THE ONTONAGON COPPER BOWLDER. 1025 



Doctor Henry R. Schoolcraft, who was a member of the Cass exijedi- 

 tioD, says that the bowlder was found on the edge of the river, directly 

 opposite an island and at the foot of a lofty clay bluff, the face of which 

 appears at a former time to have slipped into the river, carrying with 

 it detached blocks and rounded masses of granite, hornblende, and 

 other rock, and with them the mass of copper in question. " The shape 

 of the rock," he says, "is very irregular. Its greatest length is 3 feet 

 8 inches; its greatest breadth, 3 feet 4 inches, and it may altogether 

 contain 11 cubic feet. In size it considerably exceeds the great mass 

 of native iron found some years ago upon the banks of the Eed Eiver, 

 in Louisiana, and now deposited among the collections of the New 

 York Historical Society, but, on account of the admixture of rocky 

 matter, is inferior in weight. Henry, who visited it in 176G, estimates 

 its weight at 5 tons; but, after examining it with scrupulous attention, 

 I do not think the weight of metallic copper in the rock exceeds 2,200 

 pounds. The quantity may, however, have been much diminished 

 since its first discovery, and the marks of chisels and axes upon it, with 

 the broken tools lying around, prove that portions have been cut off 

 and carried away."' 



Schoolcraft calls attention to the fact that the connection of the 

 bowlder with substances foreign to the immediate section of the 

 country where it lies, ''indicates a removal from its original bed, while 

 the intimate connection of the metal and matrix, and the complete 

 envelopment of individual masses of copper by the rock, point to a 

 common and contemporaneous origin, whether that be referable to the 

 agency of caloric or water." 



Schoolcraft gives a view of the copper rock (see Plate 2) taken from 

 a point below the mass of copper, looking up the river; and from the 

 picture one readily understands with what difficulty the mass was 

 removed. The story of that removal is now to be told. 



The party sent by Cass were not so fortunate as he anticipated they 

 would be. They cut about thirty cords of wood, which they placed 

 about the bowlder, and then set fire to the pile. When the copper was 

 well heated, they dashed water upon it, but the only result was to 

 detach pieces of quartz rock adhering to the native copper. The party, 

 having become disheartened, left the country, having moved the rock 4 

 or 5 feet from the bank of the river; nor did the Barbeau party, who 

 went from Sault Ste. Marie two years later, have any better success. 

 It so happened, however, that Mr. Joseph Spencer, a member of the 

 Cass expedition, told the story of the copper rock to Mr. Julius Eldred, 

 a hardware merchant of Detroit; and for sixteen years this enter- 

 prising man schemed and planned how he might succeed where others 

 had failed.^ 



' Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern regions of the United 

 States, etc. Albany, 1821, pp. 175-178. 

 2 John Jones, Jr., in the Noav York Weekly Herald, October 28, 1843. 

 NAT MUS 95 65 



