The Prehistoric Finds of Michigan

By Rev. James Savage

Taken From the Record

of the

American Catholic Historical Society

of

Philadelphia

Volume XXII

1911

Distributed by

www.ScienceViews.com

The Prehistoric Finds of Michigan

By the Rev. James Savage, Detroit, Michigan

For many years reports have come of finds of chilled copper implements found in the various localities of Michigan, such as knives, axes, spear and dagger points, saws, etc., of chilled copper. These chilled copper specimens give forth as clear a tone as a bell. The copper implements of Wisconsin and Michigan made by the Indians are as dead in tone as a shingle. Evidently no attempt was made at hardening in their manufacture. They are as soft and malleable as the crude copper from which they are made.

Much also has been written from time to time regarding the prehistoric work done in the mines of Lake Superior Region—Isle Royal, the mines near the present City of Houghton, and the mines of Ontonagon.

The following are extracts from a paper read by the Hon. Joseph Greusel, of Detroit, before the Michigan Pioneer Society at the annual meeting of 1905. This paper is recorded in the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, Vol. 35, pages 324, 325, 326. Mr. Greusel states:

Some years ago I became acquainted with Alonzo C. Davis, an old Lake Superior mining superintendent. Later he was a member of the legislature... It was at Lansing that he told me of his experience in opening the Minong mine on Isle Royal.

The company had a tract on the island of a thousand acres with surface indications of copper. Mr. Davis was made superintendent, and in 1870, I think, work on the new mine began. It was necessary to decide where to sink the main shaft. Davis went over the tract, and in his best judgment selected a spot in the midst of the primitive forest. Trees were cut, trees as large and as old as any on the tract. Then excavation. It was expected that the removal of a slight covering of surface earth would bring the shovelers to the rock, and from thence on quarrying would continue to the lower depths of the vein.

But it did not turn out that way. There was a great deal of earth at the mouth of the new shaft. As they dug, the earth caved in, always enlarging the circle of operations. At some depth below the tree roots, after a while, the skeleton of a deer, or moose, was uncovered. The bones were quite sound. The sight of them aroused speculation. Great trees growing above this burial place—trees that the rings evidenced had been of tolerable size when Columbus made his voyage across the Atlantic. Yes—great matter for speculation. The theory of Mr. Davis was that this particular spot had, at a former time, been a depression in a clearing, and was filled with water. The animal whose bones were discovered had resorted to the water to drink. It was at a time of the year when it was frozen, and the ice was thin. The animal broke through the ice and perished.

How did the depression fill up? The winds of many years drifted surface sand and soil therein, vegetation formed and moulded away. The forces of nature, the winds, the rains, the frosts, had acted, filling slowly, dust to dust, over the skeleton of the deer.

Well, they continued to remove this earth and to dig. The operation was a bit vexatious; the banks caved and the pit enlarged. At length the bottom—the rock bottom—was reached. Clearing out the soil there was revealed a spacious basin. In it a mass of pure copper approaching 5,000 pounds in weight. Pure, solid copper—a great smooth mass without point, projection or cavity; protuberances shaved off, and marks of cutting tools all over it. Cutting tools—some cart loads of them—lay about the basin...

What was the secret here uncovered? This: They had struck upon the mine of some ancient race, whose tools were stone; men of the stone age, mining for Lake Superior copper. The mass that Davis uncovered was too heavy to be removed from the pit by the men who first found it. They had no sufficient hoisting apparatus. Accordingly they had carved away at this particular mass of copper, removing strips and sections of it; their tools leaving it trimmed as we have seen.

But they left it there. Why? Some sudden catastrophe had overwhelmed them. The stone tools so plentiful about; the elegant piece of copper abandoned. The work had been stopped and the workmen disappeared. The dimensions of the pit testify that many men had been employed in it. They had hit upon and worked a considerable stretch of the main vein of the Minong mine of our days. Undoubtedly men skilled in mining, as mining was in their age. The rocks were heated with fires; water was dashed upon the rocks, and the rocks became pliable and split, leaving the copper to be plucked out.

The subsistence of these men must have come from a more fertile and distant region, consequently there was navigation and commerce, of a sort, in that stone age—the miners in this remote region fed and provided by the people who needed the copper; boats and boatmen to bring provisions to the mines and carry back with them the treasures of the earth.

They have perished—miners, merchants, husbandmen and navigators. The principal vestige of their labors and their enterprises is the ancient pit on Isle Royal.

