THE METALS.
DAWN OF A METALLURGIC ERA—PRIMITIVE COPPER-WORKING—COPPER REGION
OF LAKE SUPERIOR—THE PICTURED ROCKS—JACKSON IRON MOUNTAIN—THE
CLIFF MINE—COPPER TOOLS—ANCIENT MINING TRENCHES—GREAT EXTENT
OF WORKS—MINES OF ISLE ROYALE—THEIR ESTIMATED AGE—ANCIENT
MINING IMPLEMENTS—STONE MAULS AND AXES—ONTONAGON MINING RELICS
—SITES OF COPPER MANUFACTORIES—NATIVE COPPER AND SILVER—
BROCKVILLE COPPER IMPLEMENTS—LOST METALLURGIC ARTS—CHEMICAL
ANALYSES—NATIVE TERRA-COTTAS—ANCIENT BRITISH MINING-TOOLS—THE
RACE OF THE COPPER MINES—CHIPPEWA SUPERSTITIONS—EARLIEST
NOTICES OF THE COPPER REGION—ONTONAGON MASS OF COPPER—ANCIENT
NATIVE TRAFFIC—NATIVE USE OF METALS—CONDITION OF THE
MOUND-BUILDERS—MINERAL RESOURCES—ANTIQUITY OF COPPER WORKINGS
—DESERTION OF THE MINES.
The same rational instinct which prompted man in his first efforts at
tool-making, guided him in a discriminating choice of materials; and to
this the discovery of metals, and the consequent first steps in
metallurgy and the arts, may be traced. The Bronze Age of Europe derives
its name from the predominance of relics illustrative of a period which,
though old compared with that of definite history, belongs to a
comparatively late era, characterised by many traces of artistic skill,
and of mastery in the difficult processes of smelting ores and alloying
metals. But the dawn of the metallurgic era in the New World is marked
by phases which derive their distinctive character from two widely
separated regions; and of which one supplies an important link in the
history of human progress, at best but partially indicated in the
disclosures of European archæology.
To untutored man, provided only with implements of stone, the facilities
presented by the great copper regions of Lake Superior for the first
step in the knowledge of metallurgy were peculiarly available. The
forests that flung their shadows along the shores of that great lake
were the haunts of the deer, the beaver, the bear, and other favourite
objects of the chase; the rivers and the lake abounded with fish; and
the rude hunter had to manufacture weapons and implements out of such
materials as nature placed within his reach. The water-worn stone from
the beach, patiently ground to an edge, made his axe and tomahawk: by
means of which, with the help of fire, he could level the giants of the
forest, or detach from them the materials for his canoe and paddle, his
lance, club, or bow and arrows. The bones of the deer pointed his spear,
or were wrought into his fish-hooks; and the shale or flint was chipped
and ground into his arrow-head, after a pattern repeated with little
variation, in all countries, and in every primitive age. But besides
such materials of universal occurrence, the primeval occupant of the
shores of Lake Superior found there a _stone_ possessed of some very
peculiar virtues. It could not only be wrought to an edge without
liability to fracture; but it was malleable, and could be hammered out
into many new and convenient shapes. This was the copper, found in
connection with the trappean rocks of that region, in inexhaustible
quantities, in a pure metallic state. In other rich mineral regions, as
in those of Cornwall and Devon, the principal source of this metal is
from ores, which require both labour and skill to fit them for economic
purposes. But in the veins of the copper region of Lake Superior the
native metal occurs in enormous masses, weighing hundreds of tons; and
loose blocks of various sizes have been found on the lake shore, or
lying detached on the surface, in sufficient quantities to supply all
the wants of the nomad hunter. These, accordingly, he wrought into
chisels and axes, armlets, and personal ornaments of various kinds,
without the use of the crucible; and, indeed, without recognising any
precise distinction between the copper which he mechanically separated
from the mass, and the unmalleable stone or flint out of which he had
been accustomed to fashion his spear and arrow-heads. This is confirmed
by philological evidence. The root of the names for iron and copper in
the Chippewa is the same abstract term, _wahbik_, used only in compound
words. Thus _pewahbik_, iron; _ozahwahbik_, copper: lit. the yellow
stone; _metahbik_, on the bare rock; _oogedahbik_, on the top of a rock;
_kishkahbikah_, it is a precipice; etc.
The earliest references to Britain pertain exclusively to the peninsula
of Cornwall and the neighbouring islands, whither the fleets of the
Mediterranean were attracted in ages of vague antiquity, and the traders
from Gaul resorted in quest of its metallic wealth. The mineral regions
of the New World disclose some corresponding records of its
long-forgotten past; and some idea of their present condition is
indispensable for preparing the mind to appreciate the changes wrought
by time on localities which are now being rescued once more from the
wilderness. The vast inland sea, which constitutes the reservoir of the
chain of lakes whose waters sweep over the Falls of Niagara, and find
their way by the St. Lawrence to the ocean, has been as yet so partially
encroached upon by the pioneers of modern civilisation, that the general
aspect of its shores differs but little from that which they presented
to the eye of its first European explorers in the seventeenth century:
or indeed to its Indian voyagers before the Spaniard first coasted the
island shores of the Bahamas, and opened for Europe the gates of the
West. With its wide extent of waters, covering an area of thirty-two
thousand square miles, a lengthened period of sojourn in the regions
with which it is surrounded, and many facilities for their exploration,
would be required, in order to satisfy the curiosity of the scientific
inquirer. But even a brief visit discloses much that is interesting, and
that serves at once to illustrate, and to contrast with what comes under
the observer’s notice elsewhere.
