(Ebook) Functional Programming Patterns in Scala

and Clojure by Michael Bevilacqua-Linn ISBN

9781937785475, 1937785475 download

https://ebooknice.com/product/functional-programming-patterns-in-
scala-and-clojure-5496598

Explore and download more ebooks at ebooknice.com

Here are some recommended products for you. Click the link to
download, or explore more at ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Functional Programming: A PragPub Anthology: Exploring

Clojure, Elixir, Haskell, Scala, and Swift by Michael Swaine
ISBN 9781680502336, 1680502336

https://ebooknice.com/product/functional-programming-a-pragpub-anthology-
exploring-clojure-elixir-haskell-scala-and-swift-6865222

(Ebook) Scala Functional Programming Patterns by S.Khot, Atul

ISBN 9781783985845, 1783985844

https://ebooknice.com/product/scala-functional-programming-
patterns-55614886

(Ebook) Functional Programming in Scala, Second Edition (MEAP

V08) by Michael Pilquist, Paul Chiusano, Rúnar Bjarnasson ISBN
9781617299582, 1617299588

https://ebooknice.com/product/functional-programming-in-scala-second-
edition-meap-v08-47503176

(Ebook) Functional Programming in Scala by Paul Chiusano, Rúnar

Bjarnason ISBN 9781617290657, 1617290653

https://ebooknice.com/product/functional-programming-in-scala-4766266
(Ebook) Programming Scala: Scalability = Functional Programming
+ Objects by Wampler, Dean ISBN 9781492077893, 1492077895

https://ebooknice.com/product/programming-scala-scalability-functional-
programming-objects-29886228

(Ebook) Quick Clojure: Effective Functional Programming by Mark

McDonnell ISBN 9781484229514, 1484229517

https://ebooknice.com/product/quick-clojure-effective-functional-
programming-6730354

(Ebook) Quick Clojure: Effective Functional Programming by Mark

McDonnell, www.1024ebook.com ISBN 9781484229521, 1484229525

https://ebooknice.com/product/quick-clojure-effective-functional-
programming-14906218

(Ebook) Programming Scala: Scalability = Functional Programming

+ Objects (Animal Guide) by Dean Wampler, Alex Payne ISBN
9780596155957, 0596155956

https://ebooknice.com/product/programming-scala-scalability-functional-
programming-objects-animal-guide-1307710

(Ebook) Scala Cookbook: Recipes for Object-Oriented and

Functional Programming by Alvin Alexander ISBN 9781449339616,
1449339611

https://ebooknice.com/product/scala-cookbook-recipes-for-object-oriented-
and-functional-programming-4449988
Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>
Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>
 Early Praise for Functional Programming Patterns

This book is an absolute gem and should be required reading for anybody looking
to transition from OO to FP. It is an extremely well-built safety rope for those
crossing the bridge between two very different worlds. Consider this mandatory
reading.
➤ Colin Yates, technical team leader at QFI Consulting, LLP

This book sticks to the meat and potatoes of what functional programming can do
for the object-oriented JVM programmer. The functional patterns are sectioned in
the back of the book separate from the functional replacements of the object-oriented
patterns, making the book handy reference material. As a Scala programmer, I even
picked up some new tricks along the read.
➤ Justin James, developer with Full Stack Apps

This book is good for those who have dabbled a bit in Clojure or Scala but are not
really comfortable with it; the ideal audience is seasoned OO programmers looking
to adopt a functional style, as it gives those programmers a guide for transitioning
away from the patterns they are comfortable with.
➤ Rod Hilton, Java developer and PhD candidate at the University of Colorado

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>

 Functional Programming Patterns
in Scala and Clojure
Write Lean Programs for the JVM

Michael Bevilacqua-Linn

The Pragmatic Bookshelf

Dallas, Texas • Raleigh, North Carolina

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>

 Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products
are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and The Pragmatic
Programmers, LLC was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in
initial capital letters or in all capitals. The Pragmatic Starter Kit, The Pragmatic Programmer,
Pragmatic Programming, Pragmatic Bookshelf, PragProg and the linking g device are trade-
marks of The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC.
Every precaution was taken in the preparation of this book. However, the publisher assumes
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages that may result from the use of
information (including program listings) contained herein.
Our Pragmatic courses, workshops, and other products can help you and your team create
better software and have more fun. For more information, as well as the latest Pragmatic
titles, please visit us at http://pragprog.com.

The team that produced this book includes:

Fahmida Rashid (editor)
Potomac Indexing, LLC (indexer)
Molly McBeath (copyeditor)
David J Kelly (typesetter)
Janet Furlow (producer)
Juliet Benda (rights)
Ellie Callahan (support)

Copyright © 2013 The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN-13: 978-1-937785-47-5
Encoded using the finest acid-free high-entropy binary digits.
Book version: P1.0—October 2013

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>

 Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

1. Patterns and Functional Programming . . . . . . 1

1.1 What Is Functional Programming? 3
1.2 Pattern Glossary 4

2. TinyWeb: Patterns Working Together . . . . . . . 9

2.1 Introducing TinyWeb 9
2.2 TinyWeb in Java 9
2.3 TinyWeb in Scala 20
2.4 TinyWeb in Clojure 28

3. Replacing Object-Oriented Patterns . . . . . . . 39

3.1 Introduction 39
Pattern 1. Replacing Functional Interface 40
Pattern 2. Replacing State-Carrying Functional Interface 47
Pattern 3. Replacing Command 54
Pattern 4. Replacing Builder for Immutable Object 62
Pattern 5. Replacing Iterator 72
Pattern 6. Replacing Template Method 83
Pattern 7. Replacing Strategy 92
Pattern 8. Replacing Null Object 99
Pattern 9. Replacing Decorator 109
Pattern 10. Replacing Visitor 113
Pattern 11. Replacing Dependency Injection 128

4. Functional Patterns . . . . . . . . . . 137

4.1 Introduction 137
Pattern 12. Tail Recursion 138
Pattern 13. Mutual Recursion 146

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>

 Contents • vi

Pattern 14. Filter-Map-Reduce 155

Pattern 15. Chain of Operations 159
Pattern 16. Function Builder 167
Pattern 17. Memoization 182
Pattern 18. Lazy Sequence 186
Pattern 19. Focused Mutability 196
Pattern 20. Customized Control Flow 206
Pattern 21. Domain-Specific Language 218

5. The End . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com>

 Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my parents, without whom I would not exist.

Thanks also go to my wonderful girlfriend, who put up with many a night

and weekend listening to me mutter about code samples, inconsistent tenses,
and run-on sentences.

This book would have suffered greatly without a great group of technical
reviewers. My thanks to Rod Hilton, Michajlo “Mishu” Matijkiw, Venkat Sub-
ramaniam, Justin James, Dave Cleaver, Ted Neward, Neal Ford, Richard
Minerich, Dustin Campbell, Dave Copeland, Josh Carter, Fred Daoud, and
Chris Smith.

Finally, I’d like to thank Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt. Their book, The
Pragmatic Programmer, is one of the first books I read when I started my
career. It made a tremendous impact, and I’ve still got my original dog-eared,
fingerprint-covered, bruised and battered copy. In the Pragmatic Bookshelf,
they’ve created a publisher that’s truly dedicated to producing high-quality
technical books and supporting the authors who write them.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Preface
This book is about patterns and functional programming in Scala and Clojure.
It shows how to replace, or greatly simplify, many of the common patterns
we use in object-oriented programming, and it introduces some patterns
commonly used in the functional world.

Used together, these patterns let programmers solve problems faster and in
a more concise, declarative style than with object-oriented programming alone.
If you’re using Java and want to see how functional programming can help
you work more efficiently, or if you’ve started using Scala and Clojure and
can’t quite wrap your head around functional problem-solving, this is the
book for you.

Before we dig in, I’d like to start off with a story. This story is true, though
some names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
A Tale of Functional Programming
by: Michael Bevilacqua-Linn, software firefighter

The site isn’t down, but an awful lot of alarms are going off. We trace the problems to changes
someone made to a third-party API we use. The changes are causing major data problems on
our side; namely, we don’t know what the changes are and we can’t find anyone who can tell
us. It also turns out the system that talks to the API uses legacy code, and the only guy who
knows how to work on it happens to be away on vacation. This a big system: 500,000-lines-of-
Java-and-OSGI big.

Support calls are flooding in, lots of them. Expensive support calls from frustrated customers.
We need to fix the problem quickly. I start up a Clojure REPL and use it to poke around the
problem API.

My boss pokes his head into my office. “How’s it going?” he asks. “Working on it,” I say. Ten
minutes later, my grandboss pokes his head into my office. “How’s it going?” he asks. “Working
on it,” I say. Another ten minutes pass by when my great-grandboss pokes his head into my
office. “How’s it going?” he asks. “Working on it,” I say. I get a half hour of silence before the CTO
pokes his head into my office. “Working on it,” I say before he opens his mouth.

An hour passes, and I figure out what’s changed. I whip up a way to keep the data clean until
the legacy developer gets back and can put together a proper fix. I hand my little program off

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Preface •x

to the operations team, which gets it up and running in a JVM, somewhere safe. The support
calls stop coming in, and everyone relaxes a bit.

A week or so later at an all-hands meeting, the great-grandboss thanks me for the Java program
I wrote that saved the day. I smile and say, “That wasn’t Java.”

The REPL, Clojure’s interactive programming environment, helped a lot in

this story. However, lots of languages that aren’t particularly functional have
similar interactive programming environments, so that’s not all there is to it.

Two of the patterns that we’ll see in this book, Pattern 21, Domain-Specific
Language, on page 218, and Pattern 15, Chain of Operations, on page 159,
contributed greatly to this story’s happy ending.

Earlier on, I had written a small instance of domain-specific language for

working with these particular APIs that helped me explore them very quickly
even though they’re very large and it was difficult to figure out where the
problem might lie. In addition, the powerful data transformation facilities that
functional programming relies on, such as the examples we’ll see in Pattern
15, Chain of Operations, on page 159, helped me quickly write code to clean
up the mess.

How This Book Is Organized

We’ll start with an introduction to patterns and how they relate to functional
programming. Then we’ll take a look at an extended example, a small web
framework called TinyWeb. We’ll first show TinyWeb written using classic
object-oriented patterns in Java. We’ll then rewrite it, piece by piece, to a
hybrid style that is object oriented and functional, using Scala. We’ll then
write in a functional style using Clojure.

