404 SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 



Some of these personal ornaments of tlie modern Hindoo, manu- 

 factured from the solid porcellaneous pyrum, closely correspond to the 

 relics of similar construction found in ancient American grave 

 mounds, and supposed by their first discoverers to be wrought in 

 ivory. The chief value of the latter, however, arises from their 

 discovery in latitudes altogether remote from the native habitat of 

 the living mollusk, and the fconsequent traces which they disclose of 

 ancient migration, or of trade and traffic between widely severed 

 tribes of the American continent. "While the tropical shells thus 

 met with in the regions of the Grreat Lakes may be assumed to rep- 

 resent one among the prized treasures of southern latitudes, the 

 north had its coveted mineral wealth, of the diffusion of which 

 throughout the whole tribes of the northern continent we have 

 abundant evidence from various sources, and referring to very differ- 

 ent periods. Among the relics entombed in the sacrificial mounds of 

 the Mississippi valley have been found objects formed from the mica 

 of the Alleghanies, and the native copper of Lake Superior, mingling 

 with others modelled from the tropical fauna of the southern conti- 

 nent. 



It is in the western region of the great lakes that the mineral trea- 

 sure are found which attracted the attention of the Indians long before 

 the discovery of this continent by Columbus or Cabot, and, in that 

 prehistoric period of America, furnished the chief element of traffic, 

 and the source of intercourse between the north and south. 

 The traces of mining operations afford abundant proof of the 

 working of the copper by the Indians of Lake Superior, without any 

 skill in the metaUurgic arts, and indeed without any precise distinc- 

 tion between the copper which they mechanically separated from its 

 native matrix, and the unmalleable stone or flint out of which they 

 were ordinarily accustomed to fashion their spear and arrow heads. 

 This metal, Mr. Schoolcraft remarks, " was employed by the Indians 

 in making various ornaments, implements, and instruments. It was 

 used by them for arm and wrist bands, pyramidal tubes, or dress 

 ornaments, chisels and axes; in all cases, however, having been 

 wrought out exclusively by mere hammering, and brought to its 

 required shape without the use of the crucible or the art of soldering. 

 Such is the state of the manufactured article, as found in the gigantic 

 Grave Creek mound, and in the smaller mounds of the Scioto Valley, 

 and wherever it has been scattered, in early days, through the medium 



