226 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



There is little doubt that we must look to Europe as the source of supply of 

 such copper as came to this country during the possible post-Columbian mound 

 building period. 



Now the sulphide ores of copper are universally distributed throughout the 

 world, supplying more than four-fifths of the copper in demand, while Europe has 

 no great available district of wholly native copper as is found in the Lake Superior 

 region of this country. 



Of the ores of copper, the sulphide most stubbornly resists treatment, and in 

 association with it are almost invariably certain elements, arsenic, antimony, and 

 sometimes bismuth, whose absolute elimination even at this day it is impossible to 

 accomplish by any process of smelting. In fact, the comparatively recent electro- 

 lytic process does not appear to entirely eliminate these elements when present. 1 



Even in the more amenable oxide ores from certain districts, a trace of arsenic, 

 after refining, still remains, not sufficient, it is true, to interfere with the drawing, 

 the rolling and the stamping of the metal, but nevertheless distinctly recognizable, 

 and this we mention to disabuse the reader of the idea, prevalent in certain 

 quarters, that oxide ores are necessarily non-arsenical. It is evident then that 

 early European copper for commercial purposes must have contained ponderable 

 quantities of arsenic or antimony or of both, with occasional presence of bismuth, if 

 at the present day, with improved methods, these elements are to a certain extent 

 present in the metal. 



At the time of the discovery of America, the extraction of copper in Europe 

 was practised by the Germans and the Italians, whose supplies were almost exclu- 

 sively sulphide ores. Later the German processes were established in Wales. 



Professor James Douglas, of New York, whose unceasing kind offices have so 

 materially aided us in this pajaer, has placed in our hands a work 2 containing much 

 original and curious information relative to the introduction of smelting processes 

 in Great Britain. 



From this work we learn that the smelting of copper in the Swansea district 

 (where fully nine-tenths of the copper of Great Britain is said to be reduced from 

 the ore) was begun at Neath, in the year 1584; at Swansea, 1717-1720; at Taibach, 

 1727, etc. 



On page 25 et seq. of the same work we find a curious communication regard- 

 ing the earliest English smelting, containing references to the presence of sulphur, 

 showing the ores to be sulphide, and allusions to the roasting of ore, which is not 

 practised in the case of oxides. 



As to antimony and arsenic we shall quote the quaint wording of the original : 

 " And that water doth not onely drawe the vitriall and coppris from the ure, but also 

 divers other hurtfull humors, being by nature enemyes to the Copper ; as arsenick, 



1 "On the Analysis of American Refined Copper," by Harry F. Keller, Ph. D., Journal of the 

 Franklin Institute, July 1894, page 54. 



2 The Smelting of Copper in the Swansea District of South Wales, from the Time of Elizabeth to 

 the Present Day; by Col. Grant-Francis, F. S. A. Second edition, London and Manchester, 1881. 



