236 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



While the occurrence of native copper is noted in our Southern, Eastern, and 

 Middle States the quantity is comparatively small, and, as a rule, the metal is not 

 superficial, and it is hardly probable that this scanty supply to any extent filled 

 the needs of the peoples inhabiting these districts, though doubtless a native nugget, 

 when found, was utilized. 



New Mexico and Arizona. — It is probable that products of Arizona and New 

 Mexico, to a certain extent at least, reached some of the Southern States, and pos- 

 sibly Florida. 



Small quantities of native copper are found superficially in portions of these 

 districts, but the well-known native copper mines of the Santa Rita Mountains, 

 New Mexico, contain the metal beneath oxides and carbonates at a depth too great 

 to have supplied aboriginal demand. 



According to Cushing, to whose interesting paper we have already alluded, the 

 melting out of nodules of native copper included in rock was practised by the 

 aborigines of Arizona ; though in no part of our country, it must be remembered, 

 have objects of copper cast in molds been discovered. 



If in any portion of the territory of the United States reduction from the ore 

 was practised in prehistoric times, it will be found to have occurred in New Mexico 

 and Arizona, where familiarity with the civilization of Mexico 1 may have enabled 

 the natives, with the aid of wood fires, to obtain the metal from very pure carbon- 

 ate ores. 



We are under obligation to James Colquhoun, Esq., General Superintendent 

 of the Arizona Copper Company, of Clifton, Arizona, for much valuable informa- 

 tion relative to the mines of Clifton. Native copper occurs but rarely. Samples 

 have been obtained in small bunches from the sheet porphyry which covers the 

 balk of the surface of the Metcalf mine. At this mine, which is 9,000 feet north 

 of the famous Longfellow mine, there were, thirteen or fourteen years ago, the 

 remains of Indian workings, inconsiderable in extent and, in the opinion of Mr. 

 Colquhoun, made for the purpose of extracting a beautiful green ore — -oxidized 

 copper-glance — to be used as a paint. 



On the Longfellow, so far as known, only one stone hammer was iound. 



We are indebted to Professor James Douglas for a specimen of a native copper 

 from the Copper Queen Mine, of Bisbee, Arizona, which, submitted to Dr. Harry F. 

 Keller, was reported on as follows : — 



"The specimen furnished consisted essentially of metallic copper, thickly 

 coated with cuprite (partly in fine crystals) and oxide of iron. This outer crust 

 was carefully removed, and the greater part of the mass reduced to small chips on 

 the 'planer,' a solid piece being reserved for the estimation of iron. The chips 

 were further freed from oxidized material by careful picking under a strong lens, 

 and subsequent stirring with water. A sample weighing over 100 grnis. was thus 



1 While melting was doubtless practised, we have no positive evidence that smelting was understood 

 in Mexico, though there are good grounds for believing it, as given by Professor Putnam, XV Annual 

 Report, Peabody Museum, page 128. 



