The lead-mines are situated in Missouri Territory, (formerly Upper Louisiana,) and extend on the western bank of the Mississippi for a distance of about one hundred miles, by forty in width, comprising the present counties of Washington, St. Genevieve, Jefferson, and Madison. The first lead-ore was discovered by De Lochon, La Motte, and others, acting under the authority of the Company of the West, as early as 1720. Since which period, the number of mines has been annually increasing by new discoveries, under the jurisdiction which has been successively exercised over that country by France, Spain, and the United States. The number of mines now worked is forty-five; thirty-nine of which are in Washington county, three in St. Genevieve, one in Madison, and two in Jefferson. The quantity of lead annually smelted from the crude ore, I have estimated at three million pounds; and the number of hands to whom it furnishes employment, at eleven hundred. A considerable proportion of these are, however, farmers, who only turn their attention to mining a part of the year, when their farms do not require their labor; the residue are professed smelters and miners, including blacksmiths and others, whose services are constantly required. The price of lead at the mines is now four dollars per cwt. It is worth four dollars and fifty cents on the banks of the Mississippi, at St. Genevieve and Herculaneum, and is quoted at seven dollars in Philadelphia. The ore exclusively worked is the common galena, or sulphuret of lead, with a broad glittering grain. It is found in detached pieces and beds in red clay, and in veins in limestone rock, accompanied by sulphate of barytes, calcareous spar, blende, quartz, and pyrites. It melts easily, yielding, in the large way, from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of pure metal. By chemical analysis I procured eighty-two per cent. of metallic lead from a specimen of common ore at Mine à Burton. The residue is chiefly sulphur, with a little carbonate of lime and silex. It contains no silver, or at least none which can be detected by the usual tests.
All the lead smelted at these mines is transported in carts and wagons to the banks of the Mississippi, and deposited for shipment at Herculaneum or St. Genevieve. The different mines are situated at various distances, from thirty to forty-five miles in the interior, and the cost of transportation may be averaged at seventy-five cents per cwt. In summer, when the roads are in good order, it may be procured at fifty cents; but in the spring and fall, when the roads are cut up, it will cost one dollar. The transportation from Herculaneum and St. Genevieve to New Orleans, may now be procured at seventy cents per cwt. This is less than the sum paid, previous to the introduction of steamboats on the Mississippi and its tributary streams. Hence, it costs more to convey a hundredweight of lead forty miles by land, in wagons and carts, than to transport the same one thousand miles (the distance from Herculaneum to New Orleans) by steamboats. An improvement of the streams of the mine country, so as to render them navigable at all seasons for keel-boats and barges, is therefore a subject of the first moment. The Maramec river, a stream of one hundred and eighty miles in length, and a hundred yards wide at its mouth, which enters the Mississippi eighteen miles below St. Louis, draws its waters from the mining counties of Washington, Jefferson, St. Genevieve, and the unincorporated wilderness on the south-east, and the fertile counties of Franklin and St. Louis on the north-west; and its south-eastern tributaries meander throughout the mine tract. The principal of these are Grand river and Mineral Fork, which are navigable in spring and fall for keel-boats of a small size, and might, I believe, be rendered so throughout the year, at an inconsiderable expense.
The lead-mines are exclusively worked by individuals, either under the authority of leases obtained from the United States for a limited time; on lands which were granted by the French or Spanish, and the titles to which have been subsequently confirmed by the United States; on unconfirmed lands; or in violation of existing laws.
There are few sections of the valley of the Mississippi which are not characterized by iron and coal. Iron-ore is abundant on the Ohio and its tributaries, particularly on the Alleghany, Monongahela, and Muskingum. It is worked at several foundries in the counties of Fayette, Armstrong, and Alleghany, in Pennsylvania. The most noted furnaces are at Brownsville, from which the extensive foundries at Pittsburgh are chiefly supplied with pig-iron. It is also worked at Zanesville, on the Muskingum, and on Brush creek, in Ohio; and a foundry at Cincinnati, and another at Louisville, in Kentucky, are supplied with pig-iron from the latter place. The ore is chiefly of that kind called the argillaceous oxide, and produces iron which is well adapted for steam-engine machinery, and for hollow-ware.