See paper read by Henry H. Riley, February 5, 1879, Michigan Pioneer Collections, Vol. 3, 1879-80, page 43. Extracts from paper:

The ancient mining at Isle Royal, near the northern line of Lake Superior, has excited amazement. The island is about fifty miles long, from five to nine in breadth, with a ragged, rocky shore, and cut up into deep gorges, and is covered with a growth of timber. The pits are from ten to thirty feet in diameter, from twenty to sixty feet in depth, and are scattered throughout the island. They follow the richest veins of ore with great knowledge and skill in the art of mining. They are connected underground, and drains are cut to carry off the water; there is one deep cut in the rock, covered its entire length by timbers that are now decayed, and the whole is a mass of rotten wood. At McCargoe's Cove there are nearly two miles of pits very closely connected; quantities of stone hammers and mauls, weighing from ten to thirty pounds, have been found, some broken from use and some in good condition; copper chisels, knives and arrow-heads have been discovered. The copper tools seemed to be hardened by fire. It is difficult to determine their original workmanship owing to corrosion, but there is evidence going to show that they were originally polished and of good workmanship.

The working out the ore was no doubt by heating and pouring on water—very slow and tedious, and yet it is said that although two hundred men with their rude way of mining could not accomplish any more work than two skilled miners can at the present day, that at one point alone, on this Isle Royal, the amount of labor performed exceeds that done on one of the oldest mines on the south shore, which has been operated with a large force for more than twenty years.

When were these pits opened? By whom? Who can tell? Forests have grown up and fallen and mouldered over them, and great trees, three hundred and four hundred years old, stand around them today, counting so much, and only so much, time for us in our efforts to fix the age of those mines.

See also address of Professor Charles D. Lawton, Commissioner of Mineral Statistics, Mines and Mineral Interests of Michigan, published in The Semi-Centennial of the State of Michigan, June 15, 1886, pages 61 and 62. Professor Lawton in his address states:

The Indians who occupied the country at the advent of the white men had no knowledge of the matter. No suspicion existed that any mining work had ever been performed in this country until within a recent period. Then the discovery was made that the ground had been previously occupied and that these metalliferous veins had been long ago worked and large amounts of copper obtained, but at what time and by whom is only a matter of conjecture. Of the high antiquity of this work there can be no doubt, since the pits which had been made had become filled up with soil and decayed vegetation and were overgrown with large forest trees. In the pits, when cleared of the accumulated dirt and rubbish, have sometimes been found large masses of copper which the primitive workers had unsuccessfully endeavored to remove. At the Minnesota, Caledonia, Mesnard, and at many other mines, masses of copper of many tons' weight have been discovered lying at the bottom of the pits, covered with dirt and surrounded with stone hammers, pieces of burnt wood, and even copper tools and other evidences of former labor.

An instance of the finding of a mass of copper at the Mesnard, in 1862, was related to me by Mr. Jacob Houghton. The mass weighed 18 tons of pure copper, and had been removed a distance of 48 feet from its original bed by the ancient workmen. Abundant evidence of their efforts was still manifest in the stone hammers and bits of burnt wood that were found about the mass and in the spot from which it had been taken. The mass itself was nearly buried beneath the accumulation of earth and decayed vegetation, and forest trees of maximum size were growing over it. Finds of this kind were not unfrequent in an early day; but to the Indians who roamed the country at the time of its discovery, to the Jesuits and voyageurs, this fact of ancient mining was unknown.

In 1876 Governor Bagley, who was then Governor of Michigan, sent this same nodule of copper described by the Hon. Jos. Greusel to the Philadelphia Centennial. The copper nodule was then in the collection of the Detroit Scientific Society. As far as I can learn, its weight was a trifle over 5,300 pounds. It bore marks of heavy pounding from the large stone hammers found in the bottom of the mine. When this prehistoric specimen was returned to Detroit from the Philadelphia Centennial, it lay for months on the dock at the foot of Shelby Street, and, as far as I can learn, was sold to a smelting works for its commercial value.

In the year 1885 Capt. Henry Reany, who then was chief clerk of the Lighthouse Department of the Great Lakes, told me of a find made when digging for the foundation of a lighthouse built by the United States Government at the head of Lake Michigan, west of St. Ignace. He stated that when the workmen, had excavated four feet deep for the foundation of the lighthouse, they unearthed a cedar box three and one-half feet long by eighteen by eighteen inches dovetailed. The box contained chisels, saws, axes, knives, etc., which he stated would remind one of a carpenter's kit and tray. These tools were all, he stated, of chilled copper. He spoke of one saw in particular, some twenty inches long, that had several teeth broken out, showing its high temper and hard usage. I asked him what became of this box and its contents. He stated that he did not know. This is only a sample of the estimate in which such specimens were held by those who found them.

