GLIMPSES OF PRE-HISTOEIC TIMES. 61 



The evidence of copper mining on Lake Superior 

 in pre-historic times is equally conclusive. In the 

 Ontanogan district, where extensive mines of native 

 copper are now worked, ancient excavations long 

 since deserted and overgrown with the aboriginal 

 forest are found on the outcrops of the veins. Some 

 of these are twenty -five to thirty feet deep, and in the 

 bottom of them are found the stone mauls and picks 

 and decayed wooden shovels of the ancient miners. * 

 In one place a mass of native copper, weighing six 

 tons, had been dislodged from its matrix, and mounted 

 on a wooden frame, but afterwards abandoned, either 

 because of its great weight, or because the miners had 

 been driven away by some hostile invasion. These 

 ancient works are said to be found over an extent of 

 nearly 150 miles on the south side of Lake Superior, 

 and on the north side of the lake they also occur, 

 though on a smaller scale. I have myself explored 

 some of them at Maimanse. Here they are confined 

 to the outcrop of the veins in which the native copper, 

 associated with quartz and other minerals, projects in 

 irregular masses and strings above the enclosing trap. 

 Following these indications, the ancient miners had 

 traced the veins along the hills, and had not only 

 broken off the projecting masses with stone mauls 

 which were found in their trenches, but had, perhaps 

 with the aid of fire, followed the larger masses down- 

 ward for several feet, throwing out the broken quartz 

 in heaps at the sides. That these mines were not 

 * Wilson, " Prehistoric Man." 