The TinyWeb extended example serves a few purposes. It will let us see how
several of the patterns we cover in this book fit together in a comprehensive
manner. We also use it to introduce the basics of Scala and Clojure. Finally,
since we’ll transform TinyWeb from Java to Scala and Clojure bit by bit, it
gives us a chance to explore how to easily integrate Java code with Scala and
Clojure.

The remainder of the book is organized into two sections. The first, Chapter
3, Replacing Object-Oriented Patterns, on page 39, describes functional
replacements for object-oriented patterns. These take weighty object-oriented
patterns and replace them with concise functional solutions.

Peter Norvig, author of the classic Lisp text Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence
Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp [Nor92], current director of
research at Google, and all-around very smart guy, pointed out in Design

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Pattern Template • xi

Patterns in Dynamic Languages that expressive languages like Lisp could turn
classic object-oriented patterns invisible.1

Unfortunately, not many people in the mainstream software development

world seem to have read Norvig, but when we can replace a complicated pat-
tern with something simpler, it makes sense that we should. It makes our
code more concise, easier to understand, and easier to maintain.

The second section, Chapter 4, Functional Patterns, on page 137, describes

patterns that are native to the functional world. These patterns run the gamut
from tiny—patterns consisting of a line or two of code—to very large—ones
that deal with entire programs.

Sometimes these patterns have first-class language support, which means

that someone else has done the hard work of implementing them for us. Even
when they don’t, we can often use an extremely powerful pattern, Pattern 21,
Domain-Specific Language, on page 218, to add it. This means that functional
patterns are more lightweight than object-oriented patterns. You still need
to understand the pattern before you can use it, but the implementation
becomes as simple as a few lines of code.

Pattern Template
The patterns are laid out using the following format, with some exceptions.
For example, a pattern that doesn’t have any other common name would not
have the Also Known As subsection, and the Functional Replacement subsec-
tions only apply to the patterns in Chapter 3, Replacing Object-Oriented Pat-
terns, on page 39.

Intent
The Intent subsection provides a quick explanation of the intent of this pattern
and the problem it solves.

Overview
Here is where you’ll find a deeper motivation for the pattern and an explanation
of how it works.

Also Known As
This subsection lists other common names for the pattern.

1. http://norvig.com/design-patterns/

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Preface • xii

Functional Replacement
Here you’ll find how to replace this pattern with functional programming
techniques—sometimes object-oriented patterns can be replaced with basic
functional language features and sometimes with simpler patterns.

Example Code
This subsection contains samples of the pattern—for object-oriented patterns,
we first show a sketch of the object-oriented solution using either class dia-
grams or a sketch of the Java code before showing how to replace them in
Clojure and Scala. Functional patterns will be shown in Clojure and Scala
only.

Discussion
This area provides a summary and discussion of interesting points about the
pattern.

For Further Reading

Look here for a list of references for further information on the pattern.

Related Patterns
This provides a list of other patterns in this book that are related to the current
one.

Why Scala and Clojure

Many of the patterns in this book can be applied using other languages with
functional features, but we will focus on Clojure and Scala for our examples.
We focus on these two languages for quite a few reasons, but first and foremost
because they’re both practical languages suitable for coding in production
environments.

Both Scala and Clojure run on a Java virtual machine (JVM), so they interop-
erate well with existing Java libraries and have no issues being dropped into
the JVM infrastructure. This makes them ideal to run alongside existing Java
codebases. Finally, while both Scala and Clojure have functional features,
they’re quite different from each other. Learning to use both of them exposes
us to a very broad range of functional programming paradigms.

Scala is a hybrid object-oriented/functional language. It’s statically typed

and combines a very sophisticated type system with local type inference,
which allows us to often omit explicit type annotations in our code.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 How to Read This Book • xiii

Clojure is a modern take on Lisp. It has Lisp’s powerful macro system and
dynamic typing, but Clojure has added some new features not seen in older
Lisps. Most important is its unique way of dealing with state change by using
reference types, a software transactional memory system, and efficient
immutable data structures.

While Clojure is not an object-oriented language, it does give us some good

features that are common in object-oriented languages, just not in the way
we may be familiar with. For instance, we can still get polymorphism through
Clojure’s multimethods and protocols, and we can get hierarchies through
Clojure’s ad hoc hierarchies.

As we introduce the patterns, we’ll explore both of these languages and their
features, so this book serves as a good introduction to both Scala and Clojure.
For further detail on either language, my favorite books are Programming
Clojure [Hal09] and The Joy of Clojure [FH11] for Clojure, and Programming
Scala: Tackle Multi-Core Complexity on the Java Virtual Machine [Sub09] and
Scala In Depth [Sue12] for Scala.

How to Read This Book

The best place to start is with Chapter 1, Patterns and Functional Programming,
on page 1, which goes over the basics of functional programming and its
relation to patterns. Next, Chapter 2, TinyWeb: Patterns Working Together,
on page 9, introduces basic concepts in Scala and Clojure and shows how
several of the patterns in this book fit together.

From there you can jump around, pattern by pattern, as needed. The patterns
covered earlier in Chapter 3, Replacing Object-Oriented Patterns, on page 39,
and Chapter 4, Functional Patterns, on page 137, tend to be more basic than
later ones, so they’re worth reading first if you have no previous functional
experience.

A quick summary of each pattern can be found in Section 1.2, Pattern Glos-
sary, on page 4, for easy browsing. Once you’re through the introduction,
you can use it to look up a pattern that solves the particular problem you
need to solve.

However, if you are completely new to functional programming, you should

start with Pattern 1, Replacing Functional Interface, on page 40, Pattern 2,
Replacing State-Carrying Functional Interface, on page 47, and Pattern 12,
Tail Recursion, on page 138.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Preface • xiv

Online Resources
As you work through the book, you can download all the included code files
from http://pragprog.com/titles/mbfpp/source_code. On the book’s home page at
http://pragprog.com/book/mbfpp, you can find links to the book forum and to report
errata. Also, for ebook buyers, clicking on the box above the code extracts
downloads the code for that extract for you.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 CHAPTER 1

Patterns and Functional Programming

Patterns and functional programming go together in two ways. First, many
object-oriented design patterns are simpler to implement with functional
programming. This is true for several reasons. Functional languages give us
a concise way of passing around a bit of computation without having to create
a new class. Also, using expressions rather than statements lets us eliminate
extraneous variables, and the declarative nature of many functional solutions
lets us do in a single line of code what might take five lines in the imperative
style. Some object-oriented patterns can even be replaced with a straightfor-
ward application of functional language features.

Second, the functional world also has its own set of useful patterns. These
patterns focus on writing code that avoids mutability and favors a declarative
style, which helps us write simpler, more maintainable code. The two main
sections of this book cover these two sets of patterns.

You may be surprised to see the first set. Don’t the patterns we know and
love extend across languages? Aren’t they supposed to provide common
solutions to common problems regardless of what language you are using?
The answer to both questions is yes, so long as the language you are using
looks something like Java or its ancestor, C++.

With the emergence of more expressive language features, many of these

patterns fade away. Classic Java itself has a great example of a language
feature replacing a pattern: foreach. The introduction of foreach loops to Java 1.5
reduced the usefulness of the explicit Iterator pattern described in Design
Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software [GHJV95], even though
foreach loops use it behind the scenes.

That’s not to say that foreach loops are exactly equivalent to the Iterator. A
foreach won’t replace an Iterator in all cases. The problems they do address

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Chapter 1. Patterns and Functional Programming •2

are solved in a simpler way. Developers prefer the built-in foreach loops for the
common-sense reasons that they are less work to implement and are less
error prone.

Many functional language features and techniques have a similar effect on

coding projects. While they may not be the exact equivalent to a pattern, they
often provide developers with a built-in alternative that solves the same
problem. Similar to the foreach-Iterator example, other language features give
programmers techniques that are less work and often produce code that is
more concise and easier to understand than the original.

Adding functional features and techniques adds more tools to our program-
ming toolbox, just as Java 1.5 did with its foreach loop but on a grander scale.
These tools often complement the tools we already know and love from the
object-oriented world.

The second set of patterns we cover in this book, native functional patterns,
describes the patterns that evolved out of the functional style. These functional
patterns differ from the object-oriented patterns you may be familiar with in
a few key ways. The first, and most obvious, is that functions are the primary
unit of composition, just as objects are in the object-oriented world.

Another key difference lies in the patterns’ granularity. The patterns from
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software [GHJV95] (one
of the original drivers of the software patterns movement) are generally tem-
plates that define a few classes and specify how they fit together. Most of
them are medium size. They often don’t concern themselves either with very
small issues that encompass just a few lines of code or with very large issues
that encompass entire programs.

The functional patterns in this book cover a much broader range, as some of
them can be implemented in a line or two of code. Others tackle very big
problems, such as creating new, miniature programming languages.

The range is in line with the book that started the patterns movement in
general, A Pattern Language [AIS77]. This book on architectural patterns
starts off with the very big “1—Independent Regions” pattern, which outlines
why the planet should be organized into political entities of about 10,000
people, and goes all the way down to “248—Soft Tile and Brick,” which explains
how to make your own bricks.

Before we dig into the various patterns in this book, let’s spend some time
getting familiar with functional programming itself.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 What Is Functional Programming? •3

1.1 What Is Functional Programming?

At its core, functional programming is about immutability and about compos-
ing functions rather than objects. Many related characteristics fall out of this
style.

Functional programs do the following:

Have first-class functions: First-class functions are functions that can be

passed around, dynamically created, stored in data structures, and
treated like any other first-class object in the language.

Favor pure functions: Pure functions are functions that have no side effects.
A side effect is an action that the function does that modifies state outside
the function.

Compose functions: Functional programming favors building programs from

the bottom up by composing functions together.

Use expressions: Functional programming favors expressions over statements.

Expressions yield values. Statements do not and exist only to control the
flow of a program.

Use Immutability: Since functional programming favors pure functions, which

can’t mutate data, it also makes heavy use of immutable data. Instead of
modifying an existing data structure, a new one is efficiently created.