The prehistoric mines on the Mainland showed similar conditions as described by Mr. Greusel when discovered by the white man, i. e. "tools lay around in groups as though the workman," one old man related to me, "had left them down, gone to dinner and never returned." And why? Another instance of man's cruelty to man.

We find a similar condition of things around the Ontonagon Mine of Ontonagon River. Mining tools and implements of various kinds lay around, showing the confusion and precipitation in which the miners left and never returned. I believe that it was from this mine that the large nodule of copper, weighing some six tons, and which is now, or was, in the Smithsonian Collection at Washington, was taken. The prehistoric mines of Ontonagon were reopened by the white man in 1847.

Those who are somewhat acquainted with the Indian's instincts, habits and dealings with his fellows, before the white man's conduct influenced him, have noted the heartless ferocity that utterly exterminated entire tribes and peoples. We can safely say that "Our People" were exterminated by the same helpless, insane ferocity.

There was a tradition among the Attiwanderons that their fathers utterly exterminated a great White People, taking their cattle and their lands. These same Attiwanderons were themselves exterminated, after the Iroquois had destroyed the Hurons, by the Iroquois, about the year 1650.

A similar tradition obtained among the Chippewa Indians. Chief "Shop-na-gun," an aged Indian who resides at Grayling, Michigan, tells with apparent pride how his fathers "killed off white man—way back—took much cattle and lands." Mr. Soper showed him a ceremonial taken from a mound below Grayling, and asked: "Did the Indian make that?" He answered indignantly, "No, Indian no make; white man make long ago, way back!" He asked, "Where you get?" We told him we dug it up. He looked at me indignantly, and coming forward, his hand extended and index finger pointing, called my attention to a large Bible on his desk, saying, "See book; book says no dig 'em up; let them rest."

War Tablets

The first war tablet we found, describing a battle between these Prehistoric People and the Indians, was on August 9, 1909, in one of a group of eleven mounds that we discovered on a high tableland at the juncture of the Au Sable River and a stream emptying into the Au Sable from the south, thirteen miles below Grayling, Michigan.

The next war tablet was found some two weeks later by Mr. Soper and a party of explorers in Wayne County near Detroit, two hundred miles from the first find.

Since these first finds of war tablets, we have found five more; in all seven tablets describing battles and the death of one or other of their chiefs, showing the manner of his death, the moon and quarter of the moon in which he was killed. Judging from the number of war tablets, the labor it must have taken to make them, the accuracy displayed in description, and the distance apart where found, one would naturally conclude that these wars were many, protracted, and general.

First Discovery of These Prehistoric Mound

In the year 1890 a young man by the name of James O. Scotford discovered a mound by accident whilst in the employ of a Mr. Stewart. Mr. James Remick owned in Montcalm County a large tract of land called "Slashings," or land on which the pine had been cut. Mr. Scotford was engaged to throw a fence around a tract of these "Slashings" for a cattle range. He ran a line fence. This line ran over a hillock some thirty feet across. When digging a post-hole on this hillock his auger struck something hard—too hard to be a root, and there were no stones in the place. His curiosity prompted him to get a spade from his companion, who was setting posts after him. He dug the object up and found it to be a large earthen casket. He had broken the cover with the auger. The casket was unbroken. This was the first discovery of these mounds in Michigan.

There were many small mounds and hillocks around Edmore which were looked upon before this find as natural formation or the results of uprooting of large trees. As a result of this find a number of people dug into hillocks and mounds around Edmore, with more or less success in finding prehistoric specimens.[1]

Mr. M. E. Cornell, who died in 1902 or 1903, of Battle Creek, Michigan, published a pamphlet regarding these finds around Edmore and Wyman. (These villages are about three miles apart.) He had made extensive excavations—finding caskets, tablets, etc., with cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing. Regarding conditions of some of these finds he says: "On this point, take as a specimen the fact that a casket was found under the root of a pine tree, which by concentric circles was shown to be above three hundred years old; and that one of the roots of the tree had grown through the corner of the casket.