In tracing out the evidence of ancient occupation of the shores of Lake
Superior, I have, on repeated visits, coasted its shores for hundreds of
miles in canoes; and camped for weeks in some of its least accessible
wilds. The force of the evidence is slowly appreciated, even by careful
personal observation; but some description of the ancient copper region
may help the reader to estimate the lapse of time since its
forest-glades and rocky promontories were enlivened by the presence of
industrious miners. The memorials of Time’s unceasing operations reach
indeed to periods long prior to the earliest presence of man, and
present certain lake phenomena, on a scale only conceivable by those who
have sailed on the bosom of these fresh-water seas with as boundless a
horizon as in mid-Atlantic; and who have experienced the violence of the
sudden storms to which they are liable. But while the same broad
ocean-like expanse, and the violence of their stormy moods, characterise
Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan: it is only on Lake Superior that the
traveller witnesses the grandeur and wild ruggedness of scenery
commensurate with his preconceived ideas of such inland seas. Along its
northern and western shores bold cliffs and rocky headlands frown in
savage grandeur, from amid the unbroken wastes of forest that reach to
the frozen regions around the Hudson Bay, while the gentler coast-lines
of its southern shores are varied by some of the most singular
conformations, wrought out of its rocky walls by the action of the
waves. Among such rock-formations, no features are so remarkable as
those presented by a portion of the extensive range of sandstone cliffs,
which project in jagged and picturesque masses from the southern shore,
soon after passing the Grand Sable; and to which fresh interest has been
given by the interweaving of the Algonquin legends of the locality into
Longfellow’s Indian _Song of Hiawatha_.
The Pictured Rocks are situated between the copper regions and the
ancient portage, which has been recently superseded by a canal opening
navigation for the largest vessels from Lake Huron to Lake Superior.
They lie in the centre of the long indentation, which, sweeping from
Keweenaw Peninsula eastward to White Fish Point, forms the coast most
distant from the northern shores of the lake. Here the cliffs have been
exposed through unnumbered ages to the waves under the action of
northerly winds; while a contemporaneous upheaval, prolonged probably
through vast periods of time, has contributed no unimportant share in
the operations by which their striking forms have been produced. Beyond
those the voyager comes once more on rocky cliffs in the vicinity of
Marquette: so named after the Jesuit missionary by whom the upper waters
of the Mississippi were first reached two centuries ago, in 1673.
Important changes have been wrought in the interval. Mineral treasures,
undreamt of by the ancient miners, are now rewarding the industry of the
Indians’ supplanters. The iron period, with its fully developed
civilisation, is invading those forest tracks; and when I first visited
Marquette in 1855, on the bold trappean rocks which form the landing,
abraded and scratched with the glacial action of a long superseded era,
were piled the rich products of the “Jackson Iron Mountain,” which rears
its bold outline at a distance of twelve miles from the shore.
Immediately to the north of this point the promontory of Presque Isle
presents in some respects a striking contrast to the Pictured Rocks;
though, like them, also indented and hollowed out into detached masses,
and pierced with the wave-worn caverns of older levels of shore and
lake. Here the water-worn sandstone and the igneous rocks overlie or
intermingle with each other in picturesque confusion: the symbol, as it
were, of the transition between the copper and iron eras. For it is just
at Presque Isle that the crystalline schists, with their intermingling
masses of trappean and quartz rocks, richly impregnated with the
specular and magnetic oxide of iron, pass into the granite and sandstone
rocks, which intervene between the ferriferous formations and the
copper-bearing traps of Keweenaw Point. Beyond this, the rich
copper-bearing region of the Keweenaw Peninsula stretches far into the
lake, traversed in a south-westerly direction by magnificent cliffs of
trappean rocks, presenting their perpendicular sides to the south-east,
and covered even amid the rocky débris with ancient forest-trees. In
this igneous rock are found the copper veins, which in recent years have
conferred such great commercial value on the district of Michigan; and
there I not only witnessed extensive mining operations in progress, but
have investigated evidences of the ancient miners’ labours which prove
the prolonged practice there, at some remote period, of native
metallurgic arts.
On landing at Eagle river, one of the points for shipping the copper
ores, on the west side of the Keweenaw Peninsula, the track lies through
dense forest, over a road in some parts of rough corduroy, and in others
traversing the irregular exposed surface of the copper-bearing trap.
After a time it winds through a gorge, covered with immense masses of
trap and crumbling débris, amid which pine, and the black oak and other
hard wood, have contrived to find a sufficient soil for taking root and
attaining their full proportions; and beyond the cliffs, in a level
bottom on the other side of the trap ridge, is the Cliff Mine
settlement, one of the most important of all the mining works in
operation in this region. Here I descended a perpendicular shaft by
means of ladders, to a depth of sixty fathoms, and explored various of
the levels: passing in some cases literally through tunnels made in the
solid copper. The very abundance of the metal proves indeed, at times,
an impediment to its profitable working, owing to the labour necessarily
expended in chiselling out masses from the solid lump, to admit of their
being taken to the surface, and transported through such tracts as have
been described, to the Lake shore. The floor of the level was strewed
with copper shavings: for the extreme ductility of the native copper
precludes the application of other force than manual labour for
separating it from the parent mass. I saw also beautiful specimens of
silver, in a matrix of crystalline quartz, obtained from this mine; and
the copper of the district is stated to contain on an average about 3·10
per cent. of silver. This is indeed by far the richest mineral locality
that has yet been wrought. In a single year upwards of sixteen hundred
tons of copper have been procured from the Cliff Mine, and one mass was
estimated to weigh eighty tons. Its mineral wealth was known to the
ancient miners; but the skill and appliances of the modern miner give
him access to veins entirely beyond the reach of the primitive
metallurgist, who knew of no harder material for his tools than the
native rock and the ductile metal he was in search of.
At the Cliff Mine are preserved some curious specimens of ancient copper
tools found in its vicinity, but it is to the westward of the Keweenaw
Peninsula that the most extensive traces of the aboriginal miners’
operations are seen. The copper-bearing trap, after crossing the
Keweenaw Lake, is traced onward in a south-westerly direction till it
crosses the Ontonagon river about twelve miles from its mouth, at an
elevation of upwards of three hundred feet above the lake. At this
locality the edges of the copper veins crop out in various places,
exposing the metal in irregular patches over a considerable extent of
country, many of which have been partially wrought by the ancient
miners. Here, in the neighbourhood of the Minnesota Mine, are extensive
traces of trenches and other mining operations, which prove that they
must have been carried on for a long period. These excavations are
partially filled up, and so overgrown in the long interval between their
first excavation and their observation by recent explorers, that they
scarcely attract attention. Nevertheless some trenches have been found
to measure from eighteen to thirty feet in depth; and one of them
disclosed a detached mass of native copper, weighing upwards of six
tons, resting on an artificial cradle of black oak, partially preserved
by immersion in the water with which it had been filled. Various
implements and tools of the same metal also lay in the deserted trench,
where this huge mass had been separated from its matrix, and elevated on
the oaken frame, preparatory to its removal entire. It appeared to have
been raised about five feet, and then abandoned, abruptly as it would
seem: since even the copper tools were found among the accumulated soil
by which it had been anew covered up. The solid mass measured ten feet
long, three feet wide, and nearly two feet thick; every projecting piece
had been removed, so that the exposed surface was left perfectly smooth,
possibly by other and ruder workers of a date subsequent to the
desertion of the mining trench by its original explorers.
