42 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences., Arts and Letters. 



a definite tract of land by a group of persons who were in 

 their origin an enlarged family. 



By the side of the movement towards permanency of oc- 

 cupation, we saw another, towards inequality of possession. 

 The important testimony of Tacitus shows that already in 

 his time there was, not individual property in land, or ine- 

 quality of ownership, but inequality of station and of tem- 

 porary occupation. Out of this would speedily be developed 

 the inequality of property which the theory of village com- 

 munities recognizes as one of the causes of the dissolution of 

 the institution. And thus we find confirmed, from the point of 

 view of the occupation of land, the conclusion drawn from 

 the evidence of political and military institutions, of the de- 

 velopment of an aristocracy of a baronial type; or, in Mr. 

 Seebohm's words, of development on manorial lines. 



NOTES ON THE DISPERSION OF DRIFT COPPER. 



By Prof. R. D. Salisbury, Beloit, Wis. 



Although the fact of its wide distribution has long been 

 known, and used as evidence of the northern origin of our 

 drift, yet no general recent compilation of the known data 

 relating to the dispersion of drift copper seems to have been 

 made. The study now entered upon has been undertaken at 

 the suggestion of Prof. Chamberlin, The present paper is 

 little more than a collection of what is to be found bearing 

 on the subject in survey reports and scientific contributions. 

 Frequent reference is made in geological literature to the 

 fact thac native copper has been found, and that quite gen- 

 erally, scattered throughout the drift region of the interior, 

 viz.: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Wis- 

 consin and Minnesota, and perhaps Nebraska and Dakota. 

 But the particulars of its occurrence, e. g., its exact locali- 

 ties, the size of specimens, whether or not worn and rounded, 

 what the limits of its distribution, how abundantly the metal 



