194 PRE-COLUMBIAN COPPER-MINING 



iiaw and Uiitonagon in the North, has remarkably few copper relics 

 from the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Tlie idea 

 doubtless arose from the statements in the accounts of the ^Spanish 

 explorers of this region and of the French and English colonies on the 

 coast. De Soto's march was a continuous pursuit of an ignis fatuiis. 

 He was told that gold or copper and other riches were in the Appala- 

 chians, and was kept i)erpetually on the move after them, while they 

 eluded him in the most tantalizing manner. He did find pearls, and 

 probably in large quantities; the contents of graves show that that 

 form of wealth really existed. But that other form of wealth — "a 

 melting of gold or copper" — which he coveted, kept moving before him 

 from town to town and tribe to tribe all through his weary journey^ 

 and he never found it. The Spaniards on the Florida coast in the follow- 

 ing years were persuaded that there was great mineral wealth of some 

 kind in the Appalachians, and told of a town in the region where the 

 minerals were supposed to be, which they called La Grand Copal. This 

 tovrn was said to be GO leagues northwest of St. Helena, on the South 

 Carolina coast. 



De Soto's march was undertaken in 1539. In 1562 the French estab 

 lished a short lived colony at Port Eoyal, S. C, under Capt. Kibault, 

 which was succeeded two years later by another at the river of May 

 (tlie St. John's), in charge of Eeue Laudonniere, the history of which, 

 with its tragic end, was brought prominently to notice by Parkman 

 some years ago. Laudonniere wrote a full description of the resources 

 of the country, in the course of which he says (Hakluyt's translation), 

 " there is found amongst the savages good quantitie of gold and silver 

 which is gotten outof theshippes that are lost upon the coast, as 1 have 

 understood by the Savages themselves. They use traffique thereof one 

 witli another. And that which maketh me the rather believe it, is that 

 on the coast towards the cape, where commonly the shippes are cast 

 away, there is more store of silver than towards the north. Neverthe 

 less, they say that in the mountains of Appalatcy there are mines of 

 copper, which I thinke to be golde." From these mountains came " two 

 stones of fine christal," which ATere presented to the French, together 

 with a number of pearls, and they learned from the Indians that there 

 was "an infinite quantity of slate stone, wherewith they made wedges 

 to cleave their wood," in the same mountains. A " king" of the coun- 

 try lying near these mountains sent Laudonniere '' a i^lateof a miuerall 

 that came out of this mountaine, out of the foot whereof there runneth 

 a streame of golde or copper, as the savages thinke, out of which they 

 dig up the sand with an hollow and drie cane of reed until the cane be 

 full; afterward theyshake it, and hnde that there are many small graines 

 of copper and silver among tliis sand ; which giveth them to understand 

 that some rich mine must needs be in the mountaine." 



If the Spaniards had not been '' prospecting" through this part of 

 the country twenty years before, this Trould be a most interesting 



