subject to the
same wants, should abandon the half-worked mines which their ancestors
had opened, and even fail to hand down to their posterity a tradition of
their existence. If copper was in such demand that the ancestors of the
present race of Chippeways were induced to work so perseveringly to
obtain it, why did not the children continue to work, at least enough to
finish the jobs already commenced by their progenitors? We cannot
consistently attribute the Herculean labor expended on these mines to
the ancestors of the indolent race of North American Indians. We
incline, rather, to the opinion that the miners were the mound-builders,
who resided south of the mines, and ultimately found a home in Mexico.
The condition in which the mines were left favors this theory; for in
many instances unfinished jobs are found,--as in the case of the mass of
copper upon skids at the Minnesota Mine, and the half-severed veins in
other mines. May we not reasonably suppose that the miners came from the
South and worked during the summer months, returning to their homes in
winter? The circumstance that no traces of their habitations or
burial-places have ever been discovered in the immediate vicinity of the
mines leads to the inference that they came from a distance; and the
fact that copper rings, chisels, and knives, and occasionally stone
hammers, are found in the ancient mounds that extend in an unbroken line
from Ohio to Mexico, induces the belief that the ancient miners and the
ancient mound-builders were the same people.

It is said that artificial mounds are found in British America; and I
was informed of one upon the banks of the Ontonagon River, about six
miles from its mouth, but was unable to visit the spot. It is well known
that they are quite abundant in Wisconsin, and extend the entire length
of the Mississippi Valley.

It is a noticeable fact that as we proceed south we find the mounds
generally larger and more symmetrical than those in more northern
latitudes. It would seem that the people who constructed those in
British America, in moving southward, (for we strongly suspect that this
people originally crossed Behring's Strait from Asia,) improved in their
style of building, and, on arriving at the Ohio River, had so far
improved as to be able to construct those interesting works at Marietta,
Moundville, and other points in that region. It was not till about the
time they reached the Ohio Valley that they manufactu