second time at the mouth of the Ontonagon, and now took the opportunity of going ten miles up the river with Indian guides. The object which I went most expressly to see, and to which I had the satisfaction of being led, was a mass of copper, of the weight, according to my estimate, of no less than five tons. Such was its pure and malleable state that with an axe I was able to cut off a portion weighing a hundred pounds.” This mass of native copper which thus attracted the adventurous European explorer upwards of a century ago, has since acquired considerable celebrity, as one of the most prominent encouragements to the mining operations projected in the Ontonagon and surrounding districts. It is now preserved at Washington, and is believed to be the same to which Charlevoix refers as a sacrificial block held in peculiar veneration by the Indians; and on which, according to their narration, a young girl had been sacrificed. The Jesuit father did not obtain access to it, as it was the belief of the Indians that if it were seen by a white man, their lands would pass away from them. Those various notices are interesting as showing to what extent the present race of Indians were accustomed to avail themselves of the mineral wealth of the copper regions. Illustrations of a like kind might be multiplied, but they are all nearly to the same effect, exhibiting the Indian gathering chance masses, or hewing off pieces from the exposed copper lodes, in full accordance with the simple arts of his first Stone Period; but affording no ground for crediting him with any traditionary memorials of connection with the race that once excavated the trenches, and laid bare the mineral treasures of the great copper region.