PREFACE.
When we reflect on the history of our own country—its advance in arts, commerce, and agriculture, and the rapidity with which its population has increased, and its resources been developed—the mind is with difficulty brought to believe that all this has taken place within a comparatively short period. These developments are particularly striking in the region west of the Alleghany mountains. A new world has, as it were, been discovered in the Mississippi valley, which, under the strong impulse of emigration, has been transformed, as if by superhuman exertions. No sooner had its great fertility and productiveness become known, than a universal desire for correct information sprang up. Our first travellers in that region did little more, however, than glance at its most obvious and grand features; and with respect to some topics, such as its antiquities and natural history, these notices have had the effect rather to stimulate, than to gratify curiosity.
But, whatever information has been published respecting the country, its mineralogy and geology have remained wholly unnoticed. The mines of Missouri, especially, have failed to attract the consideration which they merit. To supply this deficiency, I have written the following memoir. It is the result of no ordinary degree of opportunity of observation upon the particular mines, and their geological position in the great metalliferous limestone formation west of the Mississippi. Besides visiting the principal mines, and traversing the country thoroughly, to ascertain the character and value of its mineral resources and geological developments, I made an exploratory tour through the broad and elevated region of the Ozarks, lying west and south of this celebrated tract, extending into the Territory of Arkansas. If, therefore, I have failed to collect a body of facts sufficient to impress the reader with a sense of the extent, value, and importance of the country, and particularly of its mines and minerals, it can hardly be ascribed to a want of opportunity, or, indeed, of assiduity in the study or arrangement of my facts.
The historical data here recorded, respecting Renault's operations, have never, I believe, appeared in print. They were elicited in the course of a legal investigation, instituted between the heirs-at-law of Renault, the agent of Crozat, in 1723, and sundry individuals, who claimed the same grants on the authority of a date subsequent to the transfer of Louisiana to the United States.
The drawings I give of the lead-furnaces which are peculiar to that section of country, are from actual measurement, done under the eye of an operative smelter of approved skill at Potosi, and are conceived to be minutely correct.
Henry R. Schoolcraft.
New York, Nov. 25, 1819.
In republishing this memoir, advantage has been taken of several judicious suggestions respecting it, made in a critical notice of it, by the able editor of the American Journal of Science, in the volume of that work for 1821.
H. R. S.
Washington, Jan. 20, 1853.