CHAPTER VIII.THE METALS.

Fig. 53.—Texas Stone Axe, hafted.

No such rude implements are found among the productions of the arctic tool-makers. The necessities of the Esquimaux, in their clothing and hunting, beget systematic habits of industry and matured skill. The elaborate decorations of their skin and fur dresses, the carving of their ivory and bone implements, and the ingenuity lavished upon their children’s toys, all prove how thoroughly the æsthetic, as well as the industrial arts, are developed by the stimulus which man’s necessities create. In Fig. 53, an axe, or war-club, is shown, procured from the Indians of the Rio Frio, in Texas. The blade is a piece of trachyte, so rudely chipped that it could scarcely attract attention as having been subjected to any artificial working, but for the club-like haft into which it is inserted. I am indebted to Mr. Evans for the use of the woodcut. He describes the haft as formed of some indigenous wood, which has evidently been chopped into shape by means of stone tools. Nothing ruder has been brought to light among the earliest disclosures of drift or cave deposits. Another Texas implement in the Smithsonian collection at Washington is a roughly shaped flint blade, which, as shown of the full size in Fig. 54, closely resembles a familiar class of oval implements of the river-drift. It is curious, indeed, to note the undesigned correspondence between the implements of races equally widely separated by time and space. Several examples of stone celts or hatchets attached to their handles have been recovered in British and Irish bogs, and in the submerged lake-dwellings of Switzerland.

Fig. 54.—Texas Flint Implement. (1/1).

All alike show a wooden haft pierced so as to admit of the insertion of the stone blade, which must have been secured by a withe or thong tightly bound round it, according to a fashion still practised in America, and among the islands of the Pacific. But in spite of this ligature, the wedge-like form of the axe must have had a tendency to cleave the haft, and so to loosen its hold. The experience of the ancient Lake-dwellers led them to counteract this by inserting the stone blade in a socket of deer’s-horn, the end of which is usually cut into a squared tenon designed to fit into a mortice in the handle. This must have accomplished the desired purpose, as examples of such deer’s-horn sockets are common on the sites of lake-dwellings. During the last visit of Professor Agassiz to his native Swiss Canton, and the village parsonage of Concise where his early years were passed, he obtained from Lake Neuchâtel a valuable collection of stone implements, along with pottery and other illustrations of the arts and habits of the Lake-dwellers, already referred to. Some of those are specially interesting as examples of the mode of hafting implements of flint and stone.

Fig. 55.—Chisel and deer’s-horn socket, Concise.

Fig. 55 shows a perforated deer’s-horn socket with a chisel of greenstone inserted in it. The exposed part of the blade measures nearly two inches in length. It must have been secured in its haft by a strong cement, such as some of the Pacific Islanders employ at the present day in fastening their axe-heads to bone and wooden handles. In some cases a tine of the deer’s antler has been left so as to form the handle of the hammer or hatchet. A rare example of this type is described by Dr. Clement, among numerous varieties recovered from different localities on Lake Neuchâtel. The horn of the stag was also at times converted into a formidable weapon by retaining the brow-antler as the offensive weapon, and detaching the rest, so as to leave only the main portion of the horn as a handle. Fig. 56, also from Lake Neuchâtel, may be described as a stone knife. The blade, which is of polished serpentine, measures 3½ inches in the exposed part, and is still secure in its horn haft. In the collection of Mr. J. H. Blake of Boston are flint implements recovered from an ancient Peruvian tomb on the Bay of Chacota, attached to their hafts by a tough green cement.

Fig. 56.—Stone Knife, Concise.

