364. This testimony of the Algonquin chief is interesting, and historically important. We know of no earlier reference to the art of melting and malleating copper in any of the reports of the navigators to our northern coast. That the natives possessed this art is placed beyond question by this passage, as well as by the recent discovery of copper implements in Wisconsin, bearing the marks of mechanical fusion and malleation. The specimens of copper in the possession of the natives on the coast of New England, as referred to by Brereton and Archer, can well be accounted for without supposing them to be of native manufacture, though they may have been so. The Basques, Bretons, English, and Portuguese had been annually on our northern coasts for fishing and fur-trading for more than a century, and had distributed a vast quantity of articles for savage ornament and use; and it would, therefore, be difficult to prove that the copper chains and collars and other trinkets mentioned by Brereton and Archer were not derived from this source. But the testimony of the early navigators in the less frequented region of the St. Lawrence is not open to this interpretation. When Cartier advanced up the Gulf of Lawrence in 1535, the savages pointed out the region of the Saguenay, which they informed him was inhabited, and that from thence came the red copper which they called _caignetdaze_. "Et par les sauuaiges que auions, nous a essé dict que cestoit le commencement du Saguenay & terre habitable. Et que de la ve noit le cuyure rouge qu'ilz appellent caignetdaze."--_Brief Récit_, par Jacques Cartier, 1545. D'Avezac ed., p. 9. _Vide idem_, p. 34. When Cartier was at Isle Coudres, say fifty miles below Quebec, on his return, the Indians from the Saguenay came on board his ship, and made certain presents to their chief, Donnacona, whom Cartier had captured, and was taking home with him to France. Among these gifts, they gave him a great knife of red copper, which came from the Saguenay. The words of Cartier are as follows:-- "Donnerent audict Donnaconan trois pacquetz de peaulx de byeures & loups marins avec vng grand cousteau de cuyure rouge, qui vient du Saguenay & autres choses."--_Idem_, p. 44.