Transform, rather than mutate, data: Functional programming uses functions

to transform immutable data. One data structure is put into the function,
and a new immutable data structure comes out. This is in explicit contrast
with the popular object-oriented model, which views objects as little
packets of mutable state and behavior.

A focus on immutable data leads to programs that are written in a more

declarative style, since we can’t modify a data structure piece by piece. Here’s
an iterative way to filter the odd numbers out of a list, written in Java. Notice
how it relies on mutation to add odd numbers to filteredList one at a time.
JavaExamples/src/main/java/com/mblinn/mbfpp/intro/FilterOdds.java
public List<Integer> filterOdds(List<Integer> list) {
List<Integer> filteredList = new ArrayList<Integer>();
for (Integer current : list) {
if (isOdd(current)) {
filteredList.add(current);
}
}
return filteredList;
}

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Chapter 1. Patterns and Functional Programming •4

private boolean isOdd(Integer integer) {

return 0 != integer % 2;
}

And here’s a functional version, written in Clojure.

(filter odd? list-of-ints)

The functional version is obviously much shorter than the object-oriented

version. As mentioned previously, this is because functional programming is
declarative. That is, it specifies what should be done rather than how to do
it. For many problems we encounter in programming, this style lets us work
at a higher level of abstraction.

However, other problems are hard, if not impossible, to solve using strict
functional programming techniques. A compiler is a pure function. If you put
a program in, you expect to get the same machine code out every time. If you
don’t, it’s probably a compiler bug. Google’s search engine, however, is not a
pure function. If we got the same results from a Google search query every
time, we’d be stuck with a late 1990s view of the Web, which would be quite
tragic.

For this reason, functional programming languages tend to lie on a spectrum

of strictness. Some are more functionally pure than others. Of the two lan-
guages we’re using in this book, Clojure is purer on the functional spectrum;
at least, it is if we avoid its Java interoperability features.

For example, in idiomatic Clojure, we don’t mutate data as we do in Java.

Instead, we rely on an efficient set of immutable data structures, a set of ref-
erence types, and a software transactional memory system. This allows us to
get the benefits of mutability without the dangers. We’ll introduce these
techniques in Section 2.4, TinyWeb in Clojure, on page 28.

Scala has more support for mutable data, but immutable data is preferred.
For instance, Scala has both mutable and immutable versions of its collections
library, but the immutable data structures are imported and used by default.

1.2 Pattern Glossary

Here is where we introduce all of the patterns we cover in the book and give
a brief overview of each. This is a great list to skim if you already have a
specific problem you need to solve in a functional way.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Pattern Glossary •5

Replacing Object-Oriented Patterns

This section shows how to replace common object-oriented patterns with
functional language features. This generally cuts down on the amount of code
we have to write while giving us a more concise code to maintain.

Pattern 1, Replacing Functional Interface, on page 40

Here we replace common types of functional interfaces, such as Runnable or
Comparator, with native functional features.

This section introduces two basic types of functional features. The first type,
higher-order functions, allows us to pass functions around as first-class data.
The second, anonymous functions, allows us to write quick one-off functions
without giving them a name. These features combine to let us replace most
instances of Functional Interface very concisely.

Pattern 2, Replacing State-Carrying Functional Interface, on page 47

With this pattern we replace instances of Functional Interface that need to
carry around some bit of state—we introduce another new functional feature,
closures, which lets us wrap up a function and some state to pass around.

Pattern 3, Replacing Command, on page 54

Replacing Command encapsulates an action in an object—here we’ll take a
look at how we can replace the object-oriented version using the techniques
introduced in the previous two patterns.

Pattern 4, Replacing Builder for Immutable Object, on page 62

Here we carry data using the classic Java convention, a class full of getters
and setters—this approach is intimately tied up with mutability. Here we’ll
show how to get the convenience of a Java Bean along with the benefits of
immutability.

Pattern 5, Replacing Iterator, on page 72

Replacing Iterator gives us a way to access items in a collection sequential-
ly—here we’ll see how we can solve many of the problems we’d solve with
Iterator using higher-order functions and sequence comprehensions, which
give us solutions that are more declarative.

Pattern 6, Replacing Template Method, on page 83

This pattern defines the outline of an algorithm in a superclass, leaving
subclasses to implement its details. Here we’ll see how to use higher-order
functions and function composition to replace this inheritance-based pattern.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

 Chapter 1. Patterns and Functional Programming •6

Pattern 7, Replacing Strategy, on page 92

In this pattern we define a set of algorithms that all implement a common
interface. This allows a programmer to easily swap out one implementation
of an algorithm for another.

Pattern 8, Replacing Null Object, on page 99

In this pattern we discuss how to replace Null Object and talk about other
types of null handling—in Scala, we take advantage of the type system using
Option. In Clojure, we rely on nil and some language support to make it more
convenient to deal with.

Pattern 9, Replacing Decorator, on page 109

Replacing Decorator adds new behavior to an object without changing the
original class. Here we’ll see how to achieve the same effect with function
composition.

Pattern 10, Replacing Visitor, on page 113

Replacing Visitor makes it easy to add operations to a data type but difficult
to add new implementations of the type. Here we show solutions in Scala and
Clojure that make it possible to do both.

Pattern 11, Replacing Dependency Injection, on page 128

This pattern injects an object’s dependencies into it, rather than instantiating
them inline—this allows us to swap out their implementations. We’ll explore
Scala’s Cake pattern, which gives us a DI-like pattern.

Introducing Functional Patterns

Pattern 12, Tail Recursion, on page 138

Tail Recursion is functionally equivalent to iteration and provides a way to
write a recursive algorithm without requiring a stack frame for each recursive
call. While we’ll prefer more declarative solutions throughout the book,
sometimes the most straightforward way to solve a problem is more iterative.
Here we’ll show how to use Tail Recursion for those situations.

Pattern 13, Mutual Recursion, on page 146

Mutual Recursion is a pattern where recursive functions call one another. As
with Tail Recursion, we need a way to do this without consuming stack frames
for it to be practical. Here we’ll show how to use a feature called trampolining
to do just that.

Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> report erratum • discuss

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 Fig.58.—Stone Adze, New Caledonia.

Mr. Wallace, in reviewing the races of the Malay archipelago,

dwells on the marked differences, physically, intellectually, and
morally, between the Papuan and the Malay. The central home of the
Papuans is New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands; but the
same ethnical characteristics are traceable over the islands to the
east of New Guinea, as far as the Fijis. “The Papuan,” Mr. Wallace
remarks, “has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates
his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil, with
elaborate carving; a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the
Malay race.” In the affections and moral sentiments, on the contrary,
the Papuans compare unfavourably with the Malays, who are gentle
and passive in all their social relations. But this is properly traced to
their listless, apathetic character; while the vigour of the uncivilised
Papuan manifests itself in the unrestrained display of every emotion
and passion, even among the women and children, and in violent
collisions, inevitable in the social life of this savage race. Among
such a people the best and the worst characteristics are often
strangely intermingled. The Fiji Islanders use the bow and throw the
javelin with great dexterity; but their peculiar and distinguishing
weapon is a short missile club, which all habitually wear stuck in the
belt, the symbolic national instrument of assassination. Many
analogies of history tend, however, to refute the error of assuming
the occurrence of moral degradation, even when manifested in
parricide, cannibalism, and systematic treachery and assassination,
to be necessarily incompatible with such intellectual development as
distinguishes the Fijians from the Malays or other islanders of the
Pacific. Of all the aborigines of the Pacific, the ferocious New
Zealander has proved most capable of civilisation; and is found
moreover to possess a traditional poetry and mythical legends of a
highly striking and peculiar character. And turning from still
undeveloped races of the world, we have only to study deeds
perpetrated by the pagan Saxon, the Hun, or the later Dane and
Norseman, to see in what hideous aspects the energies of a rude
people may be manifested, who are nevertheless capable of
becoming leaders in the civilisation of Europe. To judge by the
monkish chronicles, no Fiji cannibal could surpass, either in savage
atrocity or in hideousness of aspect, the Hungarian or Northman
from whom the proudest of Europe’s nobles claim descent. The
chroniclers of Germany, France, and Italy, dwell on the savage fury
of the Huns; and the liturgy of the Gallican Church of the ninth
century preserves the memorial of the pagan Northmen’s ravages, in
the supplication added to its litany: A furore Normannorum libera
nos.

Fig. 59.—Fijian Pottery.