The mining operations of upwards of a quarter of a century have done
much to efface the traces of the ancient works, as every indication of
them is eagerly followed up by the modern miner, as the most promising
clew to rich metalliferous deposits. But towards the close of 1874 Mr.
Davis, an experienced old miner of Lake Superior, recovered from another
ancient trench, in the same region, a solid mass of nearly pure copper,
heart-shaped, and weighing between two and three tons. It lay at a depth
of seventeen feet from the surface, as when originally detached from its
bed by the ancient miners. Alongside of it were a number of smaller
pieces, from a single ounce to seventeen pounds in weight, evidently
broken off the large mass by the original workers of the mine. Numerous
stone mauls and hammers also, weighing from ten to thirty pounds, lay
scattered through the lower débris with which the trench was refilled.
But the absence of any copper tools seemed to point to the final
desertion of the mine, from some unknown cause, at the very time when
its resources were most available.
Attention was first directed to such traces of ancient mining
operations, by the agent of the Minnesota Mining Company in 1847.
Following up the indications of a continuous depression in the soil, he
came at length to a cavern where he found several porcupines had fixed
their quarters for hybernation; but detecting evidences of artificial
excavation, he proceeded to clear out the accumulated soil, and not only
exposed to view a vein of copper, but found in the rubbish numerous
stone mauls and hammers of the ancient workmen. Subsequent observation
brought to light excavations of great extent, frequently from
twenty-five to thirty feet deep, and scattered over an area of several
miles. The rubbish taken from these is piled up in mounds alongside;
while the trenches have been gradually refilled with soil and decaying
vegetable matter gathered through the long centuries since their
desertion; and over all, the giants of the forest have grown, withered,
and fallen to decay. Mr. Knapp, the agent of the Minnesota Company,
counted 395 annular rings on a hemlock-tree, which grew on one of the
mounds of earth thrown out of an ancient mine. Mr. Foster also notes the
great size and age of a pine-stump which must have grown and died since
the works were deserted; and Mr. Whittlesey not only refers to living
trees upwards of three hundred years old, now flourishing in the
abandoned trenches; but he adds: “on the same spot there are the decayed
trunks of a preceding generation or generations of trees that have
arrived at maturity and fallen down from old age.” The deserted mines
are found at numerous points extending over upwards of a hundred miles
along the southern shore of the lake; and reappear beyond it, in
extensive excavations on Isle Royale. Sir William Logan reports others
observed by him on the summit of a ridge at Maimanse, on the north
shore, where the old excavations are surrounded by broken pieces of
vein-stone, with stone mauls rudely formed from natural boulders. The
extensive area over which such works have thus been traced, the
evidences of their prolonged working, and of their still longer
abandonment, all combine to force upon the mind convictions of their
remote antiquity.
At Ontonagon river I met with Captain Peck, a settler whose long
residence in the country has afforded him many opportunities of noting
the evidences of its ancient occupation. Repeated discoveries had led
him to infer the great antiquity of the works; and he specially referred
to one disclosure of ancient mining operations near the forks of the
Ontonagon river, where, at a depth of upwards of twenty-five feet, stone
mauls and other tools were found in contact with a copper vein; in the
soil above these lay the trunk of a large cedar, and over all grew a
hemlock-tree, with its roots spread entirely above the fallen cedar, in
the accumulated soil with which the trench was filled, and indicating a
growth of not less than three centuries. But the buried cedar, which in
favourable circumstances is far more durable than the oak, represents
another and longer succession of centuries, subsequent to that
protracted period during which the deserted trench was slowly filled up
with accumulations of many winters. In another excavation a bed of clay
had been formed above the ancient flooring to the depth of a foot. On
this lay the skeleton of a deer which had stumbled in and perished
there; and over it clay, leaves, sand, and gravel had accumulated to a
depth of nineteen feet. Not only are such indications frequent
throughout the Keweenaw Peninsula, and to the westward and southward of
Ontonagon; but on Isle Royale the abandoned mines disclose still
stronger evidence of their great antiquity. The United States Geologists
remark: “Mr. E. G. Shaw pointed out to us similar evidences of mining on
Isle Royale, which can be traced lengthways for the distance of a mile.
On opening one of these pits, which had become filled up, he found the
mine had been worked through the solid rock, to the depth of nine feet,
the walls being perfectly smooth. At the bottom he found a vein of
native copper eighteen inches thick, including a sheet of pure copper
lying against the foot-wall.” Stone hammers and wedges lay in great
abundance at the bottom of the trenches, but no metallic implements were
found: a proof perhaps that the mines of Isle Royale continued to be
wrought after their workers had been hastily compelled to abandon those
on the mainland. Mr. Shaw adopted the conclusion, from the appearance of
the wall-rocks, the multitude of stone implements, and the material
removed, that the labour of excavating the rock must have been performed
solely with such instruments, with the aid, perhaps, of fire. But the
appearance of the vein, and the extent of the workings, furnished
evidence not only of great and protracted labour, but also of the use of
other tools than those of stone. Accumulated vegetable matter had
refilled the excavations to a level with the surrounding surface, and
over this the forest extended with the same luxuriance as on the natural
soil. In this barren and rocky region the filling up of the trenches
with vegetable soil must have been the work of many centuries; so that
the whole aspect of the deserted mines of Isle Royale confirms the
antiquity ascribed to them.