"Three caskets have been found pierced by roots of trees growing on the mounds over them. We found one with the cover broken in by the root of a tree, and the casket was filled with sand. The root was coiled up in- side the box, but so decayed that it was broken with a touch. Only the decayed stump of the tree and a few rotten roots were left. Professor Wessels, the writer, and the three others were present and took part in the digging. The Professor lifted the casket from its ancient bed with his own hand, exclaiming, "Gentleman, this is no fraud."

A professor of the University of Michigan, in an address to a scientific gathering assembled at Chicago, in 1907, denounced these finds as "fakes." In his address the professor tells us that some other archaeologists viewed some photographs of these finds and in their indignation used "vigorous utterances." If these gentlemen had refrained from the "vigorous utterances" mentioned by the professor in his address, the group of gentlemen, which the learned professor kindly designates as "The Syndicate," would undoubtedly now have a collection that would astonish the world, and hundreds of these specimens, if not thousands, that are now broken and thrown away, and therefore lost to the world and to science, would have been preserved and we might have a museum in Michigan worthy of the name, which we now have not.[2]

The Mound Builders

There seems to be a general opinion among scientists that a people, whom they designated as "Mound Builders," were the original inhabitants of North America. The same opinion seems to obtain regarding the Prehistoric People who mined the copper mines of Isle Royal, the mines around Houghton and of Ontonagon, namely, that these people belonged to a distinctive people called the "Mound Builders."

In the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, page XLV, it is shown that after a long investigation the conclusion arrived at was that the Mound Builders were "the historic Indian and his ancestors."

Col. Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology, wrote an able defence of this same opinion, given in another number of this same annual, namely, that the Mound Builder was the Indian, and this from the contents of the mounds found in different parts of the country. This opinion agrees with the report of DeSoto, the reports of early missionaries, and also with the report of a French officer stationed at St. Ignace.

The prehistoric mounds of Michigan which Mr. Soper and myself have opened are as a rule not more than ten to thirty feet in length, frequently oval in form. Some are round or nearly so. These latter are, as a rule, not more than eighteen inches in height. They are flat, with an indication of a moat around them. They are not more than two to three feet in depth. Where found on highlands, frequently an elongated basin-shaped stria of charcoal and ashes shows the contour of the open grave when the body was laid away. The outer and upper rims of this basin-shaped stria come to within sixteen or eighteen inches of the surface of the ground. In Wayne county the country is flat, and the formation of the soil is lake sand. Here the basin-shaped stria is not so marked.

We have opened up more than five hundred of these mounds in the counties in which we have worked, a territory extending over two hundred and sixty miles. We have diligently inquired regarding the localities of other finds and have so far located sixteen counties of Michigan in which these specimens have been found. We are confident that we are only on the borderland of this great prehistoric people.

These mounds or graves, as a rule, are found in groups. The Sylvan Club owns two forties (minus 2 acres) on the Au Sable River, Crawford County, Michigan. On the west forty we found only one group of mounds. This group contained eleven mounds. On the east forty acres we found three groups of mounds—one of three, another of seven, and another group which covered an acre or more of ground. In this group some were close together, others from forty to sixty feet apart. We opened every grave we found on this group, and found but one specimen. It was a large, well-made chilled copper spear-point. In the group of seven mounds we found two tablets—one of copper, the other of stone; one copper knife, and one medal of sandstone. In the group of three we found only one specimen—a beautiful medallion of dark hard stone. In the group of eleven mounds, on the west forty acres, we found six specimens—two slate tablets, three copper spear-points and one very handsomely worked ceremonial. We found groups and lonely graves along the Au Sable as far as we explored. Some of these groups were half a mile or more back from the river.

These prehistoric mounds of Michigan contain caskets, lamps, bowls, pipes, tablets, etc., of clay: battle axes, knives, spear, dagger and arrow points, domestic utensils, knives, saws, chisels, spades, etc., and a variety of ornamental wearing apparel—all of chilled copper; stone tablets, medallions, medals, skinning knives, various implements and of strange designs, the object of which we cannot imagine. One remarkable feature of these mounds is that they contain no flint implements of any kind, nor have I seen any stone or copper beads; other ornamental wearing apparel is frequent.

Mr. Henry Gilman, of Detroit, in a paper read before the Detroit Scientific Association in 1874, speaking of prehistoric mining on Isle Royal, states: "With the exception of stone hammers, no other tools formed of stone have been found."[3]

On these mounds you may find great, large and aged trees—oak, pine, and other varieties. The decayed roots of pine and other trees that grew, thrived, and died on these mounds are there. They contain another peculiarity—there is a stria of charcoal and ashes in each mound. This stria often shows the basin-shaped contour of the mound when its possessor was laid away to rest. There does not appear, as a rule, sufficient charcoal and ashes for cremation, only enough for purification. In some mounds, however, there is a heavy stria.

