Note 1833 — Chapter VI · (continued 3)

Wilson (i. 209, 227) thinks the arboreal and other evidences carry the time when these mines were worked back, at latest, to a period corresponding to Europe’s mediæval era. The earliest modern references to copper in this region are in Sagard in 1632 (Haven, p. 127) and in the Jesuit Relation of Allouez in 1666-67. Alexander Henry (Travels and Adventures in Canada) in 1765 is the earliest English explorer to mention it. Wilson holds to the belief that the present race of red Indians had no knowledge of these mining practices, but that they knew simply chance masses or exposed lodes. Wilson (i. 362) also gives reasons for supposing that the Lake Superior mines may have been a common meeting ground for all races of the continent.