Copper implements are very numerous in the mounds. Copper axes,
spear-heads, hollow buttons, bosses for ornaments, bracelets, rings,
etc., are found in very many of them strikingly similar to those of the
Bronze Age in Europe. In one in Butler County, Ohio, was found a copper
fillet around the head of a skeleton, with strange devices marked upon
it.
Silver ornaments have also been found, but not in such great numbers.
They seem to have attached a high value to silver, and it is often found
in thin sheets, no thicker than paper, wrapped over copper or stone
ornaments so neatly as almost to escape detection. The great esteem in
which they held a metal so intrinsically valueless as silver, is another
evidence that they must have drawn their superstitions from the same
source as the European nations.
Copper is also often found in this manner plated over stone pipes,
presenting an unbroken metallic lustre, the overlapping edges so well
polished as to be scarcely discoverable. Beads and stars made of shells
have sometimes been found doubly plated, first with copper then with
silver.
The Mound Builders also understood the art of casting metals, or they
held intercourse with some race who did; a copper axe it "cast" has been
found in the State of New York.
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