Black Slate

Found near Grayling, Crawford Co., Michigan, 9 August, 1909.

Reverse of the Slate

On the mound in which one copper tablet was found there stood the decayed stump of a large pine-tree. This mound was eighteen feet by nine, of oval shape, and stood three feet in height. When we came to the roots of the tree, the man in the pit remarked, "We can't dig any farther here till we get an axe; that hand ax is not heavy enough to cut these roots." I jumped into the pit and directed him to clear away the earth from the end of the root most exposed. When he did so, I got hold of the root. It was so decayed that we easily tore it off and threw it onto the bank. I noticed that the roots of the tree had perforated the basin-shaped stria of charcoal and ashes on the sides of the mound. Directly beneath the stump there were ten to twelve inches of sand between the lower center of the stump and the stria of charcoal and ashes at the bottom of the mound. There lay the copper tablet, directly beneath the stump on the stria of charcoal and ashes.

I was the first to see the tablet illustrated here, as it lay in its ancient bed. It alone was left to tell the story of the manner of its master's death, whose bones had long since mingled with the ashes that covered the bottom of his grave. The mound in which this tablet was found was nearly round, ten feet across and flat, and not more than eighteen inches in height. On the side of the mound, to the northeast, stood a tree. One of the roots of this tree had grown across the tablet, binding it solidly down and might in time have broken the tablet, as the tree was strong and vigorous. This mound was one of a group of eleven mounds. In this group we found six specimens.

Presuming then that these are the same people who mined the copper on Isle Royal and worked the prehistoric mines on the south and southwest shore of Lake Superior, and those who left their foot-prints on the sands of time, on the hillsides and river banks of Lower Michigan—in the shape of war tablets and battle axes to mark the resting-places of their chiefs; spear points and dagger and arrow points, their warriors; the sacred traditions of their religion on recording tablets, their priests; necklaces, medallions, medals and pendants of various designs, their loved ones; where, we might ask, was their seat of government?

If you go to the mines of Lake Superior you see at once that hundreds, if not thousands, of men were employed in these vast mines. These men must have had a guiding hand to direct them in their operations; and an object ulterior and greater than the desire to get a moiety of metal for personal use. There must have been a government and a nation behind them; a government to direct, and a great people scattered over a vast territory to be supplied with the output of these mines.

We might ask again, where were the headquarters of this People most likely to be located? It would seem strange if the Lower Peninsula of Michigan was alone their home. Why not look to the north shore of Lake Superior—to the east and west of it; to Upper Michigan, to Wisconsin, to Minnesota?

We simply suggest these questions as they were sug-gested to us when we tramped through the woods of Michigan looking for their long-forgotten graveyards, to disturb them and ask—Who are you? Whence have you come, and whither have you gone? The response that comes from these graves only shows that they had sentiments and love for their chieftains; devotion to God and His laws; affection and remembrance for loved ones as they laid them away to rest.

Those somewhat acquainted with the movements of various Indian tribes are satisfied that there was a succession of Indian tribes that inhabited the country of the Lake Superior region. Take for example the Delaware Tribe, which later joined the five nations, which combination was called "the Six Nations of York State." It is a fairly well established fact that they once lived in the North Lake Superior region. The Foxes of Wisconsin, who gave their name to the Fox River, were first known coming from this same country, north of Lake Superior. They came around the eastern shore of Lake Huron; driven south by the Hurons, whose country they had invaded. They crossed into Ohio and thence west into northern Indiana, where we hear of them at war with a people called "Neutrals" or "Attiwanderons." This war between these tribes took place about the year 1606. When we next hear of them they are at the same work, common to the Indian of that day, marauding and murdering. The French officer in command at the post of St. Ignace, tired of this work, sent troops to chastise them. They administered the chastisement near the mouth of the Fox River, Wisconsin.

The climate and country north of Lake Superior must, in by-gone centuries, have had a charm to detain these successive tribes of Indians. And may not that same charm have caused "Our People" to make this same country their home, especially as they lived here perhaps thousands of years before the Delawares crossed the Straits of St. Ignace, or the Foxes tramped around the eastern shore of Lake Huron?