It is remarkable to notice how rarely the simple process of perforating the blade for the reception of the handle was resorted to, even where the workmen were in the habit of perforating both bone and stone implements for other purposes. This was no doubt partly due to the frangible character of much of the material in which they wrought; but even after the primitive metallurgist had mastered the art of alloying and casting his bronze, it seems to have been long before he learned to fit a handle to his axe or hammer by perforating the blade or hammer-head. Some of the most usual modes of attaching the axe or hatchet to a haft of wood or bone, in use among the islanders of the Pacific, are shown in a group of implements from the collection of the Scottish Antiquaries, Fig. 57. They bear a close resemblance to others described by Mr. William H. Dall as pertaining to the Thlinkets, a coast tribe of Alaska, not far to the south of Behring’s Strait.[70]But tools and weapons of stone, as well as of native copper, are already becoming rare among the tribes of the North Pacific Coast, owing to the introduction of iron by the Russian and Hudson’s Bay traders. Previous to this change, the Alaskans knew metal only in the form of cold-wrought native copper, as among all the native tribes north of the Mexican Gulf. Such a recognition of some convenient uses to which the malleable native metals could be applied as substitutes for stone, can scarcely be regarded as even an initial step in the transition towards the first true metallurgic period. This cannot be considered to have been introduced until the native copper-worker had perceived the wonderful transformations which could be wrought by fire, and had learned at least to melt the pure metal, and to mould the weapons and implements he required; if not to harden it with alloys, and to quarry and smelt the unfamiliar ores. To this stage the savage tribes of the New World have not even now attained, after intercourse with Europeans for more than three centuries and a half. There, on the contrary, the Indians, who originally possessed only weapons, implements, and personal ornaments of bone, shell, flint, and stone, or at most of native copper rudely hammered into shape, are still seen after an interval of upwards of three centuries of European colonisation and traffic, without the slightest acquired knowledge of working in metals. They do, indeed, possess numerous metal implements and weapons, which, as their greatest treasures, they freely lavish on the loved or honoured dead; but such traces of metallurgy afford no proof of acquired native art. The copper kettles of the ancient Huron graves on the Georgian Bay, or the Chinook coffin-biers on the Columbia river, were brought, not from the copper regions of Lake Superior, but from France, London, or Liverpool, along with the beads, knives, hatchets, and other objects of barter, by means of which the fur-traders still carry on their traffic with the Indian hunter. At most this only proves that a race, still in its stone-period, and possessing no greater skill than is required to grind an iron hoop into lance or arrow-heads, has been brought into contact with a civilised people, familiar with metallurgy and many acquired arts, such as the musket and the rifle may most aptly symbolise.

Fig. 57.—South Pacific Stone Implements.

The same diversity of inventive power and artistic skill is discernible among the Indians of North America as has been already referred to in comparing the arts of other uncivilised races. In some constructive skill predominates, while others manifest a peculiar aptitude for imitative art. The powers of imitation common to the barbarous and the civilised nations of the New World, are specially worthy of note; and will again come under review when referring to the pipe manufacture, so curiously typical of American art. But meanwhile an equally instructive illustration of what may thus be designated æsthetic and constructive instincts may be selected from the diversely gifted islanders of the Southern Pacific. On the extreme western verge of the Polynesian archipelago lie the Fiji Islands, occupied by a people remarkable among the islanders of the Pacific alike for physical and intellectual peculiarities. The Fijian physiognomy is described as presenting general characteristics of debasement, when compared with that of the true Polynesian, and the entire proportions and contour of their figure are markedly inferior to those of the Friendly and Navigator islanders. This is the more remarkable in a people dwelling in the midst of abundance, and enjoying an unusual variety of choice articles of food. Their ferocious and treacherous habits, however, and the hideous customs of cannibalism and systematic parricide, with attendant crimes inevitable in such a social condition, have rendered the Fijian Islands, which seem fitted by nature to be abodes of happiness, among the most wretched scenes of moral degradation. Nevertheless it is in this strange island-group that the arts of the South Pacific have their highest development.

