Smitli — The Lead Begioii of Iowa. 225 



Julien Township, on the river, is a very broken and hilly coun- 

 try, in fact, it is made up almost entirely of high blnffs and 

 deep ravines, and was, before the time of the settlers, heavily 

 timbered land. Peru, also on the river, is of much the same 

 character as Julien ; great quantities of lead were found herOo. 

 In fact, Dubuque, in Julien Township, was built up by the lead' 

 trade. Center and Jefferson Townships, which next to Peru^ 

 and Julien produced the greatest quantities of lead, belong nat- 

 urally together. The land here is broken as in Julien and 

 Peru, but is still very hilly. Center is quite heavily timbered,, 

 ■while Jefferson is not; otherwise they are very much alike. 

 These four townships produced the greatest quantities of lead, 

 and as this paper seeks to show the results of the lead trade by 

 differentiating the lead producing and non lead producing areas, 

 they may be considered as forming one area. Liberty, l^ew 

 Wine, Iowa, Dodge, Taylor, Vernon, Cascade, Whitewater,. 

 Prairie Creek and Washington townships show no lead at all, 

 or at most, a mere trace of it, and they form together what we shall 

 call the non lead producing area. Liberty, Xew Wine, Dodge, 

 and Cascade Townships have soil of an average kind and not 

 the slightest trace of lead. Whitevvater and Taylor are each 

 about half broken timber land and half prairie and each has a 

 trace of lead, but none of an^' importance. Iowa and Washing- 

 ton have clay soil, no timber, and are somewhat hilly, while 

 Prairie Creek and Vernon have unbroken, sandy, prairie land. 

 Eeiween these two divisions we have a third, composed of those 

 townships w^hich are neither mining nor farming areas, but are 

 a mixture of the two. In this class we will put Concord, Table 

 Mound and Mosalem. Mosalem Township, on the river, is 

 made up of broken land. Some lead was mined here, but it was 

 not found except near the river, and then in no very great abun- 

 dance. Table Mound had good mining lands in the extreme 

 northern part, but more than two-thirds of the township has clay 

 or sandy soil. Concord had mines in the northeastern quarter 

 of the toAvnship, but the rest is hilly, w^ith soil of the average 

 kind and no trace of lead. ^ 



' The foregoing description is taken from R. D. Owou's Report oa Lead Region. Sen. 

 Docs., 28th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 7, 1843-44. 



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