It is obvious therefore that the savage vices of the Fijians are

perfectly compatible with considerable skill in such arts as pertain to
their primitive and insular condition. Their musical instruments are
superior to those of the Polynesians, and include the Pan-pipe and
others unknown in the islands beyond their range. Their pottery also
exhibits great variety of form, and includes examples of vessels
combined in groups, presenting a curious correspondence to similar
productions of Peruvian art. Their fishing-nets and lines are
remarkable for neat and skilful workmanship, and they carry
cultivation to a considerable extent. “Indeed,” remarks the
ethnologist of the United States Expedition, in summing up the
characteristics of the Fijians, “we soon began to perceive that the
people were in possession of almost every art known to the
Polynesians, and of many others besides. The highly-finished
workmanship was unexpected, everything being executed until
recently, and even now for the most part, without the use of iron. In
the collection of implements and manufactures brought home by the
Expedition, the observer will distinguish in the Fijian division
something like a school of arts for the other Pacific islands.” Fig. 59
shows two characteristic specimens of their pottery selected from
the Smithsonian collections at Washington. They are extremely well
burnt, and finished with a bright glaze. One of them illustrates a
class of double vessels suggestive of certain analogies with a familiar
style of Peruvian pottery; and the prevailing characteristics of the
whole collection confirm the superiority ascribed to the Fijian
artificer. In such a strangely-gifted savage race we see the
degradation of which human nature is susceptible; and at the same
time recognise germs of a constructive and artistic capacity capable
of development into many marvellous manifestations, if once
subjected to such influences as those which changed the merciless
pirate of the northern seas into the refined Norman, the chivalrous
crusader, and the imaginative troubadour.
The native races of America are neither devoid of energy nor
ingenious artistic skill; and the progress attained by the Mexicans
and Peruvians, as well as by the nations of Central America, proved
their capacity for advancement in the arts of civilisation. But the fate
which has everywhere befallen the Red Indians when brought into
direct contact with European settlers, shows how impossible it is to
abruptly bridge over the gulf which separates the infancy of nations
from a maturity like that to which the rude Saxon and Northman
attained through the schooling of many centuries. The Aztecs at the
time of the Mexican conquest were probably not ruder than the first
Angle and Saxon colonists. They were certainly no crueler than the
Northmen of the eighth century. But they were far in advance of the
northern tribes from which, according to Aztec traditions, they traced
their descent.
Among the barbarous races of the northern continent, the tribes
of the Iroquois confederacy, though scarcely rising above the hunter
stage, offer a subject of study of peculiar value in reference to the
ethnology of the New World. In the great valley of the St. Lawrence,
at the period of earliest European contact with its native tribes, we
find this confederacy of Indian nations in the most primitive
condition as to all knowledge of progressive arts; but full of energy,
delighting in military enterprise, and amply endued with the qualities
requisite for effecting permanent conquests over a civilised but
unwarlike people. Nor did the primitive arts of the Iroquois prevent
the development of incipient germs of civilisation among them.
Agriculture was systematically practised; and their famous league,
wisely established, and maintained unbroken through very diversified
periods of their history, exhibits a people advancing in many ways
towards the initiation of a self-originated civilisation, when the
intrusion of Europeans abruptly arrested its progress, and brought
them in contact with elements of foreign progress pregnant for them
only with sources of degradation and final destruction.
The historian of the Iroquois,[71] when describing their simple arts
and manufactures, remarks, that in the western mounds rows of
arrow-heads or flint-blades have been found lying side by side, like
teeth, the row being about two feet long. “This has suggested the
idea that they were set in a frame, and fastened with thongs, thus
making a species of sword.”[72] In this description we cannot fail to
recognise the mahguahuitl, or native sword of Mexico and Yucatan.
In the large canoe with its armed crew, first met off the latter coast,
Herrera tells us the Indians had “swords made of wood, having a
gutter in the forepart, in which were sharp-edged flints strongly
fixed with a sort of bitumen and thread.” Among the Mexicans this
toothed blade was armed with the itzli, or obsidian, capable of
taking an edge like a razor; and the destructive powers of this
formidable weapon are frequently dwelt upon by the early
Spaniards. Among the ruins of Kabah, in Yucatan, the attention of
Stephens was attracted by the protruding corner of a huge
sculptured slab, the basso-relievos on which consist of an upright
figure having a lofty plume of feathers falling to his heels; while
another figure kneels before him holding in his hands the very same
weapon, with its flint or obsidian blades projecting from the wooden
socket. The idea it suggests is not necessarily that assumed by
Stephens: that the sculptors and architects of the great ruins of
Central America and Yucatan were the same people whom the
Spaniards found there on their landing. The sculpture may be of a
greatly older date. On its lower compartment is a row of
hieroglyphics; and the suppliant attitude of the armed figure is
rather suggestive of a record of conquest over some barbarian chief
of Mexican or more northern tribes, of whom the flint-edged sword-
blade was the most typical characteristic. Nevertheless, there is a
singular interest in the simple chain of evidence, thus confirmatory
of the Aztec traditions of original migration, and the subjugation of
the elder civilised race of Anahuac by northern warriors: which leads
us, step by step, from such rude arts as those of the Iroquois, and
relics of other barbarous tribes in western sepulchral mounds, to the
Mexican armature of the era of the conquest, and artistic records of
the lettered architects of Yucatan.
The history of the Iroquois and their simple arts, illustrates with
peculiar aptness the unwritten chronicles of the New World. In their
rude state they achieved a remarkable civil and military organisation,
and acquired more extensive and enduring influence than any nation
of native American lineage, excepting the civilised Mexicans and
Peruvians. Their own traditions pointed to an era when they
migrated from the northern shores of the St. Lawrence into that
region to the south and east of Lake Ontario, where they dwelt
through all the period of their authentic history; though two
members of the league, the Senecas and Onondagas, claimed to be
autochthones, sprung from the soil of that Iroquois territory. The
league embraced the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and
Mohawks, all united in a strictly federal union; and to this the
Tuscaroras were admitted, on their expulsion from North Carolina in
1715. The claim of a common origin advanced by a people
occupying territory so far to the south, throws an interesting light on
the migrations of Indian tribes. It is confirmed by the character of
their language, and received practical recognition in the assignment
of a portion of the Oneida territory for their occupation. In the
seventeenth century the Iroquois were the great aggressive
nationality of the continent to the north of Mexico. In the very
beginning of that century, Captain John Smith, the founder of
Virginia, encountered their canoes on the upper part of the
Chesapeake Bay, bearing a band of them to the territories of the
Powhattan confederacy. The Shawnees, Susquehannocks,
Nanticokes, Miamis, Delawares, and Minsi, were, one after another,
reduced by them to the condition of dependent tribes. Even the
Canarse or Long-Island Indians found no protection from them in
their sea-girt home beyond the Hudson; and their power was felt
from the St. Lawrence to Tennessee, and from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi.
How long before the discovery of this vast region by Europeans,
it had been in occupation by those who claimed to be its
autochthones, we have no other knowledge than their own traditions
of migration. But so far as arts are any evidence of national
progress, they were then in their infancy. The region they occupied
offered no advantages for the inauguration of a copper or bronze
era, such as those of Lake Superior or the Southern Andes supplied
to their ancient possessors. Of working in metals they knew nothing;
and only supplemented their primitive implements, wrought in stone,
flint, horn, bone, and wood, by barter with the European intruders.
Nevertheless, for nearly two centuries, the Indians of the Five
Nations, as they were called before the addition of the Tuscaroras,
presented a sturdy and unbroken front to the encroachments alike of
Dutch, French, and British colonists. But their hostility was
concentrated in opposition to the French nation; and as the rival
colonies of France and England were long nearly balanced, it is not
unjustly affirmed by the historian of the Iroquois, that France owed
the final overthrow of her magnificent schemes of colonisation in
North America to their uncompromising antagonism.
 Among the Mexicans the arts of a true stone-period had been
carried to the highest perfection, along with a development of those
of their bronze age. On the northern frontier of Mexico, towards the
head-waters of the Great Barauca, is the Cerro de Navajas, the “Hill
of Knives,” where, before the conquest, obsidian was mined for
manufacturing purposes: like the chert and hornstone of the Flint
Ridge pits of Kentucky and Ohio. Examples of elaborately-worked
obsidian and flint, and of polished implements and ornaments of
stone, executed by Mexican artificers, rival the finest specimens
recovered among the relics of Europe’s neolithic period. The Christy
collection is specially rich in objects of this class. One flame-shaped
arrow-head chipped with the nicest art, is evidently executed as a
display of lapidary skill. Another fine spear-blade, made of a semi-
opalescent chalcedony which occurs as concretions in the trachytic
lavas of Mexico, measures eight inches long, and is supposed to
have served as a state halberd, as it is much too delicate for actual
warfare. But it is obvious that a finer material than usual frequently
tempted the worker in flint or obsidian to an unwonted display of his
art. In various private collections in Kentucky, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania, I have seen choice specimens of spear and arrow-
heads, and other objects, made of jasper, milky-quartz, and rock
crystal; some of them wrought into fantastic or purely ornamental
forms.
A state battle-axe in the Christy collection made of green
quartzose avanturine, measures 11 inches in length. It is a thick
wedge, with the upper part carved as the head of a Mexican idol or
king, and the arms outlined on the blade. Jade, green serpentine,
grey granite, agate, and obsidian of different colours, were all
worked into various shapes for ornament or use, with a care often
prompted by the attractive character of the material, and with a skill
no longer known to the native Mexican artificers.
 Fig. 60.—Honduras serrated Implement.

In the southern continent also examples of mastery in the

manufacture of flint and stone implements survive, in some cases as
the sole memorials of races which have perished; and traces of the
arts of savage tribes in the primitive condition of a purely stone-
period lie everywhere outside of the remarkable centres of Peruvian
civilisation. Three such relics from the Bay of Honduras are
deserving of special notice, from their unusually large size and
peculiar forms. They were found, along with other implements,
about the year 1794, in a cave between two and three miles inland.
One of them is now preserved in the British Museum, and the others
have been repeatedly exhibited at meetings of the Archæological
Institute. The accompanying illustrations will best convey an idea of
their peculiar forms. One (Fig. 60) is a serrated weapon, pointed at
both ends, and measuring sixteen and a half inches long. Another
(Fig. 61), in the form of a crescent, with projecting points,
measuring 17 inches in greatest length, may have served as a
weapon of parade, like the state partisan or halberd of later times.
The third, which is imperfect, is shown in Fig. 62. The whole are
examples of flint implements of unusually large proportions, and
chipped with extraordinary regularity and skill. A well-executed head
of a warrior, in terra-cotta, obtained about the same period, if not
indeed along with these implements, was presented to the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland in 1798, and is figured on a subsequent
page. The unwonted size of those Honduras implements attracted
special notice when first produced; but this ceases to excite surprise
when it is seen that blocks of flint or hornstone adequate for the
largest of them are readily procurable throughout extensive regions
of North America, as in Ohio and Kentucky. To the north of Ohio,
where the material is rare, flint implements and weapons are mostly
of small size. The larger implements are of stone; and among the
Iroquois, the Hurons, the Chippewas, and other tribes on the shores
of the great lakes, the copper of Lake Superior seems to have been
recognised, and sought for, as a fitter material for large hatchets and
spear-heads.

Fig. 61.—Honduras State Halberd.

Fig. 62.—Honduras Implement.

