This not only strengthens our conclusion, drawn from the presence of such pipes in the mounds alluded to, but may also assist in explaining the presence of the copper ornaments in them. The writer last quoted says:[67] Copper implements are rarely found in Georgia. The present [a copper ax] is the finest specimen which, after no mean search, has rewarded our investigations. Native copper exists in portions of Cherokee Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama, but it is generally found in combination with sulphur and not in malleable form. We are not aware of any locality among those enumerated whence the Indians could have secured that metal either in quantity or purity sufficient to have enabled them to manufacture this implement. Adair says:[68] From the time we supplied them with our European ornaments they have used brass and silver ear-rings and finger-rings; the young warriors now frequently fasten bell-buttons or pieces of tinkling brass to their moccasins. From these facts I am inclined to believe that most of the copper used by them was obtained directly or indirectly from the whites, and hence subsequent to the discovery of America. But should this supposition be erroneous, the fact still remains that the Cherokees were in the habit of using just such ornaments as we find in these mounds. As showing that the Europeans began to trade copper to the Indians at a very early day, I call attention to a statement made by Beverly in his "History of Virginia."[69] Speaking of a settlement made at Powhatan, six miles below the falls of James River, in 1609, he says it was "bought of Powhatan for a certain quantity of copper." By reference to Smith's History and the narratives of the early explorers we find that the amount of sheet copper traded to the Indians and taken by them from wrecks was quite large. But we are not yet through with the items under this class of testimony. Haywood, in his "Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee,"[70] says: Mr. Brown, a Scotchman, came into the Cherokee Nation, in the year 1761 and settled on the Hiawassee River or near it. He saw on the Hiawassee and Tennessee the remains of old forts, about which were axes, guns, hoes, and other metallic utensils. The Indians at that time told him that the French had formerly been there and built these forts.