“Even if copper could be melted in an open fire, which is very doubtful, it must not be overlooked that Indians had no materials of which to make crucibles or moulds capable of withstanding such heat. Admitting they had clay receptacles which would have answered these purposes, there is no way of handling the molten metal with safety.”[[27]]
While it is probable that many copper implements were fabricated in the vicinity of the workings, it is now perfectly clear that fragments of the native ore were also carried away to be cut up and fashioned into implements elsewhere. The possession of such masses by the aborigines was noted by the early explorers and missionaries. On the extensive village-sites at Two Rivers, Sheboygan, Green Lake, and elsewhere have been obtained numerous small chips, scales, and fragments of copper, plainly indicating that the manufacture of implements was carried on there. Elsewhere in the state have been found lumps of the metal exhibiting tool-marks, and other indications of working.
Distribution
To fully discuss this phase of the subject would require many pages. The student must therefore content himself with such information as can be condensed into a comparatively limited space.
Implements and ornaments of native copper are distributed commonly or sparingly throughout a large portion of the eastern half of the United States and in some states west of the Mississippi River. Outside of our own state, numbers of them have been recovered in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, and West Virginia, and also from the mounds and stone graves and village-sites in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. Mr. Clarence B. Moore, whose explorations have been very extensive, has reported their existence in the mounds of Florida and elsewhere in the extreme South. From five mounds on the St. John’s River in Florida he obtained ornaments of sheet-copper with repoussé designs, beads of sheet-copper, beads of wood, shell, and limestone copper coated, copper effigies of the turtle and the serpent, and piercing implements of copper. Dr. C. C. Abbott long ago recorded the existence of copper implements in the Delaware Valley.
Fig. 582. (S. 3–4.) Copper gouges. The one to the left was found near Westford, Dodge County, Wisconsin. The one to the right was found near Chilton, Wisconsin.
Fig. 583. (S. 1–1.) Copper spud from Mercer, Iron County, Wisconsin. Loaned to the Milwaukee Public Museum by Mr. R. L. Ball.
As a result of his researches, Rev. W. M. Beauchamp recently issued under the auspices of the University of the State of New York, at Albany, two finely illustrated bulletins, one descriptive of the metallic implements and the other of the metallic ornaments of the New York Indians.