OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 49
‘the altars were sufficiently strong, in some instances, to melt down the copper ornaments and implements deposited upon them, and the fact that the metal was fusible could hardly have escaped notice. The locality, from which a portion at least of the supply of these metals was obtained, is pretty clearly indicated, by the peculiar mechanico- chemical combination existing in some specimens between the silver and copper, which combination characterizes the native masses of Lake Superior. The evident scarcity of silver may also be regarded as supporting this conclusion.
Galena, as already observed, is found in considerable quantities. One of the altars uncovered was entirely occupied by a deposit of this mineral, which had been slightly subjected to the action of fire. No native deposits of galena are known to exist in Ohio, and the supply of the mounds was probably obtained from the well known local- ities on the Upper Mississippi.
The comparative scarcity of copper implements seems to imply that they were not in general use. At any rate, they never entirely superseded the ruder articles of bone and stone, so generally diffused among rude nations all over the globe. In Mexico and Peru those characteristic imple- ments of a ruder state were still adhered to at the period of the discovery. The early explorers found all the Ameri- can nations, from the squalid Esquimaux, who struck the morse with a lance pointed with its own tusks, to the haughty Aztec, rivalling in his barbaric splendor the magnificence of the East, including the fearless hunter tribes situated between these extremes, in possession of them. Weare not, therefore, surprised at their occurrence in the mounds. We find them with the original and with the recent deposits, and the plough turns them up to light on every hand. And so striking is the resemblance be- tween them all, that we are almost ready to conclude they were the productions of the same people. The conclusion would be irresistible, did we not know that the wants of
