SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OP CONCHOLOGY. 405 



of the ancient Indian exchanges. In every view which has been 

 taken of the subject, the area of the basin of Lake Superior must be 

 regarded as the chief point of this intermediate traffic in native cop- 

 per. In exchange for it, and for the brown pipe-stone of the 

 Chippewa Eiver of the Upper Mississippi, and the blood-red pipe- 

 stone of the Coteau des Prairies west of the St. Peters, they receiv- 

 ed certain admired species of sea-shells of the Meridian Coasts and 

 "West Indies, as well as some of the more elaborately and well-sculp- 

 tured pipes of compact carbonate of lime, grauwacke, clay-slate, and 

 serpentines, of which admirable specimens, in large quantities, have 

 been found by researches made in the sacrificial mounds of the Ohio 

 Valley, and in the ossuaries of the Lakes. The makers of these may 

 also be supposed to have spread more northwardly the various orna- 

 mented and artistic burnt-clay pipes of ancient forms and ornaments, 

 and the ovate and circular beads, heart-shaped pendants and orna- 

 mented gorgets, made from the conch, which have received the false 

 name of ivory, or fine bone and horn. The direction of this native 

 exchange of articles appears to have taken a strong current down the 

 line of the great lakes, through Lakes Erie and Ontario, along the 

 shores of the States of the Ohio and New York, and into the Canadas. 

 Specimens of the blood-red pipe-stone, wrought as a neck ornament, 

 and of the conch bead pendants and gorgets, &c„ occur in the ancient 

 Indian burial grounds, as far east as Onondaga and Oswego, in New 

 York, and in the high country about Beverly, and the sources of the 

 several small streams which pour their waters into Burlington Bay, on 

 the North shores of Lake Ontario." * 



The conchological relics now referred to are of peculiar value, from 

 the illustration they afford of the area embraced by this ancient traffic 

 between the north and south. "Whatever doubt may be thrown on 

 the derivation of the specimens of ancient native manufacture, or of 

 the copper found in sepulchral and other deposits in the Southern 

 States, and in Central America, no question can exist as to the tropi- 

 cal and marine origin of the large shells exhumed not only in the in- 

 land regions of Kentucky and Tenessee, but in the northern peninsula 

 lying between the Ontario and Huron Lakes, or on the still remoter shores 

 and islands of Georgian Bay, at a distance of upwards of two thousand 

 miles from the coast of Yucatan, on the main land : the nearest point 

 where the ptjrula perversa is found in its native locality. 



* " History, &c., of Indian Tribes," vol. i., p. 67, 68. 



