Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 39 
It is on the old Ansley tract, and extends in a westerly direction 
towards Mineral Point. For about the depth of fifteen feet the 
fissure was found to be filled with “gossan” and lumps of sul- 
phuret and carbonate of copper mixed init. Below this depth 
is clay with a little ore scattered through it. The lumps above 
were of all sizes up to two hundred pounds weight... No shafts 
were ever sunk to prove this fissure at greater depths; but there 
is‘every reason to suppose that it will be found productive in 
other parts beside the strip near the surface. The little rock 
veins prove that the ore belongs to the formation as much as the 
lead ores, and in whatever way it may have been. brought up 
from below, it is likely to have formed other deposits in the fis 
sure worth looking after. 
In the report of the geology of Cornwall, Devon and West 
Somerset it is remarked that “the per centage of cases is consid- 
erable when an iron ochreous substance named gossan prevails, 
and copper ore is connected with it, and it may be said that the 
instances are very rare where copper ore is found in fair quantity 
in a lode, without gossan having been discovered on the back or 
upper part of that lode.” p. 326. 
The sandstone lies at about the depth of. one hundred feet be- 
low, and although in it we are not to expect to find the. fissures 
or cracks (if they have dwindled to them) productive, still there 
is sufficient room above for a large supply of ore. It is said that 
1 640,000 pounds of ore (probably including unwashed and gos- 
been raised from this fissure ; 50,000 pounds were sent 
to England, and 100,000 pounds. are now on“the bank of the 
Mississippi River at Sonapee ; 620,000 pounds have. been taken 
to the old furnace, and the little one at New - Baltimore, and be- 
tween 500,000 and 600,000. pounds remain now on the eusmace 
at the mines. This is evidently a very rade estimate: It is als 
said that the ore sent to England yielded twenty per cent. of 
copper; at any rate, however; it brought ina bill of expense. 
Were the ore well washed from the clay and iron ore mixed with 
it, and the lump ore carefully broken up and washed, there is no 
reason to doubt that.it may be smelted with profit ; but all the 
operations so far have been badly conducted. There was no 
uniformity it in ~ ety of the ores used, no judgment exercised 
g ity or quantity of flux, and the smelting was 
arried on in furnaces that must be blown out every twenty four 
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