The Papuans, or Negrillos, appear to be the true inventive race, from whom the Fijians, who are unquestionably allied to them in blood, acquired, elaborated, and greatly improved many applications of art and skill. The Papuans of New Caledonia, though superior in physical characteristics to other islanders of the Negrillo type, present some curious analogies to the Australian, especially in their mode of sepulture. Fig. 58 is an example of their ingenuity in adapting a simple stone chisel to its haft, so as to serve as a boat-carpenter’s adze. But the ingenious Negrillo is altogether unsocial and prone to isolation, and the Fijians manifest an equally strong disinclination to leave their island-home. It required, therefore, the intervention of a migratory or aggressive race to diffuse their acquired knowledge and skill; and this is supplied by the Malayans, who are found in contact with many nations, and are of a roving disposition, the proper children of the sea. “Naturally,” says Dr. Pickering, “the most amiable of mankind, they are free from antipathies of race, are fond of novelty, inclined rather to follow than to lead, and in every respect seem qualified to become a medium of communication between the different branches of the human family.” Such an impressible race of mediators being found, a curious light is thrown on the diffusion of knowledge and the primitive arts throughout the widely-scattered island groups of the Southern Pacific, where almost every Polynesian art, it is said, can be distinctly traced to the Fiji Islands, while the Fijian himself is so averse to roam.

Fig.58.—Stone Adze, New Caledonia.

Mr. Wallace, in reviewing the races of the Malay archipelago, dwells on the marked differences, physically, intellectually, and morally, between the Papuan and the Malay. The central home of the Papuans is New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands; but the same ethnical characteristics are traceable over the islands to the east of New Guinea, as far as the Fijis. “The Papuan,” Mr. Wallace remarks, “has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil, with elaborate carving; a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the Malay race.” In the affections and moral sentiments, on the contrary, the Papuans compare unfavourably with the Malays, who are gentle and passive in all their social relations. But this is properly traced to their listless, apathetic character; while the vigour of the uncivilised Papuan manifests itself in the unrestrained display of every emotion and passion, even among the women and children, and in violent collisions, inevitable in the social life of this savage race. Among such a people the best and the worst characteristics are often strangely intermingled. The Fiji Islanders use the bow and throw the javelin with great dexterity; but their peculiar and distinguishing weapon is a short missile club, which all habitually wear stuck in the belt, the symbolic national instrument of assassination. Many analogies of history tend, however, to refute the error of assuming the occurrence of moral degradation, even when manifested in parricide, cannibalism, and systematic treachery and assassination, to be necessarily incompatible with such intellectual development as distinguishes the Fijians from the Malays or other islanders of the Pacific. Of all the aborigines of the Pacific, the ferocious New Zealander has proved most capable of civilisation; and is found moreover to possess a traditional poetry and mythical legends of a highly striking and peculiar character. And turning from still undeveloped races of the world, we have only to study deeds perpetrated by the pagan Saxon, the Hun, or the later Dane and Norseman, to see in what hideous aspects the energies of a rude people may be manifested, who are nevertheless capable of becoming leaders in the civilisation of Europe. To judge by the monkish chronicles, no Fiji cannibal could surpass, either in savage atrocity or in hideousness of aspect, the Hungarian or Northman from whom the proudest of Europe’s nobles claim descent. The chroniclers of Germany, France, and Italy, dwell on the savage fury of the Huns; and the liturgy of the Gallican Church of the ninth century preserves the memorial of the pagan Northmen’s ravages, in the supplication added to its litany:A furore Normannorum libera nos.

Fig. 59.—Fijian Pottery.

It is obvious therefore that the savage vices of the Fijians are perfectly compatible with considerable skill in such arts as pertain to their primitive and insular condition. Their musical instruments are superior to those of the Polynesians, and include the Pan-pipe and others unknown in the islands beyond their range. Their pottery also exhibits great variety of form, and includes examples of vessels combined in groups, presenting a curious correspondence to similar productions of Peruvian art. Their fishing-nets and lines are remarkable for neat and skilful workmanship, and they carry cultivation to a considerable extent. “Indeed,” remarks the ethnologist of the United States Expedition, in summing up the characteristics of the Fijians, “we soon began to perceive that the people were in possession of almost every art known to the Polynesians, and of many others besides. The highly-finished workmanship was unexpected, everything being executed until recently, and even now for the most part, without the use of iron. In the collection of implements and manufactures brought home by the Expedition, the observer will distinguish in the Fijian division something like a school of arts for the other Pacific islands.” Fig. 59 shows two characteristic specimens of their pottery selected from the Smithsonian collections at Washington. They are extremely well burnt, and finished with a bright glaze. One of them illustrates a class of double vessels suggestive of certain analogies with a familiar style of Peruvian pottery; and the prevailing characteristics of the whole collection confirm the superiority ascribed to the Fijian artificer. In such a strangely-gifted savage race we see the degradation of which human nature is susceptible; and at the same time recognise germs of a constructive and artistic capacity capable of development into many marvellous manifestations, if once subjected to such influences as those which changed the merciless pirate of the northern seas into the refined Norman, the chivalrous crusader, and the imaginative troubadour.