The Government of the United States has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars during the past fifty years to locate the port of entry of the Indian onto this Continent, and its findings are such as to satisfy any person reasonably inclined. Now that the trail of these people has been struck, why should not the Government take up this lead? Why leave it to individual effort?

We have forwarded our Booklet to a number of scientists and curators of museums throughout the country. Our object was, as stated in the closing sentence of the introduction, "To arouse the interest of students of Philology or those engaged in historical or archeological research." We selected for the Booklet principally tablets, as these tablets contained more cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing than other objects. Our reason in so doing was to give philologists as great a variety of these characters as was at hand. From this fact, some of the recipients of the Booklet understood that most objects found were tablets; others again, that the Booklet contained all specimens found; and still others, that these finds were local, i. e. as the learned professor of Ann Arbor stated "over an area three or four miles in diameter."[4] The Booklet was variously received by those to whom sent; some recipients rejecting the finds as spurious on their interpretation of internal evidence, and on objections put forward from internal evidence which they were incapable of passing upon. At the same time, these individuals absolutely refused to avail themselves of the opportunity to arrive at the external evidence, which was and is open to all, and which is, of its very nature, eminently more cogent. Other scientists have kindly responded to our invitation.

Professor Jones, S. J., Keeper of the Archives of St. Mary's College, Montreal, has written a learned and able criticism on these Michigan finds. He is the first who has taken up this matter along the lines of science, showing the ancients of America to have had some of the same ceremonies and rites, etc., as the ancients of the Old World.

Philologists will no doubt in time throw sufficient light on the footprints of these ancient Peoples to trace them back to their parent stock. It took the philologist more than fifty years to find a key to the cuneiform writing of the ancient Babylonians, and the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians; and now that they have advanced in the art of interpreting the mode of expression of ancient thought, we may hope for an early solution to the present problem.

The question is asked; What has become of the tons of copper, the output of these ancient mines? This is one reason why we should look beyond Lower Michigan for their home. There was evidently a vast population supplied by this output, spread over a great territory. Where has it gone? Elapsing centuries have buried the various implements made from this output too deep in the ground for the plow or the harrow to disturb them; and where the country has been leveled off by the plow and harrow all traces of their ancient graves are gone. Therefore, the various implements buried with the dead in these sections of the country are lost forever. The only place to look for them is in the unbroken forest. The same may be said of implements lost. I have seen but three that were turned up by the plow; one in Gratiot County in 1877, and two small pendants in Wayne County in 1910.

One of the strange features connected with these finds is that the gentlemen who look on them as "forgeries" never seem to realize that no one man or syndicate of men could have placed these finds in the conditions in which some of them have been found. Lay aside the implements found. I defy any syndicate of men to duplicate these mounds. The basin-shaped stria of charcoal and ashes is buried beneath aged oak and pine trees. The roots of these trees, growing down and out, pierce the sides of this basin-shaped stria, giving indisputable evidence that this stria could have been placed there only by ancient hands. Nor do they seem to appreciate the credit of herculean energy, versatility and genius they attribute to the maker of these finds, as thousands of them have been found in the sixteen counties of Michigan thus far heard from, and no two of these specimens are alike. I see in The Nation of June 16, 1910, that another attack has been made from the same source as that made in Chicago in 1907, and along the same lines. It does look a trifle as though there was a "psychological" disturbance somewhere.

These attacks have only retarded progress to the final settlement of this question. They have kept men who should have been with us from examining for themselves on the ground. Any scientist who has done field-work could see at a glance whether the ground has been disturbed on, in, or around these mounds. If he could not, his opinion is not worth the having, either for or against. The publishing of the Booklet was to attract the attention of scientists, not to prove the genuineness of these finds. We know they are genuine. Our invitation to those gentlemen was to come and do field-work with us, examine and see for themselves.

The highest ideal the author of these attacks seems to be able to conceive of is that we must be looking for a market for the output of these mounds. I have collected for thirty years or more; I have many thousands of specimens, and I can say that I have never sold, nor do I intend to sell, a specimen.

1. See M. E. Cornell's Pamphlet, published 1892.

2. See address in Anthropologist, first number of 1908.

3. "Michigan Pioneer Collections," Vol. 3, page 207.

4. See Address of 1907, Anthropologist, first number of 1908.

Table of Contents

Title Page

The Prehistoric Finds of Michigan

War Tablets

First Discovery of These Prehistoric Mound

The Mound Builders