Tom McDonald wrote:

Seppo Renfors wrote:


Tom McDonald wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:


On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:22:35 -0400, Gary Coffman
wrote:



On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 17:38:04 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:


[..]


While not directly addressing the point, you may be interested in
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inarcmet/papers/jfa022002.pdf

While not Egyptian, and the artifacts analyzed show evidence of
being wrought rather than cast, the chemical analysis does back
my position. The metals being worked were alloys, not pure native
copper.


As I said, it all depends upon what you mean by 'pure'.

Eric,

In the context of this thread, at least its original context,
the copper was native copper in the upper Great Lakes area of
the US and Canada. That copper is typically well over 99% pure
out of the ground, and does not have to be smelted to remove
impurities. If another context is in evidence, then a
definition of the term 'pure' is needed.


http://www.dayooper.com/Networks.JPG

The copper may well be 99% pure - what about the rest? It isn't every
day people find huge lumps of pure copper without impurities embedded
within it. This is the dilemma that people bypass and ignore.

This has a good story about the Great lakes Copper deposits.
http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/copper.html

[..]


Seppo,

Thank you for the urls.

From the second link:


Hang on a sec. What about the first? After all it is THE more
important one.

http://www.dayooper.com/Networks.JPG

You tell me how the hell you can make an axe head out of that! You are
in total denial about this problem.


"Michigan’s copper deposits were remarkable for their quality
and purity. Bands of native copper were contained in outcrops 2
to 8 miles wide and of varying depth. The surface deposits first
attracted the notice of Native Americans who dug out the easily
accessible chunks and fashioned copper tools and adornments from
them."

Do you REALLY believe they were cliffs of PURE copper? Note the words
"were contained in". Then see the Networks.JPG and you will get an
idea of the meaning of the words.

I am aware of one piece of copper 17 ton of it (Yank ton presumably -
a short measure). It was found on the bottom of Lake Superior. I'm
also aware of another large find of several tons, but a VERY long way
underground in a modern mine. Neither kind of find was available to
the native people.

So mining appears to have *begun* where copper deposits were on
the surface. This makes sense, as there was also drift copper
(over a wider area than just the UP mining areas), and folks
early on seem to have selectively used lumps of copper that
needed no processing. While this might not have been an every
day event, it clearly was common enough to produce many of the
copper artifacts in the region.

As to mining the copper:

"They [Indians] dug pits in the ground and separated the copper
from the stone by hammering, by the use of wedges, and,
possibly, by the use of heat. Thousands of hammers have been
found in and about the old pits."

The claimed method is not fact - only assumption. The "fact" is the
finding a lot of "hammers". They are only proof of pounding or
hammering - which can mean crushing of rock containing the copper.

It seems that these folks picked the visible copper out of the
debitage after beating the bejesus out of the rock. That seems
reasonable to me, as there seems to have been quite enough such
copper available to make other methods of extraction unnecessary.

The dilemma you refer to does not seem to exist.


THAT is nonsense. I have provided you with a good example of the
nature of it. It isn't the first time I have done it either - and
haven't even had to use the same pictures.


Indian people
developed the technology they needed to extract the resource
they wanted.

Obviously, only you don't know what method they used. Nobody has
bothered to find out.

They may have developed copper casting technology
as well. Since smelting wasn't necessary, casting would have
been a stand-alone technology. It wasn't beyond the capacity of
the Indians of the upper Great Lakes; but it also wasn't necessary.

Then you can perhaps point to the huge piles of discarded copper that
was useless because it looked like that stuff in the first URL. There
have been vast amounts mined by the native people - where are the
rejected copper piles?

If the copper is pure is not known because nobody has bothered to find
out. Silver does exist with/alongside/embedded in with copper in that
area - as are other minerals, including arsenic.

--
SIR - Philosopher unauthorised
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The one who is educated from the wrong books is not educated, he is
misled.
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