ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 5 



was a race more advanced than the Natchez, at least more expert in min- 

 ing, who preceded them, and must have occupied the country for ages, 

 as the following facts will show : 



A recent writer (Jacob Houghton) states that a single district of Isle 

 Royal-, of eighteen square miles extent, had produced for these ancient 

 miners more copper than the total production of richest modern mines of 

 Lake Superior for the space of twenty years. He also says that this 

 region supplied not only this country, but Mexico, the Antilles, Yucatan, 

 Central America, and probably even South America. In this opinion, at 

 least in regard to Mexico, Baron Hellwald concurred when he said* : 

 "• There does not exist any trace of the working of any mine of copper in 

 Mexico by the natives prior to the discovery of America." This im- 

 mense traffic in copper must have preceded both the recent Indians, and 

 the Natchez and their kindred. 



Another theory, just coming into vogue, is that of Rink, a learned 

 Dane, who has spent many years among the Esquimaux, and is quite 

 familiar with their language and traditions. He says that the Esqui- 

 maux, as we know them, are an expiring race ; that they did not always 

 live by the sea shore and on the products of the seal fishery ; that they 

 once had other habits of life, and were forced to migrate northward, 

 having at one time occupied the most of this continent. 



Of this old race our oldest mound builders may have been a part (for 

 I hold that there were two, if not three, races before the present Indians). 

 The points in favor of this supposition are — first, the similarity in the 

 shape of the crania between the Esquimaux and the old mound builders ; 

 second, both people worshipped the sun and moon ; third, both were ex- 

 pert carvers in stone, bone, etc. ; fourth, tradition among the Esquimaux 

 point to a time when they had a way of recording their history. A 

 Catholic Missionary (Rev. Eugene Vetromill) once told Mr. Haven that 

 the Indians of Nova Scotia employed " a series of characters, standing 

 not for ideas but words. "t This, it is likely, they must have borrowed 

 from the Esquimaux, as no modern Indians have been known to have 

 had the like. Again we have good reason for supposing that our mound 

 builders had a written language. Fifth, and lastly, Houghton says that 

 the ancient miners of Lake Superior must have been there soon after the 

 retrogradation of the glaciers, or they never would have discovered the 

 mines of native copper as they did. 



*Compte Rendu du Congress Americanists, ad sess. 1877, Vol. I, p. 51. 

 fProceedings American Antiquarian Society, No. 70, p. 95. 