The native races of America are neither devoid of energy nor ingenious artistic skill; and the progress attained by the Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as by the nations of Central America, proved their capacity for advancement in the arts of civilisation. But the fate which has everywhere befallen the Red Indians when brought into direct contact with European settlers, shows how impossible it is to abruptly bridge over the gulf which separates the infancy of nations from a maturity like that to which the rude Saxon and Northman attained through the schooling of many centuries. The Aztecs at the time of the Mexican conquest were probably not ruder than the first Angle and Saxon colonists. They were certainly no crueler than the Northmen of the eighth century. But they were far in advance of the northern tribes from which, according to Aztec traditions, they traced their descent.

Among the barbarous races of the northern continent, the tribes of the Iroquois confederacy, though scarcely rising above the hunter stage, offer a subject of study of peculiar value in reference to the ethnology of the New World. In the great valley of the St. Lawrence, at the period of earliest European contact with its native tribes, we find this confederacy of Indian nations in the most primitive condition as to all knowledge of progressive arts; but full of energy, delighting in military enterprise, and amply endued with the qualities requisite for effecting permanent conquests over a civilised but unwarlike people. Nor did the primitive arts of the Iroquois prevent the development of incipient germs of civilisation among them. Agriculture was systematically practised; and their famous league, wisely established, and maintained unbroken through very diversified periods of their history, exhibits a people advancing in many ways towards the initiation of a self-originated civilisation, when the intrusion of Europeans abruptly arrested its progress, and brought them in contact with elements of foreign progress pregnant for them only with sources of degradation and final destruction.

The historian of the Iroquois,[71]when describing their simple arts and manufactures, remarks, that in the western mounds rows of arrow-heads or flint-blades have been found lying side by side, like teeth, the row being about two feet long. “This has suggested the idea that they were set in a frame, and fastened with thongs, thus making a species of sword.”[72]In this description we cannot fail to recognise themahguahuitl, or native sword of Mexico and Yucatan. In the large canoe with its armed crew, first met off the latter coast, Herrera tells us the Indians had “swords made of wood, having a gutter in the forepart, in which were sharp-edged flints strongly fixed with a sort of bitumen and thread.” Among the Mexicans this toothed blade was armed with theitzli, or obsidian, capable of taking an edge like a razor; and the destructive powers of this formidable weapon are frequently dwelt upon by the early Spaniards. Among the ruins of Kabah, in Yucatan, the attention of Stephens was attracted by the protruding corner of a huge sculptured slab, the basso-relievos on which consist of an upright figure having a lofty plume of feathers falling to his heels; while another figure kneels before him holding in his hands the very same weapon, with its flint or obsidian blades projecting from the wooden socket. The idea it suggests is not necessarily that assumed by Stephens: that the sculptors and architects of the great ruins of Central America and Yucatan were the same people whom the Spaniards found there on their landing. The sculpture may be of a greatly older date. On its lower compartment is a row of hieroglyphics; and the suppliant attitude of the armed figure is rather suggestive of a record of conquest over some barbarian chief of Mexican or more northern tribes, of whom the flint-edged sword-blade was the most typical characteristic. Nevertheless, there is a singular interest in the simple chain of evidence, thus confirmatory of the Aztec traditions of original migration, and the subjugation of the elder civilised race of Anahuac by northern warriors: which leads us, step by step, from such rude arts as those of the Iroquois, and relics of other barbarous tribes in western sepulchral mounds, to the Mexican armature of the era of the conquest, and artistic records of the lettered architects of Yucatan.

