USE OF COPPER BY THE ABORIGINES. 183 



length of the weapon is seventeen inches, and the diameter, at the larger end, one 

 inch and one-tenth. 



Figure 70 is a full-size engraving of one of the arrow-points discovered with a 

 skeleton, near Fall River, Massachusetts, in the year 1831. With this skeleton 

 were found a corroded plate of brass, supposed to have constituted a breastplate. 



Zinc. 



Tin. 



Lefi.I. 



Iron. 



28.03 



0.91 



0.74 



0.03 



20.39 



9.24 



3.39 



0.11 



27.45 



0.79 



0.20 





and a number of rude tubes of the same metal, composing a sort of belt or cinc- 

 ture. The arrow-points are two inches in length, and one and one-third inches broad 

 at the base. This skeleton attracted a good deal of attention at the time, and was 

 supposed to lend some sanction to the then popular theory of the early discovery 

 and settlement of the coast of New England by the Northmen. An analysis of the 

 compound metal of which the relics were composed, was made by Berzelius, under 

 the direction of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Denmark. The result of the 

 analysis was published by that learned body, in the following comparative table : 



Copper. 



Brass from Fall River, . . . 70.29 



Old Danish, 67.13 



Modern Brass, 70.16 



It will be seen by the table, that the metallic relics found at Fall River bear in 

 their composition a suspicious resemblance to modern brass. They certainly differ 

 widely, in this respect, from any of the alloys of copper found elsewhere on the 

 continent. Without alluding to the rudeness of the workmanship exhibited by the 

 Fall River relics, — a rudeness entirely inconsistent with that stage of advancement 

 indicated by a knowledge of smelting and alloying the metals, — the fact that the 

 skeleton accompanying them was found buried, after the Indian mode, in a sitting 

 posture, and enveloped in bark, places in a very strong light the probability that 

 the burial was made subsequent to the first settlement of New England, in 1625, 

 and that the relics were of native manufacture, from sheets or plates of brass 

 obtained from the early colonists. This probability is further sustained, by the 

 circumstance that a portion of the wood attached to the arrows was still preserved, 

 as was also a large proportion of the bark envelope of the skeleton, at the. time of 

 its discovery ; which could hardly be the case, if its interment had been made as 

 early as the tenth century, which is the period assigned to the Scandinavian visits. 

 It cannot be claimed that the preservative properties of the salts of the copper 

 could have more than a very local application or influence. 



And while upon this point, it may be mentioned that Wood, in his " New England 



