And as this commerce could not, as we have seen, have been carried on by the Romans, Greeks, Etruscans, or Phoenicians, because their civilizations flourished during the Iron Age, to which this age of bronze was anterior, where then are we to look for a great maritime and commercial people, who carried vast quantities of copper, tin, and bronze (unalloyed by the lead of the south of Europe) to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, England, France, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy?  Where can we find them save in that people of Atlantis, whose ships, docks, canals, and commerce provoked the astonishment of the ancient Egyptians, as recorded by Plato.  The Toltec root for water is Atl; the Peruvian word for copper is Anti (from which, probably, the Andes derived their name, as there was a province of Anti on their slopes):  may it not be that the name of Atlantis is derived from these originals, and signified the copper island, or the copper mountains in the sea?  And from these came the thousands of tons of copper and tin that must, during the Bronze Age, have been introduced into Europe?  There are no ancient works to indicate that the tin mines of Cornwall were worked for any length of time in the early days (see “Prehistoric Times,” p. 74).  Morlot has pointed out that the bronze implements of Hallstadt, in Austria, were of foreign origin, because they contain no lead or silver.

Or, if we are to seek for the source of the vast amount of copper brought into Europe somewhere else than in Atlantis, may it not be that these supplies were drawn in large part from the shores of Lake Superior in America?  The mining operations of some ancient people were there carried on upon a gigantic scale, not only along the shores of the lake but even far out upon its islands.  At Isle Royale vast works were found, reaching to a depth of sixty feet; great intelligence was shown in following up the richest veins even when interrupted; the excavations were drained by underground drains.  On three sections of land on this island the amount of mining exceeded that mined in twenty years in one of our largest mines, with a numerous force constantly employed.  In one place the excavations extended in a nearly continuous line for two miles.  No remains of the dead and no mounds are found near these mines:  it would seem, therefore, that the miners came from a distance, and carried their dead back with them.  Henry Gillman ("Smithsonian Rep.,” 1873, p. 387) supposes that the curious so-called “Garden Beds” of Michigan were the fields from which they drew their supplies of food.  He adds,

“The discoveries in Isle Royale throw a new light on the character of the ‘Mound Builders,’ giving us a totally distinct conception of them, and dignifying them with something of the prowess and spirit of adventure which we associate with the higher races.  The copper, the result of their mining, to be available, must, in all probability, have been conveyed in vessels, great or small, across a treacherous and stormy sea, whose dangers are formidable to us now, being dreaded even by our largest craft, and often proving their destruction.  Leaving their homes, those men dared to face the unknown, to brave the hardships and perils of the deep and of the wilderness, actuated by an ambition which we to-day would not be ashamed to acknowledge.”