The implements designed for the use of tobacco or other narcotic herbs, occupy a prominent place among the works of art of which the sacrificial mounds are the principal depositories. In accordance with the almost universal custom of barbarous and semi-civilised nations, the Mound-Builders devoted to their dead whatever had been most prized in life, or was deemed valuable for some talismanic charm. Hence the Mississippi mounds, and the ancient tombs of Mexico and Peru, disclose the same kind of evidence of the past as Wilkinson has deduced from the catacombs of Egypt, or Dennis from the sepulchres of Etruria. But in addition to this, the remarkable religious rites of the American Mound-Builders have preserved not only their altars, but the offerings laid upon them. The perishable garments of the dead have necessarily disappeared; and of instruments or utensils of wood or other combustible materials it is vain to expect a trace, where even metal has melted, and the stone been calcined in the blaze of sacrificial fires; but articles of copper and stone, of fictile ware, and even of shell, ivory, and bone, have escaped the destructive flame, and withstood the action of time. In such enduring characters inscriptions are legibly graven upon the altars of the Mound-Builders. Let us try to translate their records into the language of modern thought.
What such relics record in reference to metallurgy has already been seen. The Mound-Builders were acquainted with several of the metals. They had both the silver and lead of Iowa and Wisconsin in use. Implements and personal ornaments of copper abound on their altars; and the mechanical combination of silver with the native copper of which those are made, indicates that they derived their supplies from Lake Superior, where alone the metals have hitherto been found in the singular mechanico-chemical combination of crystals of silver in a copper matrix. Their sacrificial fires have in some cases fused the metallic offerings on the altars into a mass of molten metal, so that the Mound-Builders had thus presented to them this all-important lesson of metallurgy. Mr. F. S. Perkins, of Burlington, Wisconsin, whose collection of native copper implements numbers upwards of sixty specimens, has arrived at the conclusion that some of those from the ancient mounds have been cast in moulds; and Mr. J. W. Foster concurs in the belief that the Mound-Builders had learned to smelt the ores.[101] This still requires further proof. At Cincinnati, I saw in the collection of Mr. Cleneay, a choice specimen of a copper axe, found on the banks of Hog Creek, a tributary of the Great Miami. It measures fifteen inches long, and weighs 5 lb. 5½ oz.; but though well-proportioned, and finished with unusual care, it is entirely the work of the hammer. Only in one case, of an axe from the Lockport Mound, have I seen indications which seem to suggest a process of casting. But specimens of accidentally melted copper repeatedly occur; and Mr. Jas. B. Skinner, of Cincinnati, showed me a melted mass of pure silver, of 4 lb. weight, found lying on a heap of charcoal, in cutting through the embankment surrounding a large mound at Marietta. Nothing further was needed than the practical sagacity by which similar accidents have been turned to account, to lead the Mound-Builders one step beyond this, to the use of the crucible and the mould. It would not, therefore, surprise me to find partial traces of the use of both. Their imitative skill, and ability in modelling, had already taught them the use of the mould when working in clay. But they had, at best, a very rudimentary knowledge of metallurgy; they do not appear to have acquired, by barter or otherwise, any specimens of the alloyed metals; and only mechanically combined their copper with silver. Hematite, though prized by them, was used simply as a stone. They were familiar with silver, and shaped it into many personal ornaments. The sulphuret of lead was also known to them; and was turned to account both for use and ornamentation.