Archaeological atlas of Michigan [by] Wilbert B. Hinsdale...

VII. GARDEN BEDS

A CONSPICUOUS feature of Michigan's antiquities was the garden bed construction. The beds were among the most novel
and mysterious features of our northern archaeology. They were
symmetrical, low earth ridges, about eighteen inches in height,
laid out with precision and showing an artistic sense in design.
Some were wheel-shaped, with spokes running out to a circular
ridge from a circle within, but most of them were in well-planned,
rectangular patterns which are illustrated in the notes on Kalamazoo County (p. 23).
They have been given their distinctive name because they resembled beds in a formal garden. They were of altogether dif
ferent designs from the "beds" and cornfields found elsewhere.
Except for two or three that were reported to have once existed in
Indiana, "garden beds" were peculiar to Michigan. They have
all been destroyed, and the only knowledge there is of them is
what is gathered from Schoolcraft's description, the writings of
Bela Hubbard, and a few others who saw them in their original
form.
Their locations were mostly in the southern and western part
of the state. No records have been found of any north of Saginaw Bay. There were more than thirty of them in the state. See
the notes on Kalamazoo County.

VIII. MINING

T HE UNIQUE contribution that Michigan makes to archaeology
lies primarily in beds of material for a metallurgic industry.
The natives developed considerable skill as miners and quarrymen (see Figures 10-12). One will have to look elsewhere for extensive operations by Indians in quarrying flint and other kinds of
stone for making implements, but he will not find in any other
part of the country as numerous traces of mining as upon the
shores and islands of Lake Superior. In this region, mostly in
Keweenaw, Houghton, and Ontonagon counties, copper appears
disseminated principally in fine.grains or scales, or in veins, (1)
in dark-colored igneous rocks called melaphyre amygdaloids, (2)
in reddish quartz-porphyry, and (3) in conglomerates and in
sandstones.
The Indian miner had no means or knowledge of reclaiming
metal by processes of smelting. What he sought for manipulation into spears, knives, celts, wedges, beads and other implements
and ornaments was the metallic copper that appeared in veins, rock
seams and nuggets which he could work into shape by beating with
stone hammers. Nuggets were on or near the ground surface.
Hundreds of these loose masses, commonly called "float copper,"
were transported by glacial action toward the south. Many of
them have been found in Ohio. The farther one follows the drift
from the place of original deposit the scarcer the pieces of "float"
become, but they were very common at the center of origin.
Masses of copper imbedded in the rocks must be distinguished from
discrete pieces found in the drift. They were of the same irregular shape as the cavities in which they had been deposited. From
seams, sometimes called "veins," thin sheets of the metal hundreds
of square inches in surface were obtained. Such plates were shaped
very easily into arrows, spears, knives, and ornaments. In no
other district in America did nature leave so abundant a quantity
of metal that was particularly amenable to the crude workmanship
of her primitive mechanics.
The question has been raised as to the age of the mines. One
might with equal cogency ask the same question about flint
quarrying at Flint Ridge in Ohio. Indians quarried at the Ridge
since what was, from the standpoint of an American archaeologist, remote times and continued to frequent the quarries until
they obtained something from the white man to take the place of
flint. Some of the mining places in the copper country evidently
were worked hundreds of years ago; others are scenes of more recent operations. After the metal was first detected by a tribe
whose identity is unknown, mining was almost continuous, probably into historic times, although it must have been seasonal because the severity of the winters would prevent surface or "open
pit" operations during part of the year.

The wide extent of lands worked over, the thousands of pits,
the labor expended, the quantity of refuse that was removed, and
the character of the implements used, when considered relatively

to the small numbers of the working population, certify that the
copper industry extended over at least several centuries.
Something of a safe conjecture may be made as to the methods
employed by the miners in securing the metal which they esteemed
so highly. They evidently depended mostly upon heavy stone
mauls or crushers with which they broke away the rock in which
thin veins of copper were embedded. A few wedges and gads of
copper found in the pits indicate that they were used somewhat
as a white quarryman would use similar tools made of iron. Probably wooden wedges and levers were also employed. Fire has a
tendency to cause crumbling and disintegration of igneous and
other kinds of rock. If water is dashed upon red hot stone it
cracks and becomes more amenable to manipulation. The Indians
may have known and employed this method in breaking away the
matrix from the copper veins. Such efforts were, of course, confined to outcrops near the surface.
None of the pits which are referred to as mines were of very
great depth, probably not deeper than the height of a man. In
the notes upon the three counties to which reference has been
made there will be found illustrations of crevices from which copper was lifted, but the crevices were natural, not the "shafts" of
the miners. As stated, detached nuggets were numerous and no
particular skill was required in securing them.
A question might arise as to how the copper was transformed
into desirable shapes. Being quite malleable, it yields to "cold"
manipulation by hammering. There does not seem to be any conclusive evidence that heat was used to soften the metal, but it
is possible, if not probable, that it was sometimes shaped at a kind
of forge, but without bellows; most of the specimens in collections do not clearly indicate the use of heat. One thing is certain, the Indians of the district did no smelting or casting, although it is said that the ancient Mexicans had discovered the art
of making alloys. The idea prevails with many persons that copper was tempered and made "as hard as steel." Metallurgists state
that copper cannot be tempered. Consequently the stories about
copper blades "as sharp as steel" can refer only to very dull steel
knives with which the comparisons were made.
Early explorers declare that before they reached Lake Superior
they saw pieces of copper in possession of Indians who seemed
to hold them in reverential regard and were secretive about revealing where they came from, but as soon as the voyagers came
into the Keweenaw country the source was no longer a mystery.
It is problematical whether securing metal from the seams
and crevices of rocks was a specialty of a cult or guild of local
miners whose tribes held territorial dominion over the locations, or

whether Indians from remote settlements came to the ranges to
work out their own supply. It is supposed that the Minnesota
catlinite quarries were free for all who cared to come for the pipe
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