348 Be Mortuis. [July, 



are abundant in many countries, and can be smelted without dif- 

 ficulty ; and tbat, while iron is hardly ever found except in the form 

 of ore, copper often occurs in a native condition and can be beaten 

 at once into shape.* 



There is no reason to suppose that the mound-builders, whose 

 earth-works occupy leagues in extent in the valleys of the Mississippi 

 and Ohio, were acquainted with the art of smelting copper ; that 

 they mined it extensively on the shores of Lake Superior, and 

 wrought it into knives, spear-heads, chisels, and bracelets, and other 

 personal ornaments there can be no reasonable doubt, but having 

 no tin, they could not, like the ancient dwellers of the Swiss lakes, 

 Denmark, &c, impart to the alloy almost the hardness of steel. It 

 is doubtful, even, whether their metallurgic art extended to the smelt- 

 ing of copper ; for it often happens that the native copper of Lake 

 Superior encloses native silver, both metals existing side by side 

 chemically pure, which, if smelted, in whatever proportions, would 

 form a homogeneous compound. Bracelets have been found in the 

 mounds, in which this peculiarity is preserved, thus showing that 

 the material had not been smelted but simply hammered cold ; and 

 the ends are brought together by bending, without any evidence of 

 having been soldered.f 



Of the amount of gold found in the Chiriqui graves in Central 

 America probably no just estimate can be obtained. At the period 

 of Mr. Power's visit in August, 1859, about 250 lbs. weight of gold 

 had been extracted from the huacas at Bugabita, two-thirds being 

 tolerably pure gold, the remaining third what is called " guanin," 

 or gold alloyed with copper ; the value of the whole was about 

 12,500/. In the summer of 1861, some fresh tombs were discovered 

 from which gold objects to the value of 16,000/. had been extracted. f 

 Although, as must necessarily happen, these interesting remains 

 find their fate in the melting-pot wholesale, there are yet to be seen 

 in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, the Christy Museum, Vic- 

 toria Street, the British Museum, and elsewhere, many examples of 

 these curious American antiquities. 



From a careful examination of many of the Ohio mounds and a 

 comparison of their characteristics with ancient Scandinavian tumuli, 

 it seems highly probable that, in some instances at least, the tomb 

 was formed by covering the dwelling in which the dead man had 

 lived with a mound of earth or a cairn of stones. 



This would explain the curious sorted condition of many remains 

 in the American mounds. Thus in mound No. 8, " Mound City," 

 may have been buried the body of some celebrated pipe-maker, with 

 all his stock-in-trade, which his friends no doubt believed he would 



* Lubbock, ' Pre-historic Times,' pp. 3-4. 



t Foster's ' Mississippi Valley,' p. 423. 



% 'Flint Chips,' by E. T. Stevens, pp. 285-6. 



