26 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 414 



I place those of bronze and brass, which have no distinction in 

 form or age, but vary in composition. Bronze rings are among 

 these, made by the French, and usually adorned with letters or 

 symbols. Oial and angular medals are also found of a similar 

 character, but of a higher type. Bracelets of copper wire, ear- 

 rings of the same, pendants of rolled copper, and other things, be- 

 long to the same period. Until the close of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury this materia] was commonly used in Indian trade and 

 adornment. Early in the eighteenth silver ornaments came in, 

 and have not yet quite passed away. Wherever found, it is safe 

 to place silver articles in the latter period. 



Among the recent copper articles found in the Iroquois district 

 of New York, the flat and triangular arrow-heads of sheet copper 

 may be noticed. They were probably made in the Indian towns, 

 as shreds of this copper may still be found on New York Iroquois 

 sites of the seventeenth century. The base is usually straight and 

 narrow, and the two straight sides longer in proportion ; but the 

 arrow is not large, and may have a perforation or not. I mention 

 these thus particularly, because they are precisely like those found 

 with the 'Fall River remains, often termed " The Skeleton in 

 Armor," and supposed by a few persons to be characteristic of 

 the Northmen. The mode of attachment was the same in both 

 cases. 



Two recent writers have referred to this skeleton, with opposite 

 views Professor R. B. Anderson, in "America not discovered 

 by Columbus," said this was found in 1831 (an error in date), and 

 seems sure that the grave was that of a viking. He states that 

 the metal and style corresponded with "old Northern armors " of 

 the tenth century. On the other hand, Mr. J. W. Foster, in the 

 appendix to his "Prehistoric Races " says that the skeleton "rep- 

 resents simply all that was mortal of a Narragansett Indian, rigged 

 out in European trappings." 



The valuable " Bibliography of the Pre-Columbian Discoveries 

 of America," by Mr. P. B. Watson, appended to Professor^Ander- 



son's little volume, does not include one of the best and most 

 accessible references. In his " Life of Brant," Col. Stone not only 

 gives the Northmen credit for their discoveries, on p. 487 of his 

 second volume, but adds a long note on the subject (pp. li.-lvii.) 

 in the appendix. In this he not only gives a summary of the 

 voyages of the Northmen, but a full account of the grave in the 

 town of Fall River, Mass., opened in 1837., The body was in a 

 sitting posture, the head being a foot below the surface of the 

 ground. The grave was lined with coarse bark, the body envel- 

 oped in a coai'se cloth made of finer bark. On the breast was an 

 oval " plate of brass, thirteen inches long, six broad at the upper 

 end, and five at the lower." Below this, and reaching around the 

 body, was a belt of brass tubes, set upright and side by side. 

 These thin brass tubes, ii inches long, and less than a quarter of 

 an inch in diameter, were fastened together by sinews. Some 

 arrows were in a bark quiver, parts of the shafts still adhering to 

 some of the heads. "The arrows are of brass, thin, flat, and 

 triangular in shape, with a round hole cut through near the base. 

 The shaft was fastened to the head by inserting the latter in an 

 opening at the end of the wood, and then tying it with a sinew 

 through the round hole,— ^a mode of constructing the weapon 

 never practised by the Indians." 



Part of the flesh had been preserved by contact with the brass; 

 and a figure of the skeleton, with the armor and arrows, was 

 given. No surer test can be applied than to place some Onondaga 

 or Cayuga arrows beside the latter; for like Iroquois arrows are 

 still found, both free and attached to the shafts. 



The breast-plate may simply have been the eai-ly and plain brass 

 gorget, small specimens of which may still be found in Onondaga 

 County, N.Y., but which was there replaced a little later by the 

 large and highly ornamented silver brooches, some of which cov- 

 ered the entire breast. 



I have seen a comparatively early Indian belt from Cayuga 

 County which had parallel rows of very short brass tubes, though 



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