THE PREHISTORIC COPPER IMPLEMENT QUESTION. 601 



AgaiD, the surface of fracture shows at least two places that look as if gas or 

 air bubbles had occurred there when it was cast and thus made a weak place 

 which ultimately led to its being broken. And again, th^re is no "evidence of 

 hammering" from any "distinct lamination of the metal in places," as Prof. Put- 

 nam expresses it. The shape is more artistic and perfect than would be likely to 

 be produced by free hammering. These are some of the chief reasons " why 

 he thought the ax was cast, and not hammered into shape." 



The specimen was exhibited at the November meeting of the State Academy 

 of Sciences, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the report of that meeting in the Daily 

 State Register said : " Prof. Reid exhibited some mound-builder relics, one being 

 a fragment of a tiny copper ax which he had found in connection with fragments 

 of ancient pottery, flint-chips, arrow-heads, etc. This elicited a good deal of in- 

 terest and was tested with acids by Messrs. Carey and Bailey, who found it to 

 be pure copper. Some thought it had been molded, while others thought it had 

 been hammered out from a piece of native copper." 



Reply to No. 2. Dr. P. R. Hoy, of Racine, Wisconsin, in "Transactions 

 of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences," Vol. 4 page 136, says: " Some of 

 those implements that have been supposed to be cast were, I think, swedged; that 

 is, a matrix was executed in stone, into which the rudely fashioned copper was 

 placed, and then by repeated blows the article would be made to assume the ex- 

 act shape of the mold." Again he says : "I am persuaded that, in a iQw in- 

 stances at least, there was a complete mold worked out in halves, on the face of two 

 flat stones, so that by placing a suitable piece of copper between them and giving 

 it repeated heavy blows the copper was made to fill the mold accurately." The 

 Doctor then recites at some length how he once found such a mold or "slight 

 excavation on the face of a large granite boulder; " but in attempting to chip it 

 off it was broken all to pieces. And an editorial foot-note to Dr. Hoy's paper 

 says: "Dr. Butler, who was present, has held strongly for the casting of these 

 copper tools." 



So here we have quite sufficient ground-work for Mr. Conant's general state- 

 ment; and I remember to have seen articles about these Wisconsin discoveries of 

 stone fnolds and molded copper implements going the rounds of the newspaper press 

 two or three years ago. Men on the ground seem to have differed, at least in 

 regard to some of them, as to whether the copper had been melted or worked 

 cold; but, in either case, it is admitted that molds were used. 



Reply to No. 3, In this item Prof. Putnam himself virtually admits that the 

 pre-European inhabitants of Mexico did smelt or cast copper. And on page 

 126 Vol. 4, Wisconsin Transactions, Dr. Edmund Andrews, of the Chicago Med- 

 ical College, says: "They (the mound-builders) were miners and coppersmiths 

 of considerable skill, but apparently wrought their metal solely by hammering; 

 yet they occasionally had molten bronze chisels, which they probably imported from 

 Mexico. They possessed shells from the sea, plates of mica from the Allegha- 

 nies, and obsidian from the Rocky Mountains. They probably sent copper to 