What appear to the eye of the traveller as the giants of the primeval
forest, are the growth of comparatively modern centuries, subsequent to
the era when the shores of Lake Superior rang with the echoes of
industrial toil. Two or three centuries would seem altogether inadequate
to furnish the requisite time for the most partial accumulation of soil
and decayed vegetable matter with which the old miners’ trenches have
been filled. Four centuries thereafter are indisputably recorded by
recent survivors of the forest, independent of all traces of previous
arborescent generations; and thus in the excavations and tools of the
copper regions of Lake Superior, we look on memorials of a metallurgic
industry long prior to those closing years of the fifteenth century, in
which the mineral wealth of the New World awoke the Spanish lust for
gold. An uncertain, yet considerable interval must be assumed between
the abandonment of those ancient works, and the forest’s earliest
growth; and thus we are thrown back, at latest, into centuries
corresponding to Europe’s mediæval era for a period to which to assign
those singularly interesting traces of a lost American civilisation.
Owing to the filling up of the abandoned mining trenches with water, not
only the copper and stone implements of the miners are found, but
examples of wooden tools and timber framing have also been preserved, in
several cases in wonderful perfection; and these furnish interesting
supplementary evidence of the character of their industrial arts.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.—Miners’ Shovels.]
Of the wooden implements, the most noticeable are the shovels, by means
of which the soil was excavated. The accompanying woodcut represents two
of them worn away to the one side, as in most of the examples found, as
if used for scraping rather than digging the soil. Mr. Whittlesey gives
a drawing of one which measured three and a half feet long, recovered
among the loose materials thrown out from an extensive rock excavation
in the side of a hill about four miles south-east of Eagle Harbour. Part
of a wooden bowl used for baling water, and troughs of cedar-bark, were
also found in the same débris, above which grew a birch about two feet
in diameter, with its lower roots scarcely reaching through the ancient
rubbish to the depth at which those relics lay. Mr. Foster describes
another wooden bowl found at a depth of ten feet, in clearing out some
ancient workings opened by the agent of the Forest Mine; and which, from
the splintered pieces of rock and gravel imbedded in its rim, must have
been employed in baling water. Similar implements have been met with in
other workings, but they speedily perish on being exposed to the air.
All of them appear to have been made of white cedar. The indestructible
nature of this wood, when kept under water, or in a moist soil, is
abundantly illustrated by the experience of settlers who, on attempting
to clear and cultivate a cedar swamp, discover that the dead trunks,
exhumed undecayed after centuries of immersion, rest above still older
cedar-forests, seemingly unaffected by the influences which restore
alike the oak and the pine to the vegetable mould of the forest soil.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.—Miners’ Stone Mauls.]
The process of working the ancient mines seems to be tolerably clearly
indicated by the discoveries referred to. The soil having been removed
by means of wooden spades, doubtless with the aid of copper tools to
break up the solid earth and clay: remains of charcoal, met with in
numerous instances on the surface of the rock, show that fire was an
important agent for overcoming the cohesion between the copper and its
matrix. Before the introduction of gunpowder fire was universally
employed in excavating rock; and where fuel abounds, as in the old Harz
and Altenberg mining districts of Europe, it is even now found to be
quite as economical in destroying siliceous rocks. Stone hammers or
mauls were next employed to break up the metalliferous rock. These have
been found in immense numbers on different mining sites. Mr. Knapp
obtained in one locality upwards of ten cart-loads; and I was shown a
well at Ontonagon constructed almost entirely out of stone hammers,
obtained from ancient workings in the immediate vicinity. Many of these
are mere water-worn boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly chipped
at the centre, so as to admit of their being secured by a withe around
them. But others are well-finished, with a single or double groove for
attaching the handle by which they were wielded. They weigh from ten to
forty pounds; but many are broken, and some of the specimens I saw were
worn and fractured from frequent use.
The extent to which co-operation was carried on by the miners, with the
imperfect means at their command, is illustrated by the objects
recovered on exploring one of their trenches, on a hill to the south of
the Copper Falls mines. On removing the accumulations from the
excavation, stone axes of large size made of greenstone, and shaped to
receive withe-handles, and some large round greenstone masses that had
apparently been used for battering-rams, were found. “They had round
holes bored in them to the depth of several inches, which seemed to have
been designed for wooden plugs to which withe-handles might be attached,
so that several men could swing them with sufficient force to break the
rock and the projecting masses of copper. Some of them were broken, and
some of the projecting ends of rock exhibited marks of having been
battered in the manner here suggested.”[74]
But the industrious miners fully appreciated the practical utility of
the metal they were in search of; and it is not to be supposed that they
employed themselves thus laboriously in mining copper, and yet
themselves used only stone and wooden tools. Copper axes, gads, chisels,
and gouges, as well as knives and spear-heads, of considerable diversity
of form, have been brought to light, all of them wrought from the virgin
copper by means of the hammer, without smelting, alloy, or the use of
fire. At Ontonagon, I had an opportunity of examining an interesting
collection of mining relics, found a few months before. These consisted
of copper tools, with solid triangular blades like bayonets, one
fourteen inches, and the others about twelve inches in length; a chisel,
and two singularly shaped copper gouges about fourteen inches long and
two inches wide, the precise use of which it would be difficult to
determine. The whole were discovered buried in a bed of clay on the
banks of the river Ontonagon, about a mile above its mouth, during the
process of levelling it for the purposes of a brick-field. Above the
clay was an alluvial deposit of two feet of sand, and in this, and over
the relics of the ancient copper workers, a pine-tree had grown to full
maturity. Its gigantic roots gave proof, in the estimation of those who
witnessed their removal, of more than two centuries’ growth; while the
present ordinary level of the river is such that it would require a rise
of forty feet to make the deposit of sand beneath which they lay.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.—Ontonagon Copper Implement.]
An experienced practical miner, who had been among the first to reopen
some of the ancient works at the Minnesota mine, recognised in the
copper gouges implements adapted to produce the singular tool-marks
which then excited his curiosity. Subjoined is a representation of a
peculiar type of copper tools, sketched from one of those found at
Ontonagon. The socket, formed by hammering out the lower part flat, and
then turning it over partially at each side, corresponds to some
primitive forms of bronze implements found in Britain and the north of
Europe; but the latter are cast of a metallic compound, and prove a
skill in metallurgy far in advance of the old metal-workers of
Ontonagon.
