M 



XXIII. MICA MINES • 



ICA was in very general use among the Indian tribes east 

 of the Great Plains and was mined by them at many points 

 in the Appalachian highlands from Georgia to the St. 

 Lawrence River. From these mines it passed by trade or otherwise 

 to remote parts of the country and is found more especially in burial 

 mounds, stone graves, and ordinary burials in the Gulf States and 

 throughout the Mississippi Valley. Mica is found also in workable 

 forms in Dakota and southwestern Arkansas but is not known to have 

 been mined by the aborigines in these sections. 



This brilliant mineral is present as crystals embedded in veins of 

 quartz and feldspar which penetrate various early geological forma- 

 tions but more commonly the schistose rocks. The veins are irregu- 

 lar in thickness and do not conform with the stratification or bedding 

 of the associated formations. The crystals are of diversified shapes 

 and sizes, reaching in cases upward of 3 feet in extreme dimen- 

 sions. They separate readily into many thin sheets of very attractive 

 appearance, which are transparent or translucent, and display vari- 

 ous silvery and amber hues. Although pi-obably serv- 



Various Uses of • „ <• ;• i -xi ±1 i • • j_i 



jjjpj^ ing tew practical purposes with the aborigines, the 



sheets were highly ]>i"ized for the manufacture of 

 personal ornaments and for sacrificial and mortuary purposes. It is 

 stated on very good authority that they were used also as mirrors, 

 and this is doubtless true, since the thick sheets, or the thin sheets 

 properly backed, afford good reflecting surfaces and to the Indian, 

 who spent much time at his toilet, the mirror was a most important 

 desideratum. 



The literature of archeological research in the United States, 

 especially that relating to the mound region, abounds in references 

 to the discovery of sheet mica buried with human remains. At- 

 water describes the discovery in a burial at Circlcville, Ohio, of 

 a sheet of mica which measured 36 inches in length by 18 inches in 

 width and 1^ inches in thickness.^ Other similar finds were 

 made by Atwater in the same region. With a skeleton in the 

 Grave Creek mound near AAHieoling, "W. Ya., 150 disks of sheet 



mica measuring 1| to 2 inches in diameter and hav- 

 ornaments of Mica ing One or two perforations were found." These 



Avere probably suspended as tinkling pendants on 

 some part of the costume. 



^ Atwater, Description of the Antiquities Discovered in tlie State of Oliio, pp. 178, 225. 

 - Schoolcraft, Observations Respecting the Grave Creek Mound in Western Virginia, 

 p. 399. 



241 



