THE ANCIENT MIITEES OE LATfE 8EPEE10E, 237 



mid. We know, moreover, that iron was equally unknown in Central 

 America, and that by similar tools— untempered by the addition of 

 tin, which the Egyptians early learned to mix with their copper, — ■ 

 the highly sculptured monuments of Mexico and Yucatan must 

 have been wrought by native artists. I have had no opportunity of 

 testing the real hardness of such tools, but I observed the edges of 

 some of the ancient implements found at Ontonagon to be dinted, 

 just as well-hammered copper would be, by a blow of unusual force ; 

 and it is not improbable, that when due opportunity for examining 

 into this question is furnished, the art of the ancient metallurgist will 

 be found to have amounted to no more than the inevitable hardening 

 of the copper, consequent on the laborious plying of it with the oft 

 repeated strokes of his- stone hammer to bring it to the desired shape, 

 The difference which this makes on the wrought copper is abundantly 

 familiar to the copper-smith, and also to the engraver on copper, 

 though it is less likely to be known to the miner, working with his 

 keen iron tools only upon the virgin metal in its native ductile state. 

 It seems specially worthy of note that the evidences of various 

 kinds thus adduced to prove the existence at some former period of a 

 mining population in the copper regions of Lake Superior, seem also 

 to indicate that their labours had come to an abrupt termination. 

 "Whether by some terrible devastating pestilence, like that which 

 appears to have exterminated the native population of New England, 

 immediately before the landing of the Pilgrim Eathers ; or by the 

 breaking out of war; or — as seems not less probable,— by the invasion 

 of the miueral region by a new race, ignorant of all the arts of the 

 ancient Mound-builders of the Mississippi, and of the Miners of Lake 

 Superior : certain it is that the works have been abandoned, leaving 

 the quarried metal, the laboriously wrought hammers, and the ingeni- 

 ous copper tools, just as they may have been left when the shadows of 

 the evening told their long- forgotten owners that the labours of the 

 day were at an end, but for which they never returned. Nor during 

 the centuries which have elapsed since the forest reclaimed the de- 

 serted trenches for its own, does any trace seem to indicate that a 

 native population again sought to avail themselves of their mineral 

 treasures, beyond the manufacture of such scattered fragments as 

 lay upon the surface. Such a rude manufacture is, however, traceable 

 amoug the Indians, even far to the north of Lake Superior. Mr. 

 Henry found the Christinaux of Lake "Winipagon wearing bracelets 

 of copper ; and such employment of this metal — simple as its man- 

 ufacture is — may, perhaps, prove to be the remnant of arts pertain- 

 ing to a higher civilization, once widely diffused over this continent. 



