4. A fourth type, the so-called “socketed harpoon-point” (Fig. 604), has one edge of its blade prolonged into a barb at the base. This barb may be on either the right or left side. Otherwise this type does not differ in shape from some of the flat-backed, socketed spear-points. Only a small number of these points have been found. All these are provided with a rivet-hole in the socket. An example in the Logan Museum is about four inches in length, and comes from Mequon, Ozaukee County.
Pikes and Punches. (See Fig. 602.)
In this class of objects, which are as yet alluded to by students and collectors by either of the above or other names, are included the largest copper implements found in Wisconsin. They are rod-like in form, usually circular or square, less frequently rectangular in section, and taper to a point at one or both ends. Large specimens of each of these several patterns have been found. The largest is in the Field Museum. It is about forty inches in length, one inch in diameter at the middle, and tapers to a point at either extremity. It weighs five and a quarter pounds and was obtained from a burial-mound on the Abraham place, at Peshtigo, Marinette County.
Fig. 613. (S. 1–1.) Copper crescent-shaped object obtained near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Milwaukee Public Museum collection.
Fig. 614. (S. 1–3.) Copper crescents. Collection of Wisconsin Archæological Society.
A specimen in the H. P. Hamilton collection is twenty-nine inches in length, seven eighths of an inch in diameter, and weighs two and three fourths pounds. About one inch from the pointed extremity there is a broken projection which Mr. Hamilton believes to have been a barb. The other end terminates in a small claw or broken out eye. It comes from Maple Creek, Outagamie County. In the T. W. Hamilton collection there is another fine specimen which is eighteen and a half inches in length and weighs one and a half pounds. A specimen found at New Haven, Adams County, is fourteen and a half inches in length and weighs one and three eighths pounds. Other large specimens are to be seen in the Logan Museum, State Historical Museum, and Milwaukee Museum collections. Some of these are rather flat, rectangular in section and one inch in width and less than three eighths of an inch in thickness. They are pointed at one extremity and rounded or blunted at the other. Some other large specimens are known to have been cut in two and otherwise maltreated by the persons who found them.
In the Field Museum collections implements of this pattern ranging from eight inches or less up to the largest size are classed as “pikes.” That they were employed as weapons is extremely doubtful. It has been suggested that they may have been heated and employed in the burning-out of wooden canoes or wooden vessels. There is reason to believe that some of the lighter forms were mounted in wooden handles, at least one example with an accompanying copper ferule having been found at Milwaukee.