Another, and in some respects more interesting discovery, was made at a
point lying to the cast of Keweenaw Point, in the rich iron district of
Marquette, in what appears to have been the ancient bed of the river
Carp. About ten feet above the present level of its channel, various
weapons and implements of copper were found. Large trees grew over this
deposit also, and the evidences of antiquity seemed not less obvious
than in that of Ontonagon. The relics included knives, spear or
lance-heads, and arrow-heads, some of which were ornamented with silver.
One of the knives, made, with its handle, out of a single piece of
copper, measured altogether about seven inches long, of which the blade
was nearly two-thirds, and of an oval shape. It was ornamented with
pieces of silver attached to it, and was inlaid with a stripe of the
same metal from point to haft. Numerous fragments and shavings of copper
were also found, some of which were such as, it was assumed, could only
have been cut by a fine sharp tool; and the whole sufficed to indicate,
even more markedly than those at Ontonagon, that not only was the native
copper wrought in ancient times in the Lake Superior regions, but that
manufactories were established along its shores, and on the banks of its
navigable rivers. The recognition of silver as a distinct metal by the
present race of Indians is proved by the specific term _shooneya_, by
which it is designated in Chippewa; whereas gold is only known as
_ozahwah-shooneya_, or yellow silver.
[Illustration]
FIG. 66. FIG. 67.
Brockville Copper Gouge.
Dagger.
In 1856, Dr. Thomas Reynolds of Brockville exhibited to the Canadian
Institute a collection of copper and other relics discovered in that
neighbourhood under singular circumstances; and possessing a special
interest owing to the distance of the site from Lake Superior. They
included a peculiarly-shaped chisel or gouge, six inches in length,
(Fig. 67), a rude spear-head, seven inches long (Fig. 68), and two small
daggers or knives, one of which is shown in Fig. 66, all wrought by
means of the hammer, out of native copper which had never been subjected
to fire, as is proved by the silver remaining in detached crystals in
the copper. They were found at the head of Les Galops Rapids, on the
river St. Lawrence, about fifteen feet below the surface, along with
twenty skeletons disposed in a circular space with their feet towards
the centre. Dr. Reynolds remarks of them: “Some of the skeletons were of
gigantic proportions. The lower jaw of one is sufficiently large to
surround the corresponding bone of an adult of our present generation.
The condition of the bones furnished indisputable proof of their great
antiquity. The skulls were so completely reduced to their earthy
constituents that they were exceedingly brittle, and fell in pieces when
removed and exposed to the atmosphere. The metallic remains, however, of
more enduring material, as also several stone chisels and gouges, and
some flint arrow-heads, all remain in their original condition; and
furnish evidence of the same rude arts which we know to be still
practised by the aborigines of the far West.” After discussing the
possibility of their European origin, Dr. Reynolds adds: “There is also
a curious fact, which these relics appear to confirm, that the Indians
possessed the art of hardening and tempering copper, so as to give it as
good an edge as iron or steel. This ancient Indian art is now entirely
lost.”
The reference thus made to the popular theory of some lost art of
hardening the native copper, afforded an opportunity of testing it in
reference to the Brockville relics. They were accordingly submitted to
my colleague, Professor Henry Croft, of University College, Toronto,
with the following results: The object of the experiments was to
ascertain whether the metal of which the implements are made is
identical with the native copper of the Lake Superior mines; or whether
it has been subjected to some manufacturing process, or mixed with any
other substance, by which its hardness might have been increased. A
careful examination established the following conclusions:—No
perceptible difference could be observed between the hardness of the
implements and that of metallic copper from Lake Superior. The knife or
small dagger was cleansed as far as possible from its green coating; and
its specific gravity ascertained as 8·66. A fragment, broken off the end
of the broad, flat implement, described as a “copper knife of full
size,” having been freed from its coating, was found to have a specific
gravity of 8·58. During the cleaning of this fragment, a few brilliant
white specks became visible on its surface, which appeared, from their
colour and lustre, to be silver. The structure of the metal was also
highly laminated, as if the instrument had been brought to its present
shape by hammering out a solid mass of copper, which had either split
up, or had been originally formed of several pieces. These laminæ of
course contained air, and the metal was covered with rust, hence the
specific gravity. The process by which a flat piece of copper has been
overlapped, and wrought with the hammer into a rude spear-head, is shown
in the accompanying illustration. A portion of very solid copper, from
Lake Superior, of about the same weight as the fragment, was weighed in
water, and its gravity found to be 8·92. The specific gravity of
absolutely pure copper varies from 8·78 to 8·96, according to the
greater or less degree of aggregation it has received during its
manufacture. The fragment was completely dissolved by nitric acid; and
the solution, on being tested for silver by hydrochloric acid, gave a
scarcely perceptible opacity, indicating the presence of an exceedingly
minute trace of silver. The copper having been separated by
hydro-sulphuric acid, the residual liquid was tested for other metals. A
very minute trace of iron was detected. The native copper from Lake
Superior was tested in the same manner, and was found to contain no
trace of silver, but a minute trace of iron. From this, it appears that
the implements are composed of copper almost pure, differing in no
material respect from the native copper of Lake Superior.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.—Brockville Copper Spear.]
It is thus apparent that, in the case of the Brockville relics, the
theory of a lost art of hardening and tempering copper was a mere reflex
of the prevalent popular fallacy; and there is no reason for
anticipating a different result in other cases in which the same theory
is tested.
More recently a well-finished dagger of hammered copper, nine inches
long, and a smaller copper gouge, have been turned up by the plough: the
former at Burnhamthorpe, and the latter at Chinguacousy, in Ontario; and
from time to time similar discoveries suffice to show the ancient
diffusion of the native copper throughout the whole region of the great
lakes. In his account of the discovery of the Brockville relics, Dr.
Reynolds assumes them to pertain to the present Indian race. The
evidences of antique sepulture, however, are unmistakable; and other
proofs suggest a different origin. Mr. Squier, by whom they had been
previously described, remarks in the Appendix to his _Aboriginal
Monuments of the State of New York_:[75] “Some implements entirely
corresponding with these have been found in Isle Royale, and at other
places in and around Lake Superior.” But besides the copper implements,
there lay in the same deposit a miniature mask of terra-cotta of
peculiar workmanship, suggestive rather of relation to the arts of the
Mound-Builders. Mr. Squier has figured it from an incorrect drawing,
which indicates a minuter representation of Indian features than the
original justifies. It is engraved here, the size of the original, from
a photographic copy, and, as will be seen, is a rude mask, such as is by
no means uncommon among the small terra-cottas of Mexico and Central
America. This mingling of traces of a certain amount of artistic skill
with the arts of the primitive metallurgist, entirely corresponds with
the disclosures of the ancient mounds of the Mississippi; and, indeed,
agrees with other partial manifestations of art in an imperfectly
developed civilisation.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.—Terra-cotta Mask.]