The history of the Iroquois and their simple arts, illustrates with peculiar aptness the unwritten chronicles of the New World. In their rude state they achieved a remarkable civil and military organisation, and acquired more extensive and enduring influence than any nation of native American lineage, excepting the civilised Mexicans and Peruvians. Their own traditions pointed to an era when they migrated from the northern shores of the St. Lawrence into that region to the south and east of Lake Ontario, where they dwelt through all the period of their authentic history; though two members of the league, the Senecas and Onondagas, claimed to be autochthones, sprung from the soil of that Iroquois territory. The league embraced the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Mohawks, all united in a strictly federal union; and to this the Tuscaroras were admitted, on their expulsion from North Carolina in 1715. The claim of a common origin advanced by a people occupying territory so far to the south, throws an interesting light on the migrations of Indian tribes. It is confirmed by the character of their language, and received practical recognition in the assignment of a portion of the Oneida territory for their occupation. In the seventeenth century the Iroquois were the great aggressive nationality of the continent to the north of Mexico. In the very beginning of that century, Captain John Smith, the founder of Virginia, encountered their canoes on the upper part of the Chesapeake Bay, bearing a band of them to the territories of the Powhattan confederacy. The Shawnees, Susquehannocks, Nanticokes, Miamis, Delawares, and Minsi, were, one after another, reduced by them to the condition of dependent tribes. Even the Canarse or Long-Island Indians found no protection from them in their sea-girt home beyond the Hudson; and their power was felt from the St. Lawrence to Tennessee, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.

How long before the discovery of this vast region by Europeans, it had been in occupation by those who claimed to be its autochthones, we have no other knowledge than their own traditions of migration. But so far as arts are any evidence of national progress, they were then in their infancy. The region they occupied offered no advantages for the inauguration of a copper or bronze era, such as those of Lake Superior or the Southern Andes supplied to their ancient possessors. Of working in metals they knew nothing; and only supplemented their primitive implements, wrought in stone, flint, horn, bone, and wood, by barter with the European intruders. Nevertheless, for nearly two centuries, the Indians of the Five Nations, as they were called before the addition of the Tuscaroras, presented a sturdy and unbroken front to the encroachments alike of Dutch, French, and British colonists. But their hostility was concentrated in opposition to the French nation; and as the rival colonies of France and England were long nearly balanced, it is not unjustly affirmed by the historian of the Iroquois, that France owed the final overthrow of her magnificent schemes of colonisation in North America to their uncompromising antagonism.

Among the Mexicans the arts of a true stone-period had been carried to the highest perfection, along with a development of those of their bronze age. On the northern frontier of Mexico, towards the head-waters of the Great Barauca, is the Cerro de Navajas, the “Hill of Knives,” where, before the conquest, obsidian was mined for manufacturing purposes: like the chert and hornstone of the Flint Ridge pits of Kentucky and Ohio. Examples of elaborately-worked obsidian and flint, and of polished implements and ornaments of stone, executed by Mexican artificers, rival the finest specimens recovered among the relics of Europe’s neolithic period. The Christy collection is specially rich in objects of this class. One flame-shaped arrow-head chipped with the nicest art, is evidently executed as a display of lapidary skill. Another fine spear-blade, made of a semi-opalescent chalcedony which occurs as concretions in the trachytic lavas of Mexico, measures eight inches long, and is supposed to have served as a state halberd, as it is much too delicate for actual warfare. But it is obvious that a finer material than usual frequently tempted the worker in flint or obsidian to an unwonted display of his art. In various private collections in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, I have seen choice specimens of spear and arrow-heads, and other objects, made of jasper, milky-quartz, and rock crystal; some of them wrought into fantastic or purely ornamental forms.

A state battle-axe in the Christy collection made of green quartzose avanturine, measures 11 inches in length. It is a thick wedge, with the upper part carved as the head of a Mexican idol or king, and the arms outlined on the blade. Jade, green serpentine, grey granite, agate, and obsidian of different colours, were all worked into various shapes for ornament or use, with a care often prompted by the attractive character of the material, and with a skill no longer known to the native Mexican artificers.

Fig. 60.—Honduras serrated Implement.

