234 THE ANCIENT MINERS OF LAKE SUPEMOE. 



blade to receive a haft is common in the more primitive forms of 

 bronze implements found in Britain and the north of Europe. In 

 the pure copper spear-heads of Lake Superior, it may be assumed, as 

 a confirmation of the conclusion suggested by numerous other copper 

 relics of this continent, that the ancient miners and mound-builders 

 were ignorant of the arts of welding and soldering, as well as of that 

 of smelting the metallic ores. An indentation made in the inner 

 side of the rude socket closely resembles the device adopted for the 

 same purpose in the class of bronze implements of ancient Europe, 

 known as paalstaves ; its object evidently being to present a point of 

 resistance to the haft. The European implements, however, are made 

 of a metallic compound, and mostly cast, thus proving a knowledge of 

 metallurgic arts far in advance of the old workers of the metallic 

 treasures of Ontonagon, and the copper regions of Lake Superior. 



I was informed by Captain Peck, that a fourth spear-head had been 

 found along with the above. The whole were discovered buried in a 

 bed of clay on the banks of the river Ontonagon, about a mile above 

 its mouth, during the process of levelling it for the purposes of a 

 brick field. Above the clay was an alluvial deposit of two feet of sand, 

 and in this, and over the relics of the ancient copper workers, a pine 

 tree had grown to full maturity. Its gigantic roots gave proof, in 

 the estimation of those who witnessed their removal, of considerably 

 more than a century's growth ; while the present ordinary level of 

 the river is such that it would require a rise of forty feet to make the 

 deposit of sand beneath which they lay. It is possible, however, that 

 the original deposition of the relics may have been made in an artifi- 

 cial excavation, above which the pine tree struck its roots in later 

 times, for along with the implements there were also found fragments 

 of copper, the remains, as it might seem, of the operations of the 

 ancient manufacturers, by whose skill these, or similar weapons and 

 tools, were wrought on the spot. 



This locality has been celebrated for the traces of its mineral 

 wealth from the earliest date of European exploration of the Lake 

 Superior regions. Alexander Henry, in his "Travels and Adventures 

 in Canada, and the Indian Territories," mentions his visiting the 

 Hiver Ontonagon, in August 1765. "At the mouth, was an Indian 

 village; and at three leagues above, a fall, at the foot of which 

 sturgeon were at this season so abundant, that a month's subsistence 

 for a regiment could have been taken in a few hours. But — he adds — 

 I found this river chiefly remarkable for the abundance of virgin copper 

 which is on its banks and in its neighbourhood. The copper presented 

 itseW to the eye in masses of various weight. The Indians showed 



