COPPER TOOLS FOUND IN" WISCOKSIJir. 101 



three in circumference. There is a dagger ten inches long with a 

 blade an inch wide. These, with various anomalous articles, com- 

 plete the catalogue. 



For the conservation and display of this unique copper treasure 

 the State of Wisconsin has set apart one of the towers of the Cap- 

 itol in Madison. There they will be daily open for inspection, and 

 will no doubt be a magnet attracting to themselves other curios- 

 ities of like natare. 



The question is always asked, " Where did these coppers come 

 from?" It cannot be so definitely answered as is to be desired. 

 Nevertheless something is known in respect to the finding of them. 

 They were all discovered within the limits of Wisconsin — while the 

 Smithsonian specimens — less than one eighth as many, were 

 gleaned from eight difPerent States. Nearly all of them have come 

 to light in eleven southeastern counties of Wisconsin. Only in 

 those counties has much search been made. 



Most of the Wisconsin coppers were brought together into one 

 collection by the zeal and perseverance of one single man, Freder- 

 ick S. Perkins of Racine county. Five years ago this gentleman, 

 though he had long been forming a museum of stone implements, 

 had never seen one of copper. On the 25th of November, 1871, he 

 was first shown such an antique. It was a large spear-head that 

 had been exhumed three miles north of his residence in Burling- 

 ton, Wisconsin. That November date marks the birthday of his 

 interest in copper — or his transition from the stone to the copper 

 age. His enthusiasm which had been great for the former became 

 greater for the the latter. He had leisure — or He made it, to ride 

 over county after county on every road, waylaying every pedlar, 

 calling at every school, every store, at almost every house. He 

 advertised in newspapers, he threw tempting baits abroad on all 

 waters. He found what he sought, where no one else would have 

 looked for such a prize, and where many proved to him that it 

 could not be found. He has recorded the name and residence, by 

 county and town, of one hundred and twenty-one persons from 

 whom he obtained pre-historic coppers, as well as of three hun- 

 dred and twenty-five others who furnished him stone antiques, but 

 had no coppers to furnish. This record shows how thorough and 

 wide-spread were his researches. Indeed, although tJie Wisconsin 

 Historical Society has bought the bulk of his findino;s, some of them 



