THE ANCIENT MINERS OE LAKE SUPERIOR. 235 



me one of twenty pounds. They were used to manufacture this 

 metal into spoons and bracelets for themselves. In the perfect state 

 in which they found it, it required nothing but to be beat into shape."* 

 On a subsequent occasion, in the following year, Mr. Henry again 

 visited the same region, " On my way," he says, " I encamped a 

 second time at the mouth of the Ontonagon, and now took the 

 opportunity of goiug ten miles up the river, with Indian guides. The 

 object which I went most expressly to see, and to which I had the 

 satisfaction of being led, was a mass of copper, of the weight, 

 according to my estimate, of no less than five tons. Such was its pure 

 and malleable state that with an axe I was able to cut off a portion 

 weighing a hundred pounds." f This object, which thus attracted 

 the adventurous European explorer nearly a century ago, has since 

 acquired considerable celebrity, as one of the most prominent 

 encouragements to the mining operations projected in the Ontonagon 

 and surrounding districts. These notices, moreover, are interesting 

 as showing to what extent the present race of Indians were accus- 

 tomed to avail themselves of the mineral wealth of the great copper 

 regions. 



The details of another, and in some respects more interesting 

 discovery, than that which was brought under my notice at Ontona- 

 gon, were communicated to me in reply to the inquiries made while 

 there. This took place, at a still more recent date, at a locality hying 

 to the east of Keweenaw Point, in the rich iron district of Marquette. 

 There, not far from the mouth of the river Carp, in what appeared to 

 be the ancient bed of the stream, and about ten feet above the present 

 level of its channel, various weapons and implements of copper have 

 been recently found. Large trees grew over this deposit also, and 

 the evidences of a remote antiquity seemed not less obvious than in 

 that of Ontonagon. The copper relics included knives, spear or lance- 

 heads, and arrow-heads, some of which were ornamented with silver. 

 One of the knives was described as made, with its handle, out of a 

 single piece of copper. It measured altogether about seven inches 

 long, of which the blade was nearly two-thirds of the entire length, 

 and of an oval shape. It was ornamented with pieces of silver 

 attached to it, and was inlaid with a strip of silver from point to haft. 

 Along with these relics were also found numerous fragments, or chips 

 and shavings of copper, some of which were such as, it was assumed, 

 ceroid only h:i\e been cut by a fine sharp tool ; and the whole sufficed 

 to indicate even more markedly than those at Ontonagon, that not; 



* Henry's Travels and Adventures, p. 194. New York, 1809 

 t Ibid, p. 204 



