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METALLIC IMPLEMENTS OF NEW YORK INDIANS lige 
Massawomekes, and other people, signifying they inhabit the 
river of Cannida, and from the French to have their hatchets 
and such like tools by trade.” 
The Virginia Indians told him that this hostile people lived 
“on a great salt water, which by all likelihood is some part of 
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-Commada, some great lake, or some inlet, or some sea that 
4 
falleth into the South Sea.” In his well known account of his 
battle’ on Lake Champlain in 1609, the great French explorer 
_ observed that the Mohawks had axes of iron, though that year 
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included his own first visit to New York and the first Dutch 
yoyage up the Hudson river. Hesaid: “The Iroquois repaired 
‘on shore, and arranged all their canoes, the one beside the other, 
and began to hew down trees with villainous axes, which they 
sometimes got in war, and others of stone, and fortified them- 
_ selves very securely.” We are thus not to limit the possible 
use of European metallic articles in New York to the year 1609. 
It is every way probable that a few implements or ornaments 
reached the interior many years before, and in some instances 
these may have been found. 
Attention has elsewhere been called to early wrecks along 
the Atlantic coast, whence some metal was obtained. More 
of these occurred than ever were reported. Fishermen from 
_ Europe haunted the mouth of the St Lawrence and the points 
and islands adjacent but did not publish their voyages. They 
were not exploring, but getting a living. In a similar way, at 
a later day, there were French and Dutch traders penetrating 
the wilds of New York, of whose names and adventures we are 
equally ignorant. For their own profit they said as little as 
_ possible. 
It is somewhat surprising to see how rapidly our knowledge 
of the early use of copper has grown. Squier and Davis brought 
to light many copper ornaments and articles in their mound 
explorations, the report of which was published in 1848. The 
report of Foster and Whitney on the Lake Superior district, 
published in 1850, showed something of the early work done 
‘there. Schoolcraft was at his best in that region. Lapham 
