Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1882-05-03
NO. 1O4.
Prehistoric Mining I'm Michigan.

The Lake Superior mines have the advan-
tage of producing metal tree from any alloy
of antimouy or nickel or arsenic. In many
of the mines great masses of native m, tai are
found so large that they must be cut in place
with chisels.
All the more important mines are situated
on the ancient workings of prehistoric race.
They seem to have been ignorant OF the fact
that copper could be melted. for they lett be-
hind them the fragments too small to use and
the masses too heavy to lift. Every day they
subjected it TO temperature nearly high
enough, without making discovery which
would have lifted them out of the Stone Age
into the Bronze Age. and perhaps have en-
abed them to survive the struggle In which
they perished. They must have been very
numerous, and have reached the point of de-
velopment where they were capable of organ
izing industry.
In Isle Royale, near the Minong mine, their
pits .excavated to a depth of from 10 to 20 feet
in the solid rock, cover an area of from 800
to 400 feet wide and more than mile
and half in length. The labor expend.
ed here cannot have been much short OF that
involved in building Pyramid. Isle Royale
is 10 miles from the nearest land and Is in
capable of producing food, SO that all sup.
plies except fish must have been brought
from some distant point Their excavations
could of course never go below the point at
which water would accumulate. Their ham,
mers, frequently 10 the number of several
thousand, are found in heaps where they were
evidently placed at the end of the season. As
no graves or evidences of habitations arc
found, we can hardly doubt that the ancient
miners lived south of the great lakes, and
made yearly iourneyings with fleets of canoes
to the copper mines. The aggregate amount
of the metal which they carried off must have
been very great, and il has, l believe, been
generally thought that the copper implements
OF the ancient Mexicans came from th.
source. NJ. Charnay in a recent number OF
the North American seems to think that the
Mexicans reduced copper from its ores. A
chemical analysis of their hatchcts would
solve the question, for Lake Superior copper
Is so free from alloys as to be unmistakable.
The superintendent of the old Caledonia
mine in oatonagon County kindly took me
to the top of a cliff where three Cornish
'tributers miners working not for wages
but share of the product-had cleared out
one of the ancient pits in the outcrop OF the
vein. They had brought out n quantity of
copper, and had just uncovered large mass
which would weigh certainly not less than
seven tons. Many battered stone hammers
Law around the mouth of the pit. The active
little Englishmen belonging to n race of
hereditary miners perhaps as did the Mound
builders themselves, had come round the
world from the east to finish the work Of the
departed Asiatic race who reached here from
the west at time to which no date can be
assigned. Not far away another party had
cut down dead cedar to make props for
their tunnel. As they were putting :he log
in position, from its centre dropped small
but perfectly formed stone hammer which