In the southern continent also examples of mastery in the manufacture of flint and stone implements survive, in some cases as the sole memorials of races which have perished; and traces of the arts of savage tribes in the primitive condition of a purely stone-period lie everywhere outside of the remarkable centres of Peruvian civilisation. Three such relics from the Bay of Honduras are deserving of special notice, from their unusually large size and peculiar forms. They were found, along with other implements, about the year 1794, in a cave between two and three miles inland. One of them is now preserved in the British Museum, and the others have been repeatedly exhibited at meetings of the Archæological Institute. The accompanying illustrations will best convey an idea of their peculiar forms. One (Fig. 60) is a serrated weapon, pointed at both ends, and measuring sixteen and a half inches long. Another (Fig. 61), in the form of a crescent, with projecting points, measuring 17 inches in greatest length, may have served as a weapon of parade, like the state partisan or halberd of later times. The third, which is imperfect, is shown in Fig. 62. The whole are examples of flint implements of unusually large proportions, and chipped with extraordinary regularity and skill. A well-executed head of a warrior, in terra-cotta, obtained about the same period, if not indeed along with these implements, was presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1798, and is figured on a subsequent page. The unwonted size of those Honduras implements attracted special notice when first produced; but this ceases to excite surprise when it is seen that blocks of flint or hornstone adequate for the largest of them are readily procurable throughout extensive regions of North America, as in Ohio and Kentucky. To the north of Ohio, where the material is rare, flint implements and weapons are mostly of small size. The larger implements are of stone; and among the Iroquois, the Hurons, the Chippewas, and other tribes on the shores of the great lakes, the copper of Lake Superior seems to have been recognised, and sought for, as a fitter material for large hatchets and spear-heads.

Fig. 61.—Honduras State Halberd.

Fig. 62.—Honduras Implement.

In this respect we see the very privations of those Indian tribes forcing on their notice the resources of the copper region, which might, among so energetic a people as the Iroquois proved themselves to be, have at length led to such a mastery of the metallurgic arts as was achieved by the nations of Mexico and Peru. But their energies were diverted into far different channels by the very advent of races already familiar with all the highest acquirements of civilisation; and whatever time might have developed out of the Iroquois confederacy, akin to the native civilisation which had already taken root beyond the verge of their southern conquests, they had little to hope from the triumph of either of the European aggressors between whom they so long held the balance. In the rivalry of the French and English colonists the insular race proved the victors; and when at a later date England and her American colonies came into collision, the nations of the League took different sides, and the Hodenosaunee[73]finally ceased to be the ideal rallying-point of a united people. They had run their destined course; and now the poor scattered remnants of the once-famous Indian federation serve only to illustrate how irreconcilable are the elements of high civilisation with the most vigorous and progressive energy of a people only maturing the first stage in the progress of nations. They lacked the qualities which protect an inferior race from extinction when brought into contact with a long matured civilisation. Passive and naturally submissive races, like the Malay or the Negro, survive the intrusion of a dominant race, and are protected by their docility, as the natural serfs of the intruders. But an energetic people, who find their chief employment in war and the chase, can be subjected to no useful servitude. They are separated by too wide a gulf from their rivals to claim any equality in the rights of civilisation. The only alternative left for them is to drive out the intruder, or to be exterminated by him like the bear and wolf. Stone, Bronze, and Iron Periods are not indispensable steps in the advancement of the human race; but all experience proves that when such extreme social conditions are abruptly brought into contact as stone and iron periods aptly symbolise, the tendency is towards the degradation and final extinction of the less advanced race.

[68]Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 2d Ed. vol. i. p. 331.

[68]

Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 2d Ed. vol. i. p. 331.

[69]U. S. Geological Survey, 1872, p. 652.

[69]

U. S. Geological Survey, 1872, p. 652.

[70]Alaska and its Resources, p. 418.

[70]

Alaska and its Resources, p. 418.

[71]Lewis H. Morgan:League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.

[71]

Lewis H. Morgan:League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.

[72]See footnote 71.

[72]

See footnote 71.

[73]Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or People of the Long House, expressive of the numerous assembly in the Council of the Confederacy.

[73]

Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or People of the Long House, expressive of the numerous assembly in the Council of the Confederacy.

CHAPTER VIII.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 astonepossessed 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. Thuspewahbik, 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 IndianSong 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.

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