706 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



is, without much doubt, on the northern peninsula of Michigan, near where min- 

 ing is carried on so extensively at the present time. Native copper is occasion- 

 ally found in the valley of the Connecticut River and in New Jersey, but in 

 quantities too small to have furnished even the supply which we know to have 

 been in possession of the aborigines of New England. On Keweenaw Point, 

 however, in Northern Michigan, not only is there an endless amount of native 

 pure copper which savages could use without melting, but there are numberless 

 excavations made by natives in searching for the metal before historic times. 



This portion of Michigan lay in the track of the great ice-movement which 

 characterized the glacial period. By this means boulders were transported from 

 this region as far as the southern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I have, 

 indeed, found boulders (though none containing copper) from the vicinity of 

 these mines which had been carried by the ice to the Kentucky hills, a few miles 

 south of Cincinnati. It is not surprising, therefore, that occasionally masses of 

 this copper should be found in connection with the gigantic boulders which had 

 been transported by ice to the vicinity of the mounds in the Ohio Valley. A 

 piece of Lake Superior copper weighing five or six pounds was found by Prof. 

 Brainard, of Cleveland, in the glacial deposits of Medina County, O. Dr. John 

 Locke, of Cincinnati, reports in his possession "a flattened piece of copper, 

 weighing several pounds', which was found in the earthworks at Colerain, Ham- 

 ilton County, O., having a spot of silver as large as a pea forming part of the 

 mass." The presence of silver in such form is pretty positive evidence that the 

 mineral came from Lake Superior, as it is not known to exist in this condition 

 in any other mines. 



Considering the rude tools with which the prehistoric miners of Northern 

 Michigan were compelled to work, their operations were really very surprising. 

 Their mauls were nothing but pebbles from the beach, grooved for withes, which 

 they used as handles. With these rude implements they broke away the rocky 

 portion of the vein containing the copper, and dug trenches, in some places ten 

 feet deep, and extending a long distance. Occasionally they encountered a mass 

 of copper too large for them to manage ; and after working upon it ineffectually for 

 a long time, left it surrounded with their tools and crude mechanical contrivances, 

 to tell the story of their disappointment. 



Near Copper Falls, according to Col. Whittlesey, there was discovered in 

 1854, a prehistoric trench, dug in the solid rock to a depth of ten feet and fol- 

 lowing the copper veins for thirty feet. From the bottom of the trench in one 

 place a flat piece of copper, from five to eight inches thick, was found to project 

 upwards for eighteen inches, the granite upon each side having been removed 

 by stone hammers to that depth. The upper edge of the copper " had been 

 .beaten by the stone mauls so severely that a lip, or projecting rim had been 

 formed, which is bent downward over the sides. A large number of broken 

 mauls were found in the place, and around it on the surface." It is not surpris- 

 ing that the efforts of these ancient miners were ineffectual in the present in- 

 stance, as this mass of copper proved to be about nine feet in length, being, 



