m 
¥ 
Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 63 
feet only, no one can judge how large a supply may be here ob- 
tained. ‘The ore is considered richer than that from any other 
part of the mines, but I cannot speak positively of its qualities 
until I have had opportunity to examine the specimens. 
Other places which are wrought for lead, furnish ‘copper ore * 
also, in greater or less quantities. At the “ Deep Diggings,” a 
light porous carbonate of copper is abundant, with carbonate of 
lead in white crystals intimately mixed with it, furnishing beau- 
tiful specimens. The gangue is a yellowish ferruginous earth, 
with layers of a black earthy matter running through it. This I 
found on examination to consist of oxide of cobalt and manganese, 
not a workable ore of cobalt, but rather a rare mineral, the cobalt 
of commerce being derived altogether from ‘arsenical cobalt ores. 
All these copper ores were, until within three years, considered 
worthless and troublesome to the workmen in their search for 
galena; so it was with the rich and easily smelted carbonate of 
lead, which was buried up in great quantities, and’is now redug 
from out the old rubbish. The proprietors say that the workmen 
can afford to sell the copper ores prepared for the furnace for less 
than twenty dollars ts thousand weight, and forty dollars ” 
ton. 
Owing to the amas system in which their mining opera- 
tions are conducted, no attempts have been made to prove the 
Pe RENE these ores, and no estimate can be made of 
heir probable. duration. The whole estate is owned by a few 
media who do not work the mines themselves, but re- 
ee who chooses to work them, one tenth of the 
same terms. A certain EEE NE SS Se vtinost 
of whom are common farmers: from the adjacent country, ) and 
he goes to work after his own ideas of mining, so as’to get out 
the most available ores with as little expense as possible. He 
has no desire to discover permanent veins; and no care for the 
welfare of the whole mine, since his interests cannot continue 
longer than about six years from this time, when the whole falls 
back again to the sole possession of the proprietors. Thus two 
hundred men are employed in skimming off the surface ores; one 
- iepwing s their rubbish: over unwrought tracts, which snptil 
again to get at the ore below. _ Most 
of the workings are. open to'the day, and no search is made for 
