ON THE STONE AGE. 79 



ouly to be foiiud iu .situ in volcauic regions, but met with in manulaotured forms in 

 many diverse regions, romote from the obsidian qviarries. Dr. Gr. M. Dawson informs me 

 that, in 1875 and 1870, whilr travelling along various Indian trails and routes in British 

 Columbia, west of Fraser River, and between lats. 52° and 54", chips and Hakes of obsid- 

 ian were not uufiequently observed. The Tiuué Indians stated that the material was 

 obtained from a mountain near the headwaters of the Salmon River (about long. 125° 40', 

 lat. 52° 40'), which was formerly resorted to for the pur^jose of procuring this prized 

 material.' The Indian name of this mountain is Bece, and Dr. Dawson further notes the 

 suggestive fact that this word is the same with the Mexican (Aztec?) name for 'knife.' 

 Mr. T. C. Weston, of the Geological Survey, also noted, iu 1883, the finding of a flake of 

 obsidian in connection with a layer ofbutfalo bones, occurring in alluvium, and evidently 

 of considerable antiquity, near Fort McLeod, Alberta. The nearest source of such a 

 •material is the Yellow^stone Park region. 



Copper was procured by the tiibes on the Pacific coast from some still undetermined 

 region accessible to them. The native copper of the Lake Superior mines, as is well 

 known, was worked extensively by its ancient miners, and undoubtedly formed a valu- 

 able object of traffic throughou.t the region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries, 

 and along the whole eastern routes to the seaboard. But, with the imperfect resources 

 of the native miners, it was a costly rarity, procurable only in small quantities by barter 

 with the tribes settled on the shores of Lake Superior. Axe-blades, spear-heads, knives, 

 gorgets, armlets, tubes and beads, all fashioned out of the native copper solely with the 

 hammer, have been recovered from ancient grave-mounds and ossuaries in the valleys of 

 the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and their tributaries ; and to the 

 west of the Rocky Mountains, copper implements again occur manufactured from metal 

 derived from some native source on the Pacific slope. The copper was, no doubt, 

 recognized as a malleable rock, differing from all others in its ductility, and consequent 

 reducability, with the aid of a hammer-stone, to any desired form. The ancient miners 

 of Lake Superior acquired the art of fashioning it into the most suitable tools for 

 their mining operations, and were probably the manufacturers of most of the widely dif- 

 fused copper implements. But for general purposes, both of industry and war, American 

 man had to be content with the more abundant chert, hornstone, and quartzite. These 

 were, therefore, iu universal demand, and must have been industriously collected in 

 those localities w^here they abound, and disposed of by a regular system of exchange for 

 furs, Avampum, or other objects of barter. Mr. W. H. Dall, in his report on " The Tribes 

 of the Extreme North-West," notes the absence in the Aleutian Islands of any stone, such 

 as serpentine, fit for making such celts or adzes, as he recovered from the shell-mounds. 

 "They were," he says, " probably imported from the continental Innuit at great co.st, and 

 very highly valued ;" and on a subsequent page he adds : " The intertribal traffic I have 

 referred to is universal among the Innuit." 



The occurrence of well-stored caches iu some of the ancient mounds of the Ohio 

 valley, as well as their repeated discovery in other localities, accords with the idea of 

 systematised industrial labour, and the storing away of the needful supplies for 

 agricultural and domestic operations, and for war. Messrs. Squier and Davis, iu their 



' Report of Progress Geo). Surv. Can., 1S7G-77, p. 79. '' Tribes of the Extreme North- West, pp. 81, 82. 



