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hammers to be formed into knives, awls and spear-heads, which were 

 prized as being more durable than their ordinary implements of 

 stone. It has been stated that a few copper implements found in 

 Wisconsin show marks of having been cast in a mould, but there 

 does not seem to be sufficient evidence to establish this beyond a 

 doubt. As this metal was obtained only with great difficulty, these 

 implements were very scarce, and are of extremely rare occurrence 

 in the mounds. The copper axes found at Davenport are believed 

 to have been rather badges of authority than implements of utility, 

 and the few other articles of copper which have been found, with 

 the exception of an occasional chisel or awl, seem to belong to a 

 class of ornaments of very rude construction. Heretofore no copper 

 relics have been described which evince any considerable degree of 

 skill in their making. Prior to the destruction of the St. Louis 

 " Big Mound," in 1870, no articles of copper had been found in the 

 vicinity; in leveling that mound two " spoon-shaped" copper imple- 

 ments were discovered, and in the possession of Dr. J. J. R. Patrick, 

 of Belleville, 111., is a nugget of native copper, which was found in a 

 large mound at East St. Louis. The mound from which the articles 

 now under consideration were taken Avas one of that second group 

 of the American Bottom system to which I have alluded. Some 

 twelve miles north of East St. Louis, a sluggish creek or slough 

 with high banks, called Long Lake, joins Cahokia Creek, and on 

 its banks, near the point of juncture, stands a group of some thir- 

 teen or fourteen mounds, circled around a square temple mound of 

 moderate height. At the western border of this group, and close 

 to Mitchell Station, stood originally three conical mounds of con- 

 siderable size, which w'ere first cut into some years since in laying 

 the tracks of the Chicago and Alton Railroad. On the twentieth 

 of January, 1876, acting upon a chance intimation in a St. Louis 

 morning paper, I visited this group, and found that the largest of 

 these three mounds was being removed to furnish material for 

 building a road dike across Long Lake, replacing an old bridge. 

 The work was already far advanced, but in its progress some sin- 

 gular discoveries had been made. The mound was originally about 

 twenty-seven feet high, and measured one hundred and twenty feet 

 in diameter at the base, but the various assaults which from time 

 to time had been made upon it for similar purposes had materially 

 altered its proportions, the surface workings having reduced its 

 height some ten feet, though I could not learn that in these early 

 openings anything of especial interest had been discovered. 