I was struck, when examining the rude stone mauls of the miners of
Ontonagon, by their resemblance to some which I have seen, obtained from
ancient copper workings of North Wales. In a communication made to the
British Archæological Institute by the Hon. William Owen Stanley, in
1850, he gave an account of an ancient shaft broken into at the copper
mines of Llandudno, Carnarvonshire. In this were found mining
implements, consisting of chisels, or picks of bronze, and a number of
rudely-fashioned stone mauls of various sizes, weighing from about 2
lbs. to 40 lbs. Their appearance suggested that they had been used for
breaking, pounding, or detaching the ore from the rock; and the
character both of the bronze and stone implements seems to point to a
period long prior to the Roman occupation of Britain. These primitive
mauls are stated to be similar to water-worn stones found on the
sea-beach at Pen Mawr. Mr. Stanley also describes others, corresponding
in like manner to those found on the shores of Lake Superior, which had
been met with in ancient workings in Anglesea. Were we, therefore,
disposed to generalise from such analogies, as ingenious speculators on
the lost history of the New World have been prone to do, we might trace
in this correspondence a confirmation of the supposed colonisation of
America, in the twelfth century, by Madoc, the son of Owen Gwynnedd,
king of North Wales. But the resemblance between the primitive Welsh and
American mining tools, can be regarded only as evidence of the
corresponding operations of the human mind, when placed under similar
circumstances, and with the same limited means, which is illustrated in
so many ways by the arts of the stone-period, whether of the most
ancient or of modern date. Nor can such correspondences be regarded as
altogether accidental. They confirm the idea of certain innate and
instinctive operations of human ingenuity, ever present and ready to be
called forth for the accomplishment of similar purposes by the same
limited means.
From this review of the evidences of long-abandoned mining operations on
the shores and islands of Lake Superior, it cannot admit of doubt that
in them we look on the traces of an imperfectly developed yet highly
interesting native civilisation, pertaining to centuries long anterior
to the discovery of America in the fifteenth century. The question
naturally arises: By whom were those ancient mines wrought? Was it by
the ancestry of the present Indian tribes of North America, or by a
distinct and long-superseded race? The tendency of opinion among
American writers has been towards a unity and comprehensive isolation of
the races and arts of the New World. Hence the theories alike of Morton
and of Schoolcraft, though founded on diverse premises, favour the idea
that the germs of all that is most noticeable even in the civilisation
of Central America may be found among the native arts, and the manners
and customs of the forest tribes. But neither the traditions nor the
arts of the Indians of the northern lakes supply any satisfactory link
connecting them with the Copper-Miners or the Mound-Builders. Of
Loonsfoot, an old Chippewa chief of Lake Superior, the improbable
statement is made that he could trace back his ancestry by name, as
hereditary chiefs of his tribe, for upwards of four hundred years. At
the request of Mr. Whittlesey he was questioned by an educated
half-breed, a nephew of his own, relative to the ancient copper mines,
and his answer was in substance as follows:—“A long time ago the
Indians were much better off than they are now. They had copper axes,
arrow-heads, and spears, and also stone axes. Until the French came
here, and blasted the rocks with powder, we have no traditions of the
copper mines being worked. Our forefathers used to build big canoes and
cross the lake over to Isle Royale, where they found more copper than
anywhere else. The stone hammers that are now found in the old diggings
we know nothing about. The Indians were formerly much more numerous and
happier. They had no such wars and troubles as they have now.” At La
Pointe on Lake Superior, it was my good fortune to meet with _Beshekee_,
or Buffalo, a rugged specimen of an old Chippewa chief. He retained all
the wild Indian ideas, though accustomed to frequent intercourse with
white men; boasted of the scalps he had taken; and held to his pagan
creed as the only religion for the Indian, whatever the Great Spirit
might have taught the white man. His grandson, an educated half-breed,
acted as interpreter, and his reply to similar inquiries was embodied in
the following sententious declaration of Indian philosophy:—“The white
man thinks he is the superior of the Indian, but it is not so. The Red
Indian was made by the Great Spirit, who made the forests and the game,
and he needs no lessons from the white man how to live. If the same
Great Spirit made the white man, he has made him of a different nature.
Let him act according to his nature; it is the best for him; but for us
it is not good. We had the red-iron before white men brought the
black-iron amongst us; but if ever such works as you describe were
carried on along these Lake shores before white men came here, then the
Great Spirit must once before have made men with a different nature from
his red children, such as you white men have. As for us, we live as our
forefathers have always done.”
La Pointe, or Chaquamegon, where this interview took place, was visited
by the Jesuit Father, Claude Alloüez, in 1666, and is described by him
as a beautiful bay, the shores of which were occupied by the Chippewas
in such numbers that their warriors alone amounted to eight hundred. In
the journal of his travels, he thus refers to the mineral resources for
which the region is now most famed:—“The savages reverence the lake as
a divinity, and offer sacrifices to it because of its great size, for it
is two hundred leagues long and eighty broad; and also, because of the
abundance of fish it supplies to them, in lieu of game, which is scarce
in its environs. They often find in the lake pieces of copper weighing
from ten to twenty pounds. I have seen many such pieces in the hands of
the savages; and as they are superstitious, they regard them as
divinities, or as gifts which the gods who dwell beneath its waters have
bestowed on them to promote their welfare. Hence they preserve such
pieces of copper wrapped up along with their most prized possessions. By
some they have been preserved upwards of fifty years, and others have
had them in their families from time immemorial, cherishing them as
their household gods. There was visible for some time, near the shore, a
large rock entirely of copper, with its top rising above the water,
which afforded an opportunity for those passing to cut pieces from it.
