As soon as the French arrived at the St. Lawrence in 1535, they 

 found the natives knowing proj)ortionately as much about the distaut 

 source of the copper they i)ossessed as the ordinary e.astern citizen does 

 now. Over a hundred years later, after settlements had been made, 

 there was still living knowledge that copper came from Lake Superior, 

 and especially the Ontonagon River, Avhere it was easy to find float 

 copper. But during this long i)eriod active importation of European 

 articles had been going on so that, as the Chippewa chief exi)lained, 

 native industries, including tlie search for copjter, luid been interrupted. 

 Iron articles, knives, hatchets, weapons, and innununable other desira- 

 ble things made it unnecessary for the Indians to exert themselves in 

 ex])k)iting the old source of supply. Rut when the French began to 

 imiuire for coi)per they were taken to the precise localities where tlie 

 metal had formerly been obtained which, like all nnning districts, were 

 fall of abandoned and forgotten workings, and tliey were shown the 

 metal in i)lace. 



Native copper, as has been said, occurs sparingly in several places 

 in the eastern part of the country. In the Appalachian region ores olt 

 copper occiu" and have been extensively mined, but native copi)er does 

 not occur there except as a mineialogical rarity. Nevertheless it has 

 been suggested that co])per was produced in that ]»art of the country 

 in pre-Columbian times. If tliis were so there should be evidences q; 

 old mines and of smelting operations of some kind, because copper ore 

 must be smelted to produce the nietak No old workings in that region 

 have, however, yet been identified as pre-Columbian copi)er mines, and 

 no trac<>s of aboriginal smelting have be<'n discovered to support the 

 suggestion. Ancient mica mines have, indeed, been discovered in 

 North Carolina which are now worked, but if the Indians rained for 

 copper at all in tiiat nniieral district the fact remains to be i)roved- 

 Moreover, the Smithsonian collection, so far from showing a compara 

 tive abundance of copper articles from tlie Appalachian region, as 

 Avould be ex])e('ted if it had been a center of distribution like Kewee- 

 11. .^lis. lU 13 



