334t EEPORT ON BEOCKVILLE COPPEE IMPLEMENTS. 



The spot, it may be further added, where these relics were found, 

 was not the usual place of sepulture of the Indians ; for I have 

 observed that their burying places were generally at some distance 

 from the river. In this particular vicinity their cemetery is in a fine 

 sandy ridge, some two or three miles inland, where remains are now 

 found of very ancient deposit. From the interest which this discovery 

 excited, I have frequently thought over the matter, and it has occurred 

 to me as not improbable that at this point of the St. Lawrence a battle 

 has been fought, and it requires no great stretch of imagination to 

 fancy at this particular spot a party of Indians descending the river 

 after spending the summer in the great copper country about the 

 higher lakes, bringing with them the rudely formed instruments of 

 the upper country — encamping for the night preparatory to their 

 descent of this the first of the St. Lawrence rapids, attacked by the 

 tribe of Indians whose hunting or fishing grounds were here situated, 

 and after a fatal encounter, the burial of the friends of the victors 

 with their trophies of war ; while a few yards distant the bodies of 

 the vanquished were destroyed by fire. 



Independent of all theorising, however, the discovery of a collection 

 of copper relics, so far to the eastward of the great copper regions of 

 the upper lakes, is a fact of sufficient interest and importance to 

 be deserving of record. 



REPORT ON COPPER IMPLEMENTS FOUND NEAR 

 BROCKVILLE. 



BY HENRY CROFT, D. C. L., 



PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRT, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. 



Head before the Canadian Institute, March 1st, 185G. 



A collection of ancient copper implements, dug up on the banks 

 of the River St. Lawrence, in the vicinity of Brockville, having been 

 transmitted, by Dr. Thomas Reynolds, for exhibition before the 

 Canadian Institute, along with various other relics of native art found 

 at the same time; that gentleman accompanied them with a communi- 

 cation, containing remarks on the peculiar condition of the copper, 

 a3 indicative of a supposed art of hardening and tempering the 

 metal, which is assumed to have been in use by its ancient native 

 workers, but to be now lost. From the allusions made to this same 



