a 
Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 57 
After working through these large openings they are found to 
shut nearly up, leaving only a crack with a thread of ore, and 
this often leads on through unprofitable rock to a rich vein again, 
and to other chambers. ‘The richest mine now wrought in Mis- 
souri—Valleé & Perry’s, in the southern part of Jefferson County— 
is of this character. Shafts have been sunk into the ie one 
— and ten feet, and adits driven into the hillsides, . 
In general the workings are very superficial, much of the « ore 
hora raised from the clay diggings, which seldom extend to the 
depth of twenty feet. Here the ore is in a horizontal position in 
the clay, as I remarked, and lies in thin sheets of limited and 
varying width, seldom exceeding thirty feet, and they are proba- 
bly always in or connected with one of these fissures so common 
in the limestone. Throughout the several counties which are 
occupied with this formation, the miner recognizes a proximity 
to the fissures by the abundance of the peculiar red clay, of the 
hematite iron ore, and of the botryoidal and mammillary masses of 
quartz rock, and the exact position of the fissure itself is often 
indicated to his experienced eye by a slight sinking of surface, 
and by an east and west or north and south line of bushes or 
small plants, which have deep striking roots, and choose a 
situation, where they can send them deep down into the clay. 
Still these guides are not. always sure, for men used: to the busi- 
ness often spend a year or more in “prospecting,” that is, in sink- 
ing experimental shafts, or following a fissure in ‘hopes: of its 
yielding a rich return of ore, and all without success. © But by 
continuing their work, if their means allow of it, they seldom 
fail of finally striking a boosoaast the sale or iene: which 
repays them forall their labor, == 9) 
Waidron Mine.—This cecahcd now considered of little i iumpor- 
tance is a place where considerable copper ore has been raised. 
It lies a little east of the Iron Mountain ridge, five miles east of 
Caledonia. The diggings are on the side of a low hill, and ap- 
pear to follow an old fissure extending northwest and southeast, 
nearly in a direct line, with some branching, over an extent of 
about fifteen rods in length. No rock is exposed any where in 
place; the loose pieces are of a compact quartz rock, of a similar 
character with that of the Iron Mountain ridge. Here it may be 
meeting the pete wre none is exposed. The diggings 
superficial, and . ae pecans the contents 
‘Vol. xxi, No. Mscdageltun, 1842. 
