70 Notice of Mr. Schoolcrafi’s View of 
We must refer our readers to the book itself for a clear 
account of the furnaces and furnace operations, employed 
for smelting the lead: it will be the more intelligible, as it 
is accompanied by two good plates containing views and 
sections of the furnaces. A circumstance which appears 
very extraordinary is, that the furnaces are most commonly 
built of limestone, which is of course calcined, and brought 
to the condition of quick lime by a few blasts, and then it 
crumbles and the furnaces must be rebuilt. = 
~The ore yields at first fifty per cent. and then the ashes 
give fifteen per cent. more—sixty-five* in the whole.t — 
- Custom, says the author, has established a number of 
laws among the miners, with regard to digging, which have 
a tendency to prevent disputes. Whenever a discovery is 
made, the person claiming it is entitled to claim the ground 
for twenty-five feet, in every direction from his pit, giving 
im fifty feet square. Other diggers are each entitled to 
twelve feet square, which is just enough to sink a pit, and | 
afford room for throwing out the earth. Each one meas- 
ures and stakes off his ground; and though he should not 
begin his work for several days afterwards, no person will 
intrude upon it. On this spot he digs down, but is not al- 
lowed to run drifts horizontally, so as to break into or un- 
dermine the pits of others. If appearances are unpromis- 
the labours of the first had he persevered. . 
Mr. Schoolcraft, from various particulars, infers, that the 
average annual produce of the Missouri lead mines, as men- 
tioned before, is three million pounds per annum, and the 
lead was worth in 1819, at the mines, four cents per pound.t 
_* According to Dr. Meade, the Missouri ore affords only a trace of 
silver. (See Bruce's Min} Jourasl, Vol. p-10. 
salen ena may y 1d ‘seventy per cent—it ald 
PONE paid bo i intnens fod inking the orc, and acdiognetia 
drew tothe smelters, istwodollars per emt. payable In pig lead 
