236 THE ANCIENT MINEES OF LAKE SUPEEIOE. 



only was the native copper wrought in ancient times in the Lake 

 Superior Eegions : but along its shores, and on the banks of its navi- 

 gable rivers, there existed manufactories where the native artizan 

 fashioned the metal into tools and weapons for war and the chase. 



This would seem to be still further confirmed by the evidences of 

 permanent settlement at some former period described as still visible 

 at the mouth of the Carp river, where those relics of its ancient 

 manufactures were found. The foundations of old structures are 

 still clearly traceble. The outlines of the buildings can be made out 

 by the ridges of clay remaining, and in places the ruined masonry 

 seems to show where the hearth had stood. S uch traces, I was assured, 

 suffice to indicate that whole ranges of dwellings must have occupied 

 the site, so that here unquestionably, at some remote period, there 

 existed a settlement of considerable extent, and a town convenient- 

 ly situated for commanding the Lake. The buildings must have been 

 slight when compared with those which have left their mighty ruins 

 amid the forests of Central America; but the traces which remain 

 correspond with what might be expected of the Mound-builders of 

 the Mississippi, and over their works has waved for unknown cen- 

 turies the forest, which, by the age it lays claim to, suffices to di- 

 vide that ancient and unknown past from the era of the new race of 

 workers, who are now ransacking the mineral veins of the copper re- 

 gions, and turning their metallic treasures to account for the aggran- 

 disement of the intrusive Anglo-Saxon. 



A lively interest is felt throughout the Copper regions in the relics 

 of the ancient miners, and the modern occupants of their works 

 manifest an intelligent appreciation of the uses of such antique 

 remains as a means of throwing light on the history of former ages. 

 I found a peculiar importance attached by the miners and others to 

 the hardness of the wrought copper implements. This they contrasted, 

 in more than one case, with the ductility of the chips and fragments 

 of unwrought copper found along with them, as well as with the con- 

 dition of the native copper when first brought from the mine, and 

 maintained that it afforded proof of a knowledge acquired by the 

 ancient metallurgist of some hardening process unknown to the 

 modern copper-smith. It is well known that copper and bronze 

 chisels are frequently found among the ancient relics of the !Nile 

 Valley, and that the paintings of Egypt exhibit her sculptors hewing 

 out the colossal memnons of lime-stone and granite by means of 

 yellow-coloured tools, which may fairly be assumed to be made of the 

 copper wrought by the Egyptians in the mines of Maghara, near 

 Sinai, so early as the reign of Suphis, the builder of the great pyra- 



