II. COPPEE. 



It is well known that the ^orth American Indians, at least those inhabiting 

 the districts north of Mexico, lived in an age of stone at the time when their 

 country became first known to the whites. They made, however, some use of 

 native copper which they chiefly obtained from the region where Lake Super- 

 ior borders on the northern part of Michigan. The traces of ancient aborigi- 

 nal mining in that district Avere first noticed in 1847, and since that time the 

 subject has been fully treated in various publications, more especially in a 

 memoir by Mr. Charles Whittlesey, forming one of the Smithsonian Contri- 

 butions to Knowledge.^ I^ative copper from other parts of the United 

 States likewise may have been utilized to some extent by the aborigines.^ 

 Copper implements, such as axes or celts, chisels, gravers, knives and points 

 of arrows and spears, together Avith ornaments of various kinds, have been 

 found in mounds and on the surface in difi'erent parts of this country, though 

 not in great abundance, and it does not seem, thei'efore, that copper played an 

 important part in the industrial advancement of the race. The aborigines 

 lacked, as far as investigations hitherto have shown, the knowledge of render- 

 ing copper serviceable to their purposes by the process of melting, contenting 

 themselves by hammei'ing masses of the native metal with great labor into 

 the shapes of implements or of objects of decoration. In short, they treated 

 copper as malleable stone. Copper articles of aboriginal origin generally 

 exhibit a distinct laminar structure, though quite a considerable degree of 

 density has been imparted to the metal by continued hammering. It must be 

 admitted, furthermore, that the natives had acquired great skill in working 

 the copper in a cold state.^ The first voyagers who visited North America 

 (Verazzano, the Knight of Elvas, Captain John Smith, Robert Juet, and 

 others) saw copjDcr ornaments and other objects made of this metal in the 

 possession of the Indians, and there can be little doubt that the manufacture 



•"Ancient Mining on the Shores of Lake Superior," Washington, 18C3. 



'It is sometimes met, in pieces of several pounds' weiglit, in the valley of the Connecticut River, and also 

 in the State of New Jersej', probably originating in both cases from the red sandstone formation. Near 

 New Haven, Connecticut, a mass was found weighing ninety pounds. 



^Mr. J. W. Foster describes and figures in his "Prehistoric Races of the United States," North American 

 copper implements, which, as he thinks, were produced by casting. The subject will require further in- 

 vestigation. 



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