224 pROCEEDiyos of the Canadian institute. 



formation (in places easily traced on both sides of the great synclinal 

 trough of Lake Superior) the vapours or gases formed bubbles which 

 rose to near the surface of this viscous mass, and the resulting cavities 

 have through processes obscurely known and lengthy to describe, be- 

 come filled up with native copper. These are the well known amyg- 

 daloidal beds. They are well developed on the south shore, but there 

 too we have the copper and sand-stone conglomerate of the Koeweenaw 

 formation, in which are the Calumet and Hekla and Eed Jacket 

 Mines, which is more profitable to work. On the north side the 

 copper is altogether in the amygdaloidal formations, and their prin- 

 cipal exposui-e is on the American Isle Royale — the old Minong 

 Island.* 



This paper should not be closed without some reference to what is 

 called " the granite country " to the north and west of the Kaminis- 

 tiquia slates. You pass through it on the C. P. R., between Port 

 Arthur and Rat Portage. It bears the plainest marks of the most 

 terrible glaciation — long, and I dare think oft repeated. Bare 

 rounded hummocks of rock, like a sea with crossing swells, lie all 

 around you. Lakelets without number, scooped out by departed 

 bergs, dot the great monotonous expanse. The Lake of the Woods 



* This was the principal source of the copper the Indians used, though they had extensive 

 mines at Ontonagon and other places. These fellows had a great eye for surface indications, 

 they had to be observant because of the great labor involved in their work, and the terrible loss 

 if it should be wasted. When the whites took to mining on Lake Superior, they used to look 

 fo)- the Indian mining pits, and if they had not been finished there would surely be copper 

 within a short distance of the bottom. The Indians mined by making files on the rock, 

 throwing water on the heated surface to break it, then pounding it with their green-stone 

 hammers. One pit was found on Isle Royale in 1870, filled up with the accumulations of leaf 

 mould for centuries on which pine trees 2 feet in diameter were growing. It was 100 feet across, 

 nearly circular, 20 feet c^eep. At the bottom was a mass of copper, raised upon skids, and 

 weighing over 16 tons. Lying in the hole were handspikes, 7 or 8 feet long. Both skids and 

 bars were thoroughly impregnated with copper solutions. The two skids were 10 or 12 feet 

 long, 8 or 9 inches thick ; the marks of knife or hatchet were visible on them, and on the hand- 

 sjjikes which are now in the Detroit Museum. The copper mass showed signs of ha\ing been 

 hammered all over with stone hammers, of which dozens were lying around. This mass was 

 raised, sent by steamer to Detroit, and offered to the Council to be put up as a monumental 

 base in front of the City Hall, but the proposition was not entertained and it was sent to 

 Wyandotte to be smelted. Mr. Shortissof this city saw it on Isle Royale, and saw it with the 

 stamp mark of its weight at Wyandotte. It has been a theory of some archseologists that the 

 men who did this work were Toltecs from Mexico, but I think it was the work of ordinary 

 Indian tribes. No mining colony would live on Isle Royale during winter ; I have found the 

 trail by which they came to a point about a dozen miles from Grand Marais where they crossed 

 in canoes ; they were therefore canoe Indians, inhabitants of the forest regions, not of the 

 prairie or of the cultivated lands of Mexico. I have examined also into the reports cf an- 

 cient silver diggings, but only to discredit them. 