In this respect we see the very privations of those Indian tribes

forcing on their notice the resources of the copper region, which
might, among so energetic a people as the Iroquois proved
themselves to be, have at length led to such a mastery of the
metallurgic arts as was achieved by the nations of Mexico and Peru.
But their energies were diverted into far different channels by the
very advent of races already familiar with all the highest
acquirements of civilisation; and whatever time might have
developed out of the Iroquois confederacy, akin to the native
civilisation which had already taken root beyond the verge of their
southern conquests, they had little to hope from the triumph of
either of the European aggressors between whom they so long held
the balance. In the rivalry of the French and English colonists the
insular race proved the victors; and when at a later date England
and her American colonies came into collision, the nations of the
League took different sides, and the Hodenosaunee[73] finally ceased
to be the ideal rallying-point of a united people. They had run their
destined course; and now the poor scattered remnants of the once-
famous Indian federation serve only to illustrate how irreconcilable
are the elements of high civilisation with the most vigorous and
progressive energy of a people only maturing the first stage in the
progress of nations. They lacked the qualities which protect an
inferior race from extinction when brought into contact with a long
matured civilisation. Passive and naturally submissive races, like the
Malay or the Negro, survive the intrusion of a dominant race, and
are protected by their docility, as the natural serfs of the intruders.
But an energetic people, who find their chief employment in war and
the chase, can be subjected to no useful servitude. They are
separated by too wide a gulf from their rivals to claim any equality in
the rights of civilisation. The only alternative left for them is to drive
out the intruder, or to be exterminated by him like the bear and wolf.
Stone, Bronze, and Iron Periods are not indispensable steps in the
advancement of the human race; but all experience proves that
when such extreme social conditions are abruptly brought into
contact as stone and iron periods aptly symbolise, the tendency is
towards the degradation and final extinction of the less advanced
race.

[68] Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 2d Ed. vol. i. p. 331.

[69] U. S. Geological Survey, 1872, p. 652.
[70] Alaska and its Resources, p. 418.
[71] Lewis H. Morgan: League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee,
or Iroquois.
[72] See footnote 71.
[73] Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or People of the Long House,
expressive of the numerous assembly in the Council
of the Confederacy.
 CHAPTER VIII.

T H E M E TA L S.

DAWN OF A METALLURGIC ERA—PRIMITIVE COPPER-WORKING—COPPER REGION

OF LAKE SUPERIOR—THE PICTURED ROCKS—JACKSON IRON MOUNTAIN—THE
CLIFF MINE—COPPER TOOLS—ANCIENT MINING TRENCHES—GREAT EXTENT
OF WORKS—MINES OF ISLE ROYALE—THEIR ESTIMATED AGE—ANCIENT
MINING IMPLEMENTS—STONE MAULS AND AXES—ONTONAGON MINING RELICS
—SITES OF COPPER MANUFACTORIES—NATIVE COPPER AND SILVER—
BROCKVILLE COPPER IMPLEMENTS—LOST METALLURGIC ARTS—CHEMICAL
ANALYSES—NATIVE TERRA-COTTAS—ANCIENT BRITISH MINING-TOOLS—THE
RACE OF THE COPPER MINES—CHIPPEWA SUPERSTITIONS—EARLIEST NOTICES
OF THE COPPER REGION—ONTONAGON MASS OF COPPER—ANCIENT NATIVE
TRAFFIC—NATIVE USE OF METALS—CONDITION OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS—
MINERAL RESOURCES—ANTIQUITY OF COPPER WORKINGS—DESERTION OF
THE MINES.

