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The Greenlanders and Eskimos cut and hammer their pure native copper, without smelting, into nails, arrow-piles, and other tools and weapons. Mackenzie (second voyage) tells us that pure copper was common among the tribes on the borders of the Arctic Sea, whose arrow-heads and spear-heads were cold-wrought with the hammer. Columbus (fourth voyage), before touching the mainland of Honduras, saw at Guanaga Island a canoe from Yucatan[206] laden with goods, amongst which he specifics ‘copper hatchets, and other elaborate articles, cast and soldered; forges, and crucibles.’[207] At Hayti the great Admiral (first expedition) had mentioned masses of native copper weighing six arrobas (quarters).[208] When the Spaniards first entered the province of Tupan they mistook the bright copper axes for gold of low touch, and bought with beads some six hundred in two days:[209] Bernal Dias describes these articles as being very highly polished, with the handle curiously carved, as if to serve equally for an ornament and for the field of battle.

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