Stone-coal, of an excellent quality, is abundant at Pittsburgh, where it is largely consumed in iron-foundries, glass-furnaces, and other manufactories, and also in private dwellings. The most extensive pits or galleries are situated immediately opposite the city, on Coal Hill, where it has been pursued into the hill eight or nine hundred yards. It is found breaking out on the banks of the Alleghany at several places, at and near Kittaning, where beds of it have been opened; and I have even observed traces of it in the vicinity of Olean, near the head of Genesee river, in the State of New York. On the Monongahela it extends by Williamsport, Brownsville, and Greensburgh, to the vicinity of Morgantown, in Virginia; and such is the abundance of this mineral, and the uniformity and regularity which the geological structure of this part of the country presents, that there is no considerable section of it, within a circle of two hundred miles in diameter around Pittsburgh, which does not afford beds of good inflammable coal. Pursuing the Ohio down from Pittsburgh, it is successively worked at Wellsburg, Wheeling, Gallipolis, and Maysville. In Illinois, on Great Muddy river, and at Alton; in Missouri, at Florissant, and on Osage river; and in Arkansas, on the Washita river; this valuable mineral has also been found.
II. "What mines have been discovered?"
V. "Where are the most valuable mines to be found in the western country?"
The reply to these inquiries has been, in part, anticipated by the preceding details. Lead and other mines are, however, found in several other sections of the western country. An extensive body of lead-ore is found near Prairie du Chien, on the west bank of the Mississippi, about five hundred miles above St. Louis. The ore is in the state of a sulphuret, is easily reduced, and yields about sixty-two and a half per cent. of metal. These mines are worked in an imperfect manner by the savages, the Sacs and Foxes, the original owners of the soil; and considerable quantities are annually brought down to St. Louis by the north-west traders. Lead-ore is also found on the river Desmoines of the Mississippi, where it was formerly worked by the French—on the Osage, Gasconade, and Mine river of the Missouri; on the White river and its tributaries; on the St. Francis; and on the Arkansas, where it is combined with a small proportion of silver. It is also found at Cave-in-Rock, Gallatin county, Illinois, accompanied by fluor spar; at Drennon's Lick and Millersburgh, in Kentucky; and on New river, at Austinville, in Wythe county, Virginia. At the latter place, it has been worked without interruption for nearly fifty years; and the mines still continue to be wrought. The ore is galena, accompanied by the carbonate of lead, and the earthy oxide of lead; the latter of which is worked in the large way, as is said, to a profit.
Zinc is found in Washington county, Missouri, in considerable quantities; but only in the state of a sulphuret.
Copper has been found in small masses, in a metallic state, on Great Muddy river, and at Harrisonville, Monroe county, Illinois. A grant of land made to P. F. Renault, in 1723, at Old Peoria, on the Illinois river, specifies the existence of a copper-mine upon it; but the most remarkable bodies of copper which the globe affords, are stated to exist on the western shores of Lake Superior, and on the Upper Mississippi. It is found in the metallic state, but accompanied also, as is said, by the sulphuret and carbonate of copper. The ores stretch over a very extensive region, and have been traced as low as the falls of St. Anthony. There is, indeed, reason to believe that copper is disseminated from the west bank of Great Muddy river, in Illinois, in a north-west direction, to the western shore of lake Superior, as all the streams, so far as observed, which flow either north or south at right angles with such a line, afford traces of copper. Thus, the Kaskaskia, the Illinois and its tributaries, the St. Peter, Wisconsin, and the southern forks of the Wabash and Miami, all furnish specimens of copper, as well as lead, zinc, and iron. An attempt was made by President Adams to explore the copper-mines of the north-west; but I know not what success attended the undertaking. Considering the certainty with which all travellers, since the days of Carver, have spoken of the existence of these mines, with the daily concurrent testimony of traders from that quarter, and their great importance in a national point of view, it is matter of surprise that they have been so long neglected. Is not the present an auspicious time for authorizing a mission into that quarter, for the purpose of exploring its physical geography?