But when I passed in that vicinity nothing could be seen of it. I
believe that the storms, which are here very frequent, and as violent as
on the ocean, had covered the rock with sand. Our Indians wished to
persuade me it was a divinity which had disappeared, but for what reason
they would not say.”[76]
Such is the earliest notice we have of Indian ideas relative to the
native copper. It accords with all later information on the same
subject, and is opposed to any tradition of their ancestors having been
the workers of the abandoned copper mines. A secrecy, resulting from the
superstitions associated with the mineral wealth of the great Lake,
appears to have thrown impediments in the way of inquirers. Father
Dablon narrates a marvellous account communicated to him, of four
Indians who, in old times, before the coming of the French, had lost
their way in a fog, and at length effected a landing on Missipicooatong.
This was believed to be a floating island, mysteriously variable in its
local position and aspects. The wanderers cooked their meal in Indian
fashion, by heating stones and casting them into a birch-bark pail
filled with water. The stones proved to be lumps of copper, which they
carried off with them; but they had hardly left the shore when a loud
and angry voice, ascribed by one of them to Missibizi, the goblin spirit
of the waters, was heard exclaiming, “What thieves are these that carry
off my children’s cradles and playthings?” One of the Indians died
immediately from fear, and two others soon after, while the fourth only
survived long enough to reach home and relate what had happened, before
he also died: having no doubt been poisoned by the copper used in
cooking. Ever after this the Indians steered their course far off the
site of the haunted island. In the same relation, Father Dablon tells
that near the river Ontonagon, or Nantonagon as he calls it, is a bluff
from which masses of copper frequently fall out. One of these presented
to him weighed one hundred pounds; and pieces weighing twenty or thirty
pounds are stated by him to be frequently met with by the squaws when
digging holes for their corn. The locality thus celebrated by the
earliest French missionaries for its traces of mineral wealth, is in
like manner referred to by the first English explorer, Alexander Henry:
a bold adventurer, who visited the island of Mackinac, at the entrance
of Lake Michigan, shortly before the Treaty of Paris in 1763, and was
one among the few who escaped a treacherous massacre perpetrated by the
Indians on the Whites at Old Fort Mackinac. In his _Travels and
Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories_, he mentions his
visiting the river Ontonagon, in 1765, and adds, “I found this river
chiefly remarkable for the abundance of virgin copper which is on its
banks and in its neighbourhood. The copper presented itself to the eye
in masses of various weight. The Indians showed me one of twenty pounds.
They were used to manufacture this metal into spoons and bracelets for
themselves. In the perfect state in which they found it, it required
nothing but to be beat into shape.”[77] In the following year, Henry
again visited the same region. “On my way,” he says, “I encamped a
second time at the mouth of the Ontonagon, and now took the opportunity
of going ten miles up the river with Indian guides. The object which I
went most expressly to see, and to which I had the satisfaction of being
led, was a mass of copper, of the weight, according to my estimate, of
no less than five tons. Such was its pure and malleable state that with
an axe I was able to cut off a portion weighing a hundred pounds.” This
mass of native copper which thus attracted the adventurous European
explorer upwards of a century ago, has since acquired considerable
celebrity, as one of the most prominent encouragements to the mining
operations projected in the Ontonagon and surrounding districts. It is
now preserved at Washington, and is believed to be the same to which
Charlevoix refers as a sacrificial block held in peculiar veneration by
the Indians; and on which, according to their narration, a young girl
had been sacrificed. The Jesuit father did not obtain access to it, as
it was the belief of the Indians that if it were seen by a white man,
their lands would pass away from them. Those various notices are
interesting as showing to what extent the present race of Indians were
accustomed to avail themselves of the mineral wealth of the copper
regions. Illustrations of a like kind might be multiplied, but they are
all nearly to the same effect, exhibiting the Indian gathering chance
masses, or hewing off pieces from the exposed copper lodes, in full
accordance with the simple arts of his first Stone Period; but affording
no ground for crediting him with any traditionary memorials of
connection with the race that once excavated the trenches, and laid bare
the mineral treasures of the great copper region.
The evidence indicative of the great length of time which has intervened
since the miners of Lake Superior abandoned its shores, receives
confirmation from traces of a long protracted traffic carried on by the
subsequent occupants of their deserted territory. The mineral wealth
that still lay within reach of the non-industrial hunter of the forests
which grew up and clothed the deserted works, in the interval between
their abandonment and re-occupation, furnished him with a prized
material for barter. The head-waters of the Mississippi are within easy
reach of an Indian party, carrying light birch-bark canoes over the
intervening portages; and, once launched on its broad waters, the whole
range of the continent through twenty degrees of latitude is free before
them. Through Lake Huron and the Ottawa into the St. Lawrence, and by
Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, into the Hudson, other extensive areas
of native exchange were commanded. Articles wrought in the brown
pipe-stone of the Upper Mississippi, the red pipe-stone of the Couteau
des Prairies, west of St. Peters, and the copper of Lake Superior,
constituted the wealth which the old north had to offer. In return, one
of the most valued exchanges appears to have been the large tropical
shells of the Gulf of Florida and the West Indian seas: from which
wampum-beads, pendants, gorgets, and personal ornaments of various kinds
were manufactured.
Copper is obtained in its native state still farther north; and
Mackenzie, in his _Second Journey_, mentions its being in common use
among the tribes on the borders of the Arctic Sea; by whom it is wrought
into spear and arrow-heads, and a considerable variety of personal
ornaments. Mr. Henry found the Christinaux of Lake Winipagon wearing
bracelets and other ornaments of copper; and most of the earlier
explorers describe copper implements and personal ornaments among
widely-scattered Indian tribes of the New World. But in all cases they
appear to have been rudely wrought with the hammer, and sparingly
mingled with the more abundant weapons and implements of stone, of a
people whose sole metallurgic knowledge consisted in gathering or
procuring by barter the native copper,—just as they procured the red or
brown pipe-stone,—and hammering the mass into some simple useful form.
Silver, procured in like manner, was not unknown to them; and pipes
inlaid both with silver and lead are by no means rare. But it is only
when we turn to the scenes of a native-born civilisation, in Mexico,
Central America, and Peru, where metallurgic arts were developed, that
we discover evidence of the use of the crucible and furnace, and find
copper superseded by the more useful alloy, bronze.