The same rational instinct which prompted man in his first efforts
at tool-making, guided him in a discriminating choice of materials;
and to this the discovery of metals, and the consequent first steps in
metallurgy and the arts, may be traced. The Bronze Age of Europe
derives its name from the predominance of relics illustrative of a
period which, though old compared with that of definite history,
belongs to a comparatively late era, characterised by many traces of
artistic skill, and of mastery in the difficult processes of smelting ores
and alloying metals. But the dawn of the metallurgic era in the New
World is marked by phases which derive their distinctive character
from two widely separated regions; and of which one supplies an
important link in the history of human progress, at best but partially
indicated in the disclosures of European archæology.
To untutored man, provided only with implements of stone, the
facilities presented by the great copper regions of Lake Superior for
the first step in the knowledge of metallurgy were peculiarly
available. The forests that flung their shadows along the shores of
that great lake were the haunts of the deer, the beaver, the bear,
and other favourite objects of the chase; the rivers and the lake
abounded with fish; and the rude hunter had to manufacture
weapons and implements out of such materials as nature placed
within his reach. The water-worn stone from the beach, patiently
ground to an edge, made his axe and tomahawk: by means of
which, with the help of fire, he could level the giants of the forest, or
detach from them the materials for his canoe and paddle, his lance,
club, or bow and arrows. The bones of the deer pointed his spear, or
were wrought into his fish-hooks; and the shale or flint was chipped
and ground into his arrow-head, after a pattern repeated with little
variation, in all countries, and in every primitive age. But besides
such materials of universal occurrence, the primeval occupant of the
shores of Lake Superior found there a stone possessed of some very
peculiar virtues. It could not only be wrought to an edge without
liability to fracture; but it was malleable, and could be hammered
out into many new and convenient shapes. This was the copper,
found in connection with the trappean rocks of that region, in
inexhaustible quantities, in a pure metallic state. In other rich
mineral regions, as in those of Cornwall and Devon, the principal
source of this metal is from ores, which require both labour and skill
to fit them for economic purposes. But in the veins of the copper
region of Lake Superior the native metal occurs in enormous masses,
weighing hundreds of tons; and loose blocks of various sizes have
been found on the lake shore, or lying detached on the surface, in
sufficient quantities to supply all the wants of the nomad hunter.
These, accordingly, he wrought into chisels and axes, armlets, and
personal ornaments of various kinds, without the use of the crucible;
and, indeed, without recognising any precise distinction between the
copper which he mechanically separated from the mass, and the
unmalleable stone or flint out of which he had been accustomed to
fashion his spear and arrow-heads. This is confirmed by philological
evidence. The root of the names for iron and copper in the
Chippewa is the same abstract term, wahbik, used only in compound
words. Thus pewahbik, iron; ozahwahbik, copper: lit. the yellow
stone; metahbik, on the bare rock; oogedahbik, on the top of a rock;
kishkahbikah, it is a precipice; etc.
The earliest references to Britain pertain exclusively to the
peninsula of Cornwall and the neighbouring islands, whither the
fleets of the Mediterranean were attracted in ages of vague
antiquity, and the traders from Gaul resorted in quest of its metallic
wealth. The mineral regions of the New World disclose some
corresponding records of its long-forgotten past; and some idea of
their present condition is indispensable for preparing the mind to
appreciate the changes wrought by time on localities which are now
being rescued once more from the wilderness. The vast inland sea,
which constitutes the reservoir of the chain of lakes whose waters
sweep over the Falls of Niagara, and find their way by the St.
Lawrence to the ocean, has been as yet so partially encroached
upon by the pioneers of modern civilisation, that the general aspect
of its shores differs but little from that which they presented to the
eye of its first European explorers in the seventeenth century: or
indeed to its Indian voyagers before the Spaniard first coasted the
island shores of the Bahamas, and opened for Europe the gates of
the West. With its wide extent of waters, covering an area of thirty-
two thousand square miles, a lengthened period of sojourn in the
regions with which it is surrounded, and many facilities for their
exploration, would be required, in order to satisfy the curiosity of the
scientific inquirer. But even a brief visit discloses much that is
interesting, and that serves at once to illustrate, and to contrast with
what comes under the observer’s notice elsewhere.
In tracing out the evidence of ancient occupation of the shores of
Lake Superior, I have, on repeated visits, coasted its shores for
hundreds of miles in canoes; and camped for weeks in some of its
least accessible wilds. The force of the evidence is slowly
appreciated, even by careful personal observation; but some
description of the ancient copper region may help the reader to
estimate the lapse of time since its forest-glades and rocky
promontories were enlivened by the presence of industrious miners.
The memorials of Time’s unceasing operations reach indeed to
periods long prior to the earliest presence of man, and present
certain lake phenomena, on a scale only conceivable by those who
have sailed on the bosom of these fresh-water seas with as
boundless a horizon as in mid-Atlantic; and who have experienced
the violence of the sudden storms to which they are liable. But while
the same broad ocean-like expanse, and the violence of their stormy
moods, characterise Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan: it is only on
Lake Superior that the traveller witnesses the grandeur and wild
ruggedness of scenery commensurate with his preconceived ideas of
such inland seas. Along its northern and western shores bold cliffs
and rocky headlands frown in savage grandeur, from amid the
unbroken wastes of forest that reach to the frozen regions around
the Hudson Bay, while the gentler coast-lines of its southern shores
are varied by some of the most singular conformations, wrought out
of its rocky walls by the action of the waves. Among such rock-
formations, no features are so remarkable as those presented by a
portion of the extensive range of sandstone cliffs, which project in
jagged and picturesque masses from the southern shore, soon after
passing the Grand Sable; and to which fresh interest has been given
by the interweaving of the Algonquin legends of the locality into
Longfellow’s Indian Song of Hiawatha.
The Pictured Rocks are situated between the copper regions and
the ancient portage, which has been recently superseded by a canal
opening navigation for the largest vessels from Lake Huron to Lake
Superior. They lie in the centre of the long indentation, which,
sweeping from Keweenaw Peninsula eastward to White Fish Point,
forms the coast most distant from the northern shores of the lake.
Here the cliffs have been exposed through unnumbered ages to the
waves under the action of northerly winds; while a contemporaneous
upheaval, prolonged probably through vast periods of time, has
contributed no unimportant share in the operations by which their
striking forms have been produced. Beyond those the voyager
comes once more on rocky cliffs in the vicinity of Marquette: so
named after the Jesuit missionary by whom the upper waters of the
Mississippi were first reached two centuries ago, in 1673. Important
changes have been wrought in the interval. Mineral treasures,
undreamt of by the ancient miners, are now rewarding the industry
of the Indians’ supplanters. The iron period, with its fully developed
civilisation, is invading those forest tracks; and when I first visited
Marquette in 1855, on the bold trappean rocks which form the
landing, abraded and scratched with the glacial action of a long
superseded era, were piled the rich products of the “Jackson Iron
Mountain,” which rears its bold outline at a distance of twelve miles
from the shore. Immediately to the north of this point the
promontory of Presque Isle presents in some respects a striking
contrast to the Pictured Rocks; though, like them, also indented and
hollowed out into detached masses, and pierced with the wave-worn
caverns of older levels of shore and lake. Here the water-worn
sandstone and the igneous rocks overlie or intermingle with each
other in picturesque confusion: the symbol, as it were, of the
transition between the copper and iron eras. For it is just at Presque
Isle that the crystalline schists, with their intermingling masses of
trappean and quartz rocks, richly impregnated with the specular and
magnetic oxide of iron, pass into the granite and sandstone rocks,
which intervene between the ferriferous formations and the copper-
bearing traps of Keweenaw Point. Beyond this, the rich copper-
bearing region of the Keweenaw Peninsula stretches far into the
lake, traversed in a south-westerly direction by magnificent cliffs of
trappean rocks, presenting their perpendicular sides to the south-
east, and covered even amid the rocky débris with ancient forest-
trees. In this igneous rock are found the copper veins, which in
recent years have conferred such great commercial value on the
district of Michigan; and there I not only witnessed extensive mining
operations in progress, but have investigated evidences of the
ancient miners’ labours which prove the prolonged practice there, at
some remote period, of native metallurgic arts.
On landing at Eagle river, one of the points for shipping the
copper ores, on the west side of the Keweenaw Peninsula, the track
lies through dense forest, over a road in some parts of rough
corduroy, and in others traversing the irregular exposed surface of
the copper-bearing trap. After a time it winds through a gorge,
covered with immense masses of trap and crumbling débris, amid
which pine, and the black oak and other hard wood, have contrived
to find a sufficient soil for taking root and attaining their full
proportions; and beyond the cliffs, in a level bottom on the other
side of the trap ridge, is the Cliff Mine settlement, one of the most
important of all the mining works in operation in this region. Here I
descended a perpendicular shaft by means of ladders, to a depth of
sixty fathoms, and explored various of the levels: passing in some
cases literally through tunnels made in the solid copper. The very
abundance of the metal proves indeed, at times, an impediment to
its profitable working, owing to the labour necessarily expended in
chiselling out masses from the solid lump, to admit of their being
taken to the surface, and transported through such tracts as have
been described, to the Lake shore. The floor of the level was
strewed with copper shavings: for the extreme ductility of the native
copper precludes the application of other force than manual labour
for separating it from the parent mass. I saw also beautiful
specimens of silver, in a matrix of crystalline quartz, obtained from
this mine; and the copper of the district is stated to contain on an
average about 3·10 per cent. of silver. This is indeed by far the
richest mineral locality that has yet been wrought. In a single year
upwards of sixteen hundred tons of copper have been procured from
the Cliff Mine, and one mass was estimated to weigh eighty tons. Its
mineral wealth was known to the ancient miners; but the skill and
appliances of the modern miner give him access to veins entirely
beyond the reach of the primitive metallurgist, who knew of no
harder material for his tools than the native rock and the ductile
metal he was in search of.
At the Cliff Mine are preserved some curious specimens of
ancient copper tools found in its vicinity, but it is to the westward of
the Keweenaw Peninsula that the most extensive traces of the
aboriginal miners’ operations are seen. The copper-bearing trap,
after crossing the Keweenaw Lake, is traced onward in a south-
westerly direction till it crosses the Ontonagon river about twelve
miles from its mouth, at an elevation of upwards of three hundred
feet above the lake. At this locality the edges of the copper veins
crop out in various places, exposing the metal in irregular patches
over a considerable extent of country, many of which have been
partially wrought by the ancient miners. Here, in the neighbourhood
of the Minnesota Mine, are extensive traces of trenches and other
mining operations, which prove that they must have been carried on
for a long period. These excavations are partially filled up, and so
overgrown in the long interval between their first excavation and
their observation by recent explorers, that they scarcely attract
attention. Nevertheless some trenches have been found to measure
from eighteen to thirty feet in depth; and one of them disclosed a
detached mass of native copper, weighing upwards of six tons,
resting on an artificial cradle of black oak, partially preserved by
immersion in the water with which it had been filled. Various
implements and tools of the same metal also lay in the deserted
trench, where this huge mass had been separated from its matrix,
and elevated on the oaken frame, preparatory to its removal entire.
It appeared to have been raised about five feet, and then
abandoned, abruptly as it would seem: since even the copper tools
were found among the accumulated soil by which it had been anew
covered up. The solid mass measured ten feet long, three feet wide,
and nearly two feet thick; every projecting piece had been removed,
so that the exposed surface was left perfectly smooth, possibly by
other and ruder workers of a date subsequent to the desertion of
the mining trench by its original explorers.
The mining operations of upwards of a quarter of a century have
done much to efface the traces of the ancient works, as every
indication of them is eagerly followed up by the modern miner, as
the most promising clew to rich metalliferous deposits. But towards
the close of 1874 Mr. Davis, an experienced old miner of Lake
Superior, recovered from another ancient trench, in the same region,
a solid mass of nearly pure copper, heart-shaped, and weighing
between two and three tons. It lay at a depth of seventeen feet from
the surface, as when originally detached from its bed by the ancient
miners. Alongside of it were a number of smaller pieces, from a
single ounce to seventeen pounds in weight, evidently broken off the
large mass by the original workers of the mine. Numerous stone
mauls and hammers also, weighing from ten to thirty pounds, lay
scattered through the lower débris with which the trench was
refilled. But the absence of any copper tools seemed to point to the
final desertion of the mine, from some unknown cause, at the very
time when its resources were most available.
Attention was first directed to such traces of ancient mining
operations, by the agent of the Minnesota Mining Company in 1847.
Following up the indications of a continuous depression in the soil,
he came at length to a cavern where he found several porcupines
had fixed their quarters for hybernation; but detecting evidences of
artificial excavation, he proceeded to clear out the accumulated soil,
and not only exposed to view a vein of copper, but found in the
rubbish numerous stone mauls and hammers of the ancient
workmen. Subsequent observation brought to light excavations of
great extent, frequently from twenty-five to thirty feet deep, and
scattered over an area of several miles. The rubbish taken from
these is piled up in mounds alongside; while the trenches have been
gradually refilled with soil and decaying vegetable matter gathered
through the long centuries since their desertion; and over all, the
giants of the forest have grown, withered, and fallen to decay. Mr.
Knapp, the agent of the Minnesota Company, counted 395 annular
rings on a hemlock-tree, which grew on one of the mounds of earth
thrown out of an ancient mine. Mr. Foster also notes the great size
and age of a pine-stump which must have grown and died since the
works were deserted; and Mr. Whittlesey not only refers to living
trees upwards of three hundred years old, now flourishing in the
abandoned trenches; but he adds: “on the same spot there are the
decayed trunks of a preceding generation or generations of trees
that have arrived at maturity and fallen down from old age.” The
deserted mines are found at numerous points extending over
upwards of a hundred miles along the southern shore of the lake;
and reappear beyond it, in extensive excavations on Isle Royale. Sir
William Logan reports others observed by him on the summit of a
ridge at Maimanse, on the north shore, where the old excavations
are surrounded by broken pieces of vein-stone, with stone mauls
rudely formed from natural boulders. The extensive area over which
such works have thus been traced, the evidences of their prolonged
working, and of their still longer abandonment, all combine to force
upon the mind convictions of their remote antiquity.
At Ontonagon river I met with Captain Peck, a settler whose long
residence in the country has afforded him many opportunities of
noting the evidences of its ancient occupation. Repeated discoveries
had led him to infer the great antiquity of the works; and he
specially referred to one disclosure of ancient mining operations near
the forks of the Ontonagon river, where, at a depth of upwards of
twenty-five feet, stone mauls and other tools were found in contact
with a copper vein; in the soil above these lay the trunk of a large
cedar, and over all grew a hemlock-tree, with its roots spread
entirely above the fallen cedar, in the accumulated soil with which
the trench was filled, and indicating a growth of not less than three
centuries. But the buried cedar, which in favourable circumstances is
far more durable than the oak, represents another and longer
succession of centuries, subsequent to that protracted period during
which the deserted trench was slowly filled up with accumulations of
many winters. In another excavation a bed of clay had been formed
above the ancient flooring to the depth of a foot. On this lay the
skeleton of a deer which had stumbled in and perished there; and
over it clay, leaves, sand, and gravel had accumulated to a depth of
nineteen feet. Not only are such indications frequent throughout the
Keweenaw Peninsula, and to the westward and southward of
Ontonagon; but on Isle Royale the abandoned mines disclose still
stronger evidence of their great antiquity. The United States
Geologists remark: “Mr. E. G. Shaw pointed out to us similar
evidences of mining on Isle Royale, which can be traced lengthways
for the distance of a mile. On opening one of these pits, which had
become filled up, he found the mine had been worked through the
solid rock, to the depth of nine feet, the walls being perfectly
smooth. At the bottom he found a vein of native copper eighteen
inches thick, including a sheet of pure copper lying against the foot-
wall.” Stone hammers and wedges lay in great abundance at the
bottom of the trenches, but no metallic implements were found: a
proof perhaps that the mines of Isle Royale continued to be wrought
after their workers had been hastily compelled to abandon those on
the mainland. Mr. Shaw adopted the conclusion, from the
appearance of the wall-rocks, the multitude of stone implements,
and the material removed, that the labour of excavating the rock
must have been performed solely with such instruments, with the
aid, perhaps, of fire. But the appearance of the vein, and the extent
of the workings, furnished evidence not only of great and protracted
labour, but also of the use of other tools than those of stone.
Accumulated vegetable matter had refilled the excavations to a level
with the surrounding surface, and over this the forest extended with
the same luxuriance as on the natural soil. In this barren and rocky
region the filling up of the trenches with vegetable soil must have
been the work of many centuries; so that the whole aspect of the
deserted mines of Isle Royale confirms the antiquity ascribed to
them.
What appear to the eye of the traveller as the giants of the
primeval forest, are the growth of comparatively modern centuries,
subsequent to the era when the shores of Lake Superior rang with
the echoes of industrial toil. Two or three centuries would seem
altogether inadequate to furnish the requisite time for the most
partial accumulation of soil and decayed vegetable matter with
which the old miners’ trenches have been filled. Four centuries
thereafter are indisputably recorded by recent survivors of the
forest, independent of all traces of previous arborescent generations;
and thus in the excavations and tools of the copper regions of Lake
Superior, we look on memorials of a metallurgic industry long prior
to those closing years of the fifteenth century, in which the mineral
wealth of the New World awoke the Spanish lust for gold. An
uncertain, yet considerable interval must be assumed between the
abandonment of those ancient works, and the forest’s earliest
growth; and thus we are thrown back, at latest, into centuries
corresponding to Europe’s mediæval era for a period to which to
assign those singularly interesting traces of a lost American
civilisation.
Owing to the filling up of the abandoned mining trenches with
water, not only the copper and stone implements of the miners are
found, but examples of wooden tools and timber framing have also
been preserved, in several cases in wonderful perfection; and these
furnish interesting supplementary evidence of the character of their
industrial arts.

