490 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



WERE ANCIENT COPPER IMPLEMENTS HAMMERED OR MOLDED 



INTO SHAPE? 



BY PROFESSOR F. W, PUTNAM. 



I notice in the last number of the Review, page 406, that Prof. Reid states 

 that a fragment of a copper axe which he found on the surface in Missouri, but 

 which he calls "a Mound-builder's axe," was cast in a mold. Now, may I take 

 the liberty of asking why he thought the axe was cast, and not hammered into 

 shape ? Several authors have made just such statements without giving their 

 reasons, and to those who think that all the copper implements and ornaments 

 found in the United States were hammered into shape and not cast in molds, such 

 off-hand statements are very unsatisfactory, and in the present state of archaeolog- 

 ical science they ought not to be made without supporting evidence. If any one 

 has a copper implement which he thinks was cast in a mold, do let us have his 

 reasons. 



On the same page Prof, Reid quotes Mr. Conant's statement that " Copper 

 implements cast in molds, and the molds themselves have been found in Wiscon- 

 sin." Now, can any one give an account of the "molds found in Wiscon- 

 sin." What were they made of, and where are they now? 



The difficulty of melting pure copper is considerable, and as we have pretty 

 good evidence that at least a large proportion of the objects made of copper were 

 hammered into shape, every statement of the melting and casting of copper by 

 any people in North America, outside of Mexico, before European contact, must 

 be taken with due caution. Even the statement by Champlain, that an Algon- 

 quin Indian gave him a piece of copper a foot long which had been melted into 

 sheets and smoothed with stones, I question as the correct interpretation of the 

 Indian's words. The "lumps of copper" could have been more easily pounded 

 into sheets than melted by an Indian wandering into the copper region of Lake 

 Superior, and the statement that it was smoothed with stones after melting, seems 

 to me very likely to indicate the assumption, on the part of Champlain, of the 

 melting part. That copper was used in large quantities by the Indians there is 

 no doubt, and it was also used to a considerable degree by the tribes who erected 

 the burial mounds in the Ohio valley and throughout the southwest, whoever they 

 were, but I have not yet seen a single object made of copper from these sources 

 that I should regard as having been cast ; on the contrary, the evidence of ham- 

 mering, and rolUng between stones, is more or less clearly shown in all by the 

 character of the surface and by the distinct lamination of the metal in places, 

 when carefully examined with a lens. 



Trusting that these remarks will call attention to a point on which contribu- 

 tors to the Review, and other writers, should in future be more critical, 



I remain yours very truly, 



F. W. Putnam. 



Cambridge, Mass., November 17, 1881. 



