774 The use of Copper by the Delaware Indians. [August, 
separate this group much farther from the vertebrates than, was 
customary when most of the evidence was derived from the com- 
parative anatomy of the adults. 
i 
THE USE OF COPPER BY THE DELAWARE 
INDIANS. 
BY CHARLES C, ABBOTT, M.D. 
N the American Antiquarian of November, 1884, Mr. Edwin 
A. Barber, speaking of the Indians of Pennsylvania, re- 
marks : 
“The copper age is represented by a few specimens of copper 
implements which have been discovered in different localities ; 
but these could earkaly have been produced by the Lenni Lenape 
tribe. They were doubtless obtained from the ancient miners of 
Lake Superior, or at least were the remains of the industry of 
the mound-building race, which had found their way into Penn- 
sylvania. 
Referring in 1881 to the use of copper, by the New Jersey 
tribes, I also expressed the opinion that it was “not improbable _ 
that all the copper articles found along the Atlantic coast, were 
brought from western localities.”! A careful re-survey of many 
localities where ordinary Indian stone implements occur in abun- 
dance; and correspondence with collectors in various portions of 
New jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania now convince me that the 
use of copper, as implements and ornaments, was much more 
common than I supposed, and that among our Delaware Indians 
were many coppersmiths. 
In the fifteenth annual report of the Peabody Museum of 
American Archzology, Professor Putnam describes two exam- 
ples of copper spears, of which he says, while “ these spear-heads 
closely resemble one in the State Historical Society of Wiscon- 
sin,” yet they differ in the important feature of having smooth 
edges, while the Wisconsin specimen has a serrated point. These 
_ were both made “ from a mass of native copper, hammered into 
= anaes as shown: by several small laminations which can be dis- 
From the same locality a third example has been found (Fig. 1) 
; re Industry, p. 413. Salem, Mass., 1881. Geo. A. Bates. 
