316 Use of Copper by the American a 
being in common use among some of the éxtitihe Northern tribes, 
on the borders of the Arctic Sea.“ They point their arrows and 
spears with it, and work it up into personal ornaments, such as col- 
lars, ear-rings, and bracélets, which they wear on their oO arms, 
and legs. ‘They have it in great abundance, and hold it in high 
estimation.”* Owing to the difficulty of reducing iron fei the 
ore, an acquaintance with that metal has amen been preceded 
by a knowledge of copper, silver, and gold. “These three met- 
als,” says Robertson, “are found in their perfect state in the clefts 
of rocks, in the sides of mountains, or in the channels of rivers. 
They were accordingly first known and applied to use. But the 
gross and stubborn ore of iron, the most serviceable of all metals, 
and to which man is most indebted, must twice feel the force of 
fire, and go through two iaborians processes, before it becomes 
t for use.” Says Lucretius 
“Sed prius eris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus.” 
It was the difficulty of obtaining iron from the ores, or the 
possession of the art of so tempering or hardening copper as to 
make it answer most of the purposes to which steel is now a 
plied, one or both, that perpetuated the use of bronze instruments 
in Egypt, as well as in Greece and Rome, long after those nations 
became acquainted with the former meta 
regarded as certain, that the American aborigines, 
at the period of the discovery, were in ignorance of the uses of 
iron. [tis true Vespuccius mentions a tribe of natives near the 
mouth of the La Plata, in South America, who possessed iron 
points to their arrows. It was probably obtained from. native 
masses in that vicinity. ‘The inhabitanis of Madagascar obtain 
a part of their iron from such sources. A late traveller in Chile 
observes: “It appears that the Indians of Chile had, at the time 
of their discovery, in some very rare instances, iron blades to 
their lances; which led to the erroneous supposition that they 
were so far advanced in et as to be able to reduce and 
refine that metal from the ore Our surprise will cease upon 
recollecting that this valuable snint already existed naturally in 
South America, in the very extensive deposits of native iron at 
Santiago del Estero, which has proved to be of meteorie origin, 
and differing from that at Zacatecas and Durango in Mexico, de- 
scribed by Humboldt, in the absence of earthy matter, and in not 
being, like them, in round masses, but in a horizontal bed of con- 
”” siderable extent and variable thickness, now for the Pe Pai 
covered with drifting sand, and resting on a bed o 
; 
eee: oT Copper, on the other hand, seems to have here oa 
* Second Journey, p. 3 
+ Mier’s Trav we te Chile, ‘ete, voli, p 464, 