But intermediately between the copper regions of Lake Superior and the
ancient southern scenes of native American civilisation, the Mississippi
and its great tributaries drain a country remarkable for monuments of a
long forgotten past, not less interesting and mysterious than the
forsaken mines of Keweenaw and Ontonagon, or Isle Royale. Those great
earthworks are ascribed to an extinct race, conveniently known by the
name of the Mound-Builders. Careful investigations into their structure
and contents prove these builders to have been a people among whom
copper was in frequent use, but by them also it was worked only by the
hammer. The invaluable service of fire in reducing and smelting ores,
moulding metals, and adapting them to greater usefulness by
well-proportioned alloys, was unknown; and the investigation and
analysis of their cold-wrought tools seem to prove that the source of
their copper was the Lake Superior mines. But though the ancient
Mound-Builder was thus possessed of little higher metallurgic knowledge
than the Indian hunter: he manifested in other respects a capacity for
extensive and combined operations, the memorials of which perpetuate his
monumental skill and persevering industry in the gigantic earthworks
from whence his name is derived. From these we learn that there was a
period in America’s unrecorded history, when the valleys of the
Mississippi and its tributaries were occupied by a numerous settled
population. Alike in physical conformation—so far as very imperfect
evidence goes,—and in some of their arts, these Mound-Builders
approximated to races of Central and South America, and differed from
the Red Indian occupants of their deserted seats. They were not, to all
appearance, far advanced in civilisation. Compared with the people of
Mexico or Central America when first seen by the Spaniards, their social
and intellectual development was probably rudimentary. But they had
advanced beyond that stage in which it is possible for a people to
continue unprogressive. The initial steps of civilisation had been
inaugurated; and the difference between them and the civilised Mexicans
is less striking than the contrast which the evidences of their settled
condition, and the proofs of extensive co-operation in their numerous
earthworks supply, when compared with all that pertains to the tribes by
whom the American forests and prairies have been exclusively occupied
during the centuries since Columbus.
The Mound-Builders were greatly more in advance of the Indian hunter
than behind the civilised Mexican. They had acquired habits of combined
industry; were the settled occupants of specific territories; and are
proved, by numerous ornaments and implements of copper deposited in
their monuments and sepulchres, to have been familiar with the mineral
resources of the northern lake regions, whether by personal enterprise,
or by a system of exchange. What probabilities there are suggestive of a
connection between the Mound-Builders and the ancient Miners will be
discussed in a later chapter, along with other and allied questions; but
to just such a race, with their imperfect mechanical skill, their
partially developed arts, and their aptitude for continuous combined
operations, may be ascribed, _à priori_, such mining works as are still
traceable on the shores of Lake Superior, overshadowed with the forest
growth of centuries. The mounds constructed by the ancient race are in
like manner overgrown with the evidences of their long desertion; and
the condition in which recent travellers have found the ruined cities of
Central America, may serve to show what even New York, Washington, and
Philadelphia: what Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec, would become after a
very few centuries, if abandoned, like the desolate cities of
Chichenitza or Uxmal, to the inextinguishable luxuriance of the American
forest growth.
The accumulations of vegetable mould, the buried forests of older
generations, and the living trees with their roots entwined among the
forsaken implements of the miners, all point to the lapse of many
centuries since their works were abandoned. Changes wrought on the
river-courses and terraces in the Ohio valleys suggest an interval of
even longer duration since the construction of the great earthworks with
which that region abounds. But to whatever period the working of the
ancient copper mines of Lake Superior be assigned, the aspect presented
by some of them when reopened in recent years is suggestive of peculiar
circumstances attending their desertion. It is inconceivable that the
huge mass of copper discovered in the Minnesota mine, resting on its
oaken cradle, beneath the accumulations of centuries, was abandoned
merely because the workmen, who had overcome the greatest difficulties
in its removal, were baffled in the subsequent stages of their
operations, and contented themselves by chipping off any accessible
projecting point. Well-hammered copper chisels, such as lay alongside of
it, and have been repeatedly found in the works, were sufficient, with
the help of stone hammers, to enable them to cut it into portable
pieces. If, indeed, the ancient miners were incapable of doing more with
their mass of copper, in the mine, than breaking off a few projections,
to what further use could they have turned it when transported to the
surface? It weighed upwards of six tons, and measured ten feet long and
three feet wide. The trench at its greatest depth was twenty-six feet;
while the mass was only eighteen feet from the surface; and in the
estimation of the skilled engineer by whom it was first seen, it had
been elevated upwards of five feet since it was placed on its oaken
frame. The excavations to a depth of twenty-six feet, the dislodged
copper block, and the framework prepared for elevating the solid mass to
the surface, all consistently point to the same workmen. But the mere
detachment of a few accessible projecting fragments is too lame and
impotent a conclusion of proceedings carried thus far on so different a
scale. It indicates rather such results as would follow at the present
day were the Indians of the North-west to displace the modern Minnesota
miners, and possess themselves of mineral treasures which they are as
little capable as ever of turning to any but the most simple uses.
Such evidences, accordingly, while they serve to prove the existence, at
some remote period, of a mining population in the copper regions of Lake
Superior, seem also to indicate that their labours came to an abrupt
termination. Whether by some devastating pestilence, like that which
nearly exterminated the native population of New England immediately
before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers; by the breaking out of war;
or, as seems not less probable, by the invasion of the mineral region by
a barbarian race, ignorant of all the arts of the ancient Mound-Builders
of the Mississippi, and of the miners of Lake Superior: certain it is
that the works have been abandoned, leaving the quarried metal, the
laboriously wrought hammers, and the ingenious copper tools, just as
they may have been left when the shadows of the evening told their long
forgotten owners that the labours of the day were at an end, but for
which they never returned. Nor during the centuries which have elapsed
since the forest reclaimed the deserted trenches for its own, does any
trace seem to indicate that a native population again sought to avail
itself of their mineral treasures, beyond the manufacture of such
scattered fragments as lay upon the surface.
-----
[74] Squier’s _Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York_. Appendix,
p. 184.
[75] _Smithsonian Contributions_, vol. ii. pp. 14, 176.
[76] _Relations des Jésuites_, vol. iii. 1666 _et_ 1667.
[77] Henry’s _Travels and Adventures_, New York, 1809, p. 194.