Fig. 63.—Miners’ Shovels.

Of the wooden implements, the most noticeable are the shovels,

by means of which the soil was excavated. The accompanying
woodcut represents two of them worn away to the one side, as in
most of the examples found, as if used for scraping rather than
digging the soil. Mr. Whittlesey gives a drawing of one which
measured three and a half feet long, recovered among the loose
materials thrown out from an extensive rock excavation in the side
of a hill about four miles south-east of Eagle Harbour. Part of a
wooden bowl used for baling water, and troughs of cedar-bark, were
also found in the same débris, above which grew a birch about two
feet in diameter, with its lower roots scarcely reaching through the
ancient rubbish to the depth at which those relics lay. Mr. Foster
describes another wooden bowl found at a depth of ten feet, in
clearing out some ancient workings opened by the agent of the
Forest Mine; and which, from the splintered pieces of rock and
gravel imbedded in its rim, must have been employed in baling
water. Similar implements have been met with in other workings, but
they speedily perish on being exposed to the air. All of them appear
to have been made of white cedar. The indestructible nature of this
wood, when kept under water, or in a moist soil, is abundantly
illustrated by the experience of settlers who, on attempting to clear
and cultivate a cedar swamp, discover that the dead trunks,
exhumed undecayed after centuries of immersion, rest above still
older cedar-forests, seemingly unaffected by the influences which
restore alike the oak and the pine to the vegetable mould of the
forest soil.
 Fig. 64.—Miners’ Stone Mauls.

The process of working the ancient mines seems to be tolerably

clearly indicated by the discoveries referred to. The soil having been
removed by means of wooden spades, doubtless with the aid of
copper tools to break up the solid earth and clay: remains of
charcoal, met with in numerous instances on the surface of the rock,
show that fire was an important agent for overcoming the cohesion
between the copper and its matrix. Before the introduction of
gunpowder fire was universally employed in excavating rock; and
where fuel abounds, as in the old Harz and Altenberg mining
districts of Europe, it is even now found to be quite as economical in
destroying siliceous rocks. Stone hammers or mauls were next
employed to break up the metalliferous rock. These have been found
in immense numbers on different mining sites. Mr. Knapp obtained in
one locality upwards of ten cart-loads; and I was shown a well at
Ontonagon constructed almost entirely out of stone hammers,
obtained from ancient workings in the immediate vicinity. Many of
these are mere water-worn boulders of greenstone or porphyry,
roughly chipped at the centre, so as to admit of their being secured
by a withe around them. But others are well-finished, with a single
or double groove for attaching the handle by which they were
wielded. They weigh from ten to forty pounds; but many are broken,
and some of the specimens I saw were worn and fractured from
frequent use.
The extent to which co-operation was carried on by the miners,
with the imperfect means at their command, is illustrated by the
objects recovered on exploring one of their trenches, on a hill to the
south of the Copper Falls mines. On removing the accumulations
from the excavation, stone axes of large size made of greenstone,
and shaped to receive withe-handles, and some large round
greenstone masses that had apparently been used for battering-
rams, were found. “They had round holes bored in them to the
depth of several inches, which seemed to have been designed for
wooden plugs to which withe-handles might be attached, so that
several men could swing them with sufficient force to break the rock
and the projecting masses of copper. Some of them were broken,
and some of the projecting ends of rock exhibited marks of having
been battered in the manner here suggested.”[74]
But the industrious miners fully appreciated the practical utility of
the metal they were in search of; and it is not to be supposed that
they employed themselves thus laboriously in mining copper, and yet
themselves used only stone and wooden tools. Copper axes, gads,
chisels, and gouges, as well as knives and spear-heads, of
considerable diversity of form, have been brought to light, all of
them wrought from the virgin copper by means of the hammer,
without smelting, alloy, or the use of fire. At Ontonagon, I had an
opportunity of examining an interesting collection of mining relics,
found a few months before. These consisted of copper tools, with
solid triangular blades like bayonets, one fourteen inches, and the
others about twelve inches in length; a chisel, and two singularly
shaped copper gouges about fourteen inches long and two inches
wide, the precise use of which it would be difficult to determine. The
whole were discovered buried in a bed of clay on the banks of the
river Ontonagon, about a mile above its mouth, during the process
of levelling it for the purposes of a brick-field. Above the clay was an
alluvial deposit of two feet of sand, and in this, and over the relics of
the ancient copper workers, a pine-tree had grown to full maturity.
Its gigantic roots gave proof, in the estimation of those who
witnessed their removal, of more than two centuries’ growth; while
the present ordinary level of the river is such that it would require a
rise of forty feet to make the deposit of sand beneath which they lay.
 Fig. 65.—Ontonagon Copper Implement.

An experienced practical miner, who had been among the first to

reopen some of the ancient works at the Minnesota mine,
recognised in the copper gouges implements adapted to produce the
singular tool-marks which then excited his curiosity. Subjoined is a
representation of a peculiar type of copper tools, sketched from one
of those found at Ontonagon. The socket, formed by hammering out
the lower part flat, and then turning it over partially at each side,
corresponds to some primitive forms of bronze implements found in
Britain and the north of Europe; but the latter are cast of a metallic
compound, and prove a skill in metallurgy far in advance of the old
metal-workers of Ontonagon.
Another, and in some respects more interesting discovery, was
made at a point lying to the cast of Keweenaw Point, in the rich iron
district of Marquette, in what appears to have been the ancient bed
of the river Carp. About ten feet above the present level of its
channel, various weapons and implements of copper were found.
Large trees grew over this deposit also, and the evidences of
antiquity seemed not less obvious than in that of Ontonagon. The
relics included knives, spear or lance-heads, and arrow-heads, some
of which were ornamented with silver. One of the knives, made, with
its handle, out of a single piece of copper, measured altogether
about seven inches long, of which the blade was nearly two-thirds,
and of an oval shape. It was ornamented with pieces of silver
attached to it, and was inlaid with a stripe of the same metal from
point to haft. Numerous fragments and shavings of copper were also
found, some of which were such as, it was assumed, could only have
been cut by a fine sharp tool; and the whole sufficed to indicate,
even more markedly than those at Ontonagon, that not only was the
native copper wrought in ancient times in the Lake Superior regions,
but that manufactories were established along its shores, and on the
banks of its navigable rivers. The recognition of silver as a distinct
metal by the present race of Indians is proved by the specific term
shooneya, by which it is designated in Chippewa; whereas gold is
only known as ozahwah-shooneya, or yellow silver.

Fig. 66. Fig. 67.

Brockville Copper Gouge.
Dagger.
In 1856, Dr. Thomas Reynolds of Brockville exhibited to the
Canadian Institute a collection of copper and other relics discovered
in that neighbourhood under singular circumstances; and possessing
a special interest owing to the distance of the site from Lake
Superior. They included a peculiarly-shaped chisel or gouge, six
inches in length, (Fig. 67), a rude spear-head, seven inches long
(Fig. 68), and two small daggers or knives, one of which is shown in
Fig. 66, all wrought by means of the hammer, out of native copper
which had never been subjected to fire, as is proved by the silver
remaining in detached crystals in the copper. They were found at the
head of Les Galops Rapids, on the river St. Lawrence, about fifteen
feet below the surface, along with twenty skeletons disposed in a
circular space with their feet towards the centre. Dr. Reynolds
remarks of them: “Some of the skeletons were of gigantic
proportions. The lower jaw of one is sufficiently large to surround
the corresponding bone of an adult of our present generation. The
condition of the bones furnished indisputable proof of their great
antiquity. The skulls were so completely reduced to their earthy
constituents that they were exceedingly brittle, and fell in pieces
when removed and exposed to the atmosphere. The metallic
remains, however, of more enduring material, as also several stone
chisels and gouges, and some flint arrow-heads, all remain in their
original condition; and furnish evidence of the same rude arts which
we know to be still practised by the aborigines of the far West.” After
discussing the possibility of their European origin, Dr. Reynolds adds:
“There is also a curious fact, which these relics appear to confirm,
that the Indians possessed the art of hardening and tempering
copper, so as to give it as good an edge as iron or steel. This ancient
Indian art is now entirely lost.”
The reference thus made to the popular theory of some lost art
of hardening the native copper, afforded an opportunity of testing it
in reference to the Brockville relics. They were accordingly submitted
to my colleague, Professor Henry Croft, of University College,
Toronto, with the following results: The object of the experiments
was to ascertain whether the metal of which the implements are
made is identical with the native copper of the Lake Superior mines;
or whether it has been subjected to some manufacturing process, or
mixed with any other substance, by which its hardness might have
been increased. A careful examination established the following
conclusions:—No perceptible difference could be observed between
the hardness of the implements and that of metallic copper from
Lake Superior. The knife or small dagger was cleansed as far as
possible from its green coating; and its specific gravity ascertained
as 8·66. A fragment, broken off the end of the broad, flat
implement, described as a “copper knife of full size,” having been
freed from its coating, was found to have a specific gravity of 8·58.
During the cleaning of this fragment, a few brilliant white specks
became visible on its surface, which appeared, from their colour and
lustre, to be silver. The structure of the metal was also highly
laminated, as if the instrument had been brought to its present
shape by hammering out a solid mass of copper, which had either
split up, or had been originally formed of several pieces. These
laminæ of course contained air, and the metal was covered with
rust, hence the specific gravity. The process by which a flat piece of
copper has been overlapped, and wrought with the hammer into a
rude spear-head, is shown in the accompanying illustration. A
portion of very solid copper, from Lake Superior, of about the same
weight as the fragment, was weighed in water, and its gravity found
to be 8·92. The specific gravity of absolutely pure copper varies from
8·78 to 8·96, according to the greater or less degree of aggregation
it has received during its manufacture. The fragment was completely
dissolved by nitric acid; and the solution, on being tested for silver
by hydrochloric acid, gave a scarcely perceptible opacity, indicating
the presence of an exceedingly minute trace of silver. The copper
having been separated by hydro-sulphuric acid, the residual liquid
was tested for other metals. A very minute trace of iron was
detected. The native copper from Lake Superior was tested in the
same manner, and was found to contain no trace of silver, but a
minute trace of iron. From this, it appears that the implements are
composed of copper almost pure, differing in no material respect
from the native copper of Lake Superior.

