Note 285 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
"Nothing so distinctly marks the uncivilized condition of the North American Indian as his total ignorance of the art of metallurgy. Forged iron has been in use among the inhabitants of our hemisphere from time immemorial; for, though the process employed for obtaining the malleability of a metal in its malleable state is very complicated, yet M. de Marian has clearly proved that the several eras at which writers have pretended to fix the discovery are entirely fabulous."—Lettres sur la Chine.
Consequently the weapons of brass and other instruments of metal found in the dikes of Upper Canada, Florida, &c., are among the strongest indications of the superiority of those ancient races of America who have now entirely passed away.
"Know, then," says Cotton Mather, "that these doleful creatures are the veriest ruins of mankind. They live in a country full of metals, but the Indians were never owners of so much as a knife till we came among them. Their name for an Englishman was 'knife-man.'"