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| MICHIGAN'S SECTION IN THE MINES BUILDING -
This costly and elegant arch stood at the northeast corner of the
central place in the Mines Building, and was the portway to one of
the most instructive exhibits of the building. The work was of
sandstone and marble, typifying the resources of the lake quarries.
The summit of the arch was decorated with a group of statuary,
wherein the genius of industry crowned the miners through whose
labors the wealth of the State has been so much enhanced. On the
inner walls of the enclosure was a series of panoramas, showing the
local scenes - lake ports, mines, hilly scenery, mills, forests and
islands. A copper globe, twelve feet in diameter was, perhaps, a
noticeable object in the collection, but by far the most remarkable
thing was the display of copper-working tools which were found by
white pioneers in the mines of the northern peninsula. The reader may
know that the North American Indian was a Stone Age man of the
neolithic period - that is, he had advanced to considerable skill in
dealing with implements of flint and stone; he had not reached the
bronze age in civilization; he knew absolutely nothing of copper or
bronze. But buried in those long-abandoned mines were the copper
tools of a forgotten race of men who had belonged to the bronze age,
and these tools were here shown. There were also lumps of copper,
weighing eight thousand five hundred and six thousand pounds. |
