9 A NCI E N T MINING 



probabl) been separated by the same cause that gave rise to that formation which 

 geologists call the "drift." 



The agent, whatever it was, that broke off fragments from the cocks, nol onlj on 

 Lake Superior but further north, and transported them in the shape of boulders, 

 sand, and gravel, as far south as the valley of the Ohio, also bore along the con- 

 tents oi the mineral veins which those rocks contained. Pieces of native copper 

 are well calculated to resist the severe attrition to which transported materials are 

 subjected. Masses of it have been found not far removed from the mineral range, 

 weighing 3000 lbs., and others at a greater distance have been taken from the beds 

 of rivers and from the beach of the lake weighing 1500 and 800 pounds. Others 

 again of less size have been recovered from the gravel of the .Menominee River, 

 near the shores of Green Day, and at Sheboygan Falls near the town of Sheboygan 

 <.n Lake Michigan. Professor J. Brainard, of Cleveland, has a piece weighing five 

 or six pounds which was found five feet beneath the surface in the drift gravel of 

 Rocky River, Medina County, Ohio. 



Had the Indians, the French, or the Jesuits of earl)' times, discovered copper 

 on the shores of Lake Michigan or of Lake Erie, not knowing or supposing the 

 metal could exist except in mines, they would probably have spoken of it as bavin- 

 been found in a mine. The attention of the fathers was not particularly called to 

 the subject of mineralogy, and although they were learned men, their knowledge 

 of geology must have been very limited, for this science had not at that time- 

 assumed a place in the schools. 



As to the accounts given by savages, every one who has had much intercourse 

 with them, knows that great allowance must be made for their want of knowledge 

 and their tendency to embellishment and exaggeration. I have listened to many 

 wonderful tales concerning distant mineral riches. An aged Chippeway, by the 

 name of Kundickan, whom 1 met on the Ontonagon in 18-45, stated that as he 

 was one day sailing along the western shore of the Gogebic (or Akogcbe) Lake, at 

 the head of the west branch of that river, he heard an explosion on the face of 

 a rocky cliff that overlooked the water, and saw pieces of something fall at a dis- 

 tance from him, both in the lake and on the beach. When he had found some of 

 them, they proved to be a white metal, like "Shuneaw" (money), which the white 

 man gives to the Indians at La Pointe. There are good reasons why the old 

 missionaries should have had greater confidence in such stories than we have, and 

 thus have given them a place in their reports to the Propaganda. But with all 

 the intiuencc possessed by them over the Indians, and the closeness of the ties that 

 could not fail to exist between a priest and his converts, no instance is referred to 

 where they were shown minin g operations upon the rocks or veins. 



There is nothing to show that the Indians wrought copper in mines at that time. 

 They had no implements proper for the purpose; nor did they produce samples of 

 metal taken from its position in si/fi. The Indians had" neither copper kettles nor 

 axes when the French came among them; but only rudely fashioned copper knives, 

 that were evidently beaten out from small boulders. Instead of viewing copper as 

 an object of every day use, they regarded it as a sacred Manitou, and carefully 

 preserved pieces of it wrapped up in skin in their lodges for man\ years; and this 