Fig. 68.—Brockville Copper Spear.

It is thus apparent that, in the case of the Brockville relics, the

theory of a lost art of hardening and tempering copper was a mere
reflex of the prevalent popular fallacy; and there is no reason for
anticipating a different result in other cases in which the same
theory is tested.
More recently a well-finished dagger of hammered copper, nine
inches long, and a smaller copper gouge, have been turned up by
the plough: the former at Burnhamthorpe, and the latter at
Chinguacousy, in Ontario; and from time to time similar discoveries
suffice to show the ancient diffusion of the native copper throughout
the whole region of the great lakes. In his account of the discovery
of the Brockville relics, Dr. Reynolds assumes them to pertain to the
present Indian race. The evidences of antique sepulture, however,
are unmistakable; and other proofs suggest a different origin. Mr.
Squier, by whom they had been previously described, remarks in the
Appendix to his Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York:[75]
“Some implements entirely corresponding with these have been
found in Isle Royale, and at other places in and around Lake
Superior.” But besides the copper implements, there lay in the same
deposit a miniature mask of terra-cotta of peculiar workmanship,
suggestive rather of relation to the arts of the Mound-Builders. Mr.
Squier has figured it from an incorrect drawing, which indicates a
minuter representation of Indian features than the original justifies.
It is engraved here, the size of the original, from a photographic
copy, and, as will be seen, is a rude mask, such as is by no means
uncommon among the small terra-cottas of Mexico and Central
America. This mingling of traces of a certain amount of artistic skill
with the arts of the primitive metallurgist, entirely corresponds with
the disclosures of the ancient mounds of the Mississippi; and,
indeed, agrees with other partial manifestations of art in an
imperfectly developed civilisation.
I was struck, when
examining the rude stone mauls
of the miners of Ontonagon, by
their resemblance to some
which I have seen, obtained
from ancient copper workings of
North Wales. In a
communication made to the
British Archæological Institute
by the Hon. William Owen
Stanley, in 1850, he gave an Fig. 69.—Terra-cotta Mask.
account of an ancient shaft
broken into at the copper mines
of Llandudno, Carnarvonshire. In this were found mining
implements, consisting of chisels, or picks of bronze, and a number
of rudely-fashioned stone mauls of various sizes, weighing from
about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs. Their appearance suggested that they had
been used for breaking, pounding, or detaching the ore from the
rock; and the character both of the bronze and stone implements
seems to point to a period long prior to the Roman occupation of
Britain. These primitive mauls are stated to be similar to water-worn
stones found on the sea-beach at Pen Mawr. Mr. Stanley also
describes others, corresponding in like manner to those found on the
shores of Lake Superior, which had been met with in ancient
workings in Anglesea. Were we, therefore, disposed to generalise
from such analogies, as ingenious speculators on the lost history of
the New World have been prone to do, we might trace in this
correspondence a confirmation of the supposed colonisation of
America, in the twelfth century, by Madoc, the son of Owen
Gwynnedd, king of North Wales. But the resemblance between the
primitive Welsh and American mining tools, can be regarded only as
evidence of the corresponding operations of the human mind, when
placed under similar circumstances, and with the same limited
means, which is illustrated in so many ways by the arts of the stone-
period, whether of the most ancient or of modern date. Nor can
such correspondences be regarded as altogether accidental. They
confirm the idea of certain innate and instinctive operations of
human ingenuity, ever present and ready to be called forth for the
accomplishment of similar purposes by the same limited means.
From this review of the evidences of long-abandoned mining
operations on the shores and islands of Lake Superior, it cannot
admit of doubt that in them we look on the traces of an imperfectly
developed yet highly interesting native civilisation, pertaining to
centuries long anterior to the discovery of America in the fifteenth
century. The question naturally arises: By whom were those ancient
mines wrought? Was it by the ancestry of the present Indian tribes
of North America, or by a distinct and long-superseded race? The
tendency of opinion among American writers has been towards a
unity and comprehensive isolation of the races and arts of the New
World. Hence the theories alike of Morton and of Schoolcraft, though
founded on diverse premises, favour the idea that the germs of all
that is most noticeable even in the civilisation of Central America
may be found among the native arts, and the manners and customs
of the forest tribes. But neither the traditions nor the arts of the
Indians of the northern lakes supply any satisfactory link connecting
them with the Copper-Miners or the Mound-Builders. Of Loonsfoot,
an old Chippewa chief of Lake Superior, the improbable statement is
made that he could trace back his ancestry by name, as hereditary
chiefs of his tribe, for upwards of four hundred years. At the request
of Mr. Whittlesey he was questioned by an educated half-breed, a
nephew of his own, relative to the ancient copper mines, and his
answer was in substance as follows:—“A long time ago the Indians
were much better off than they are now. They had copper axes,
arrow-heads, and spears, and also stone axes. Until the French
came here, and blasted the rocks with powder, we have no traditions
of the copper mines being worked. Our forefathers used to build big
canoes and cross the lake over to Isle Royale, where they found
more copper than anywhere else. The stone hammers that are now
found in the old diggings we know nothing about. The Indians were
formerly much more numerous and happier. They had no such wars
and troubles as they have now.” At La Pointe on Lake Superior, it
was my good fortune to meet with Beshekee, or Buffalo, a rugged
specimen of an old Chippewa chief. He retained all the wild Indian
ideas, though accustomed to frequent intercourse with white men;
boasted of the scalps he had taken; and held to his pagan creed as
the only religion for the Indian, whatever the Great Spirit might have
taught the white man. His grandson, an educated half-breed, acted
as interpreter, and his reply to similar inquiries was embodied in the
following sententious declaration of Indian philosophy:—“The white
man thinks he is the superior of the Indian, but it is not so. The Red
Indian was made by the Great Spirit, who made the forests and the
game, and he needs no lessons from the white man how to live. If
the same Great Spirit made the white man, he has made him of a
different nature. Let him act according to his nature; it is the best for
him; but for us it is not good. We had the red-iron before white men
brought the black-iron amongst us; but if ever such works as you
describe were carried on along these Lake shores before white men
came here, then the Great Spirit must once before have made men
with a different nature from his red children, such as you white men
have. As for us, we live as our forefathers have always done.”
La Pointe, or Chaquamegon, where this interview took place, was
visited by the Jesuit Father, Claude Alloüez, in 1666, and is described
by him as a beautiful bay, the shores of which were occupied by the
Chippewas in such numbers that their warriors alone amounted to
eight hundred. In the journal of his travels, he thus refers to the
mineral resources for which the region is now most famed:—“The
savages reverence the lake as a divinity, and offer sacrifices to it
because of its great size, for it is two hundred leagues long and
eighty broad; and also, because of the abundance of fish it supplies
to them, in lieu of game, which is scarce in its environs. They often
find in the lake pieces of copper weighing from ten to twenty
pounds. I have seen many such pieces in the hands of the savages;
and as they are superstitious, they regard them as divinities, or as
gifts which the gods who dwell beneath its waters have bestowed on
them to promote their welfare. Hence they preserve such pieces of
copper wrapped up along with their most prized possessions. By
some they have been preserved upwards of fifty years, and others
have had them in their families from time immemorial, cherishing
them as their household gods. There was visible for some time, near
the shore, a large rock entirely of copper, with its top rising above
the water, which afforded an opportunity for those passing to cut
pieces from it. But when I passed in that vicinity nothing could be
seen of it. I believe that the storms, which are here very frequent,
and as violent as on the ocean, had covered the rock with sand. Our
Indians wished to persuade me it was a divinity which had
disappeared, but for what reason they would not say.”[76]
Such is the earliest notice we have of Indian ideas relative to the
native copper. It accords with all later information on the same
subject, and is opposed to any tradition of their ancestors having
been the workers of the abandoned copper mines. A secrecy,
resulting from the superstitions associated with the mineral wealth of
the great Lake, appears to have thrown impediments in the way of
inquirers. Father Dablon narrates a marvellous account
communicated to him, of four Indians who, in old times, before the
coming of the French, had lost their way in a fog, and at length
effected a landing on Missipicooatong. This was believed to be a
floating island, mysteriously variable in its local position and aspects.
The wanderers cooked their meal in Indian fashion, by heating
stones and casting them into a birch-bark pail filled with water. The
stones proved to be lumps of copper, which they carried off with
them; but they had hardly left the shore when a loud and angry
voice, ascribed by one of them to Missibizi, the goblin spirit of the
waters, was heard exclaiming, “What thieves are these that carry off
my children’s cradles and playthings?” One of the Indians died
immediately from fear, and two others soon after, while the fourth
only survived long enough to reach home and relate what had
happened, before he also died: having no doubt been poisoned by
the copper used in cooking. Ever after this the Indians steered their
course far off the site of the haunted island. In the same relation,
Father Dablon tells that near the river Ontonagon, or Nantonagon as
he calls it, is a bluff from which masses of copper frequently fall out.
One of these presented to him weighed one hundred pounds; and
pieces weighing twenty or thirty pounds are stated by him to be
frequently met with by the squaws when digging holes for their
corn. The locality thus celebrated by the earliest French missionaries
for its traces of mineral wealth, is in like manner referred to by the
first English explorer, Alexander Henry: a bold adventurer, who
visited the island of Mackinac, at the entrance of Lake Michigan,
shortly before the Treaty of Paris in 1763, and was one among the
few who escaped a treacherous massacre perpetrated by the Indians
on the Whites at Old Fort Mackinac. In his Travels and Adventures in
Canada and the Indian Territories, he mentions his visiting the river
Ontonagon, in 1765, and adds, “I found this river chiefly remarkable
for the abundance of virgin copper which is on its banks and in its
neighbourhood. The copper presented itself to the eye in masses of
various weight. The Indians showed me one of twenty pounds. They
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com