5 
The mining operations of our ancient Americans were so 
extensive, that most of the important deposits of copper ou 
Lake Superior, hal been not only discovered, but worked by 
them. 
The working of the oil wells by the mound-builders, had 
not perhaps been noticed by others, but Professor Newberry 
asserted it from observations he had himself made. On the 
bottom Jands of Oil Creek, below Titusville, he had, in 1860, 
noticed that the ground in the primeval hemlock forest was 
pitted in a peculiar way, the pits two or three feet deep, eight 
or ten feet in diameter, and almost contiguous. These were 
proved (by excavations made preparatory to boring oil wells) 
to be the remains of ancient wells or pits sunk in the alluvial 
clay. One of these, opened to the depth of twenty-seven 
feet, was cribbed up with timber, and contained a ladder like 
those found in the ancient mines of Lake Superior, formed 
from the trunk of a tree on which branches were left project- 
ing six or eight inches. Professor Newberry had subsequent- 
ly seen simular pits to these, around the oil springs of Mecca 
and Grafton, Ohio, and at Knniskillen, Canada West. In the 
latter locality, a modern oil well cut into the circumference 
of an ancient one, and this was found to be filled with sticks 
and rubbish. A» pair of deer’s horns were taken out thirty- 
six feet below the surface. 
The lead vein in Kentucky, to which reference had been 
made, had been worked by an open cut several hundred 
yards in length. This was now a ditch some feet in depth, 
with a ridge of material thrown out on either side, the whole 
was covered by forest, and trees three feet in diameter were 
growing upon the ridges of rejected rubbish. 
Dr. Tellkampf and the President, made some further re- 
marks relative to the celebrated ‘ Hydrachos,’ exhibited 
many years since by Dr. Koch, and spoke of the hesitancy 
with which any evidence coming from that quarter should be 
received. 
