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Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 65 
tion the manner in which the hands work, the amount of labor 
lost by that manner, and the time which they willingly throw 
away, we cannot fail to be impressed with the belief that no 