’ 
+ 
Use of Copper by the American Aborigines. 315 
Lake Superior. Whether or not these are relics of the existing 
Indian tribes, it is not undertaken to say, although it seems highly 
probable that they are. That the Indians of New England, New 
York, aud Virginia, to a limited extent, ‘possessed copper orna- 
ments and implements at the time of the discovery, is undoubted ; 
but it is not to be supposed for an instant that they obtained it by 
smelting from the ores. They unquestionably procured it from 
the now well known native deposits around Lake Superior. 
Raleigh observed copper ornaments among the Indians on the 
coast of the Carolinas; and Verazzano mentions articles, probably 
ornamental, of wrought copper, among the natives which he vis- 
ited in a higher latitude, “ which were more esteemed than gold.” 
Granville speaks of copper among the Indians of Virginia, which 
were said to have been obtained among the Chawanooks (Sha- 
Wanhoes?). ‘It was of the color of our copper, but softer.” He 
endeavored to visit the place where it was represented to be found ; 
but after a toilsome journey of some days into the interior, the 
search was abandoned. This was a grievous disappointment at 
that time, when the minds of men were filled with visions of vast 
mineral wealth, and when the value of the New World was thought 
to consist in its mines. Granville thus concludes his account of 
his fruitless expedition: “I have set down this voyage somewhat 
particularly, to the end that it may appear unto you (as true it is) 
that there wanted no good will, from the first to the last of us, 
to have perfected the discovery of this mine; for that the dis- 
covery of a good mine, by the goodness of God, or a passage to 
the South Sea, or some way to it, and nothing else, can bring our 
country in request to be inhabited by our people.’”* Heriot says, 
“In two towns 150 miles from the main, are found divers small 
plates of copper, that are made, we are told by the inhabitants, 
y people who dwell farther in the country, where, they say, are 
mountains and rivers which yield white grains of metal, which 
are deemed to be silver. For the confirmation whereof, at the 
time of our first arrival in the country, I saw two small pieces of 
silver, grossly beaten, about the weight of a dester, [an old coin 
about the weight of a sixpence sterling,] hanging in the ears of a 
Wiroance. The aforesaid copper we found to contain silver.”> 
. ° 
Robert Juet, in his account of Hudson's discovery of the river 
which bears his name, asserts that the savages “ had red copper to= 
their necks.””. He makes mention, in another place, of “yellow 
copper,” as distinc: from what he terms “red copper.” Both Behr- 
ing and Kotzebue found copper implements 1n use among the In- 
dians of the Northwest Coast.t McKenzie mentions copper as 
NS AGE coca 
* * Granville’s Voy., 1585, in Pinkerton, vol. xii, p. 580. 
, «+ Heriot’s Voy., 1586, in Pink., vol. xii, p. 594. 
‘se. {-Behring’s First Voy., p. 85; Kotzebue, Voy., vol. i, p. 227. 
i. 
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co pipes, and other things of copper, which they did wear about < 
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