To untutored man, provided only with implements of stone, the facilities presented by the great copper regions of Lake Superior for the first step in the knowledge of metallurgy were peculiarly available. The forests that flung their shadows along the shores of that great lake were the haunts of the deer, the beaver, the bear, and other favourite objects of the chase; the rivers and the lake abounded with fish; and the rude hunter had to manufacture weapons and implements out of such materials as nature placed within his reach. The water-worn stone from the beach, patiently ground to an edge, made his axe and tomahawk: by means of which, with the help of fire, he could level the giants of the forest, or detach from them the materials for his canoe and paddle, his lance, club, or bow and arrows. The bones of the deer pointed his spear, or were wrought into his fish-hooks; and the shale or flint was chipped and ground into his arrow-head, after a pattern repeated with little variation, in all countries, and in every primitive age. But besides such materials of universal occurrence, the primeval occupant of the shores of Lake Superior found there a _stone_ possessed of some very peculiar virtues. It could not only be wrought to an edge without liability to fracture; but it was malleable, and could be hammered out into many new and convenient shapes. This was the copper, found in connection with the trappean rocks of that region, in inexhaustible quantities, in a pure metallic state. In other rich mineral regions, as in those of Cornwall and Devon, the principal source of this metal is from ores, which require both labour and skill to fit them for economic purposes. But in the veins of the copper region of Lake Superior the native metal occurs in enormous masses, weighing hundreds of tons; and loose blocks of various sizes have been found on the lake shore, or lying detached on the surface, in sufficient quantities to supply all the wants of the nomad hunter. These, accordingly, he wrought into chisels and axes, armlets, and personal ornaments of various kinds, without the use of the crucible; and, indeed, without recognising any precise distinction between the copper which he mechanically separated from the mass, and the unmalleable stone or flint out of which he had been accustomed to fashion his spear and arrow-heads. This is confirmed by philological evidence. The root of the names for iron and copper in the Chippewa is the same abstract term, _wahbik_, used only in compound words. Thus _pewahbik_, iron; _ozahwahbik_, copper: lit. the yellow stone; _metahbik_, on the bare rock; _oogedahbik_, on the top of a rock; _kishkahbikah_, it is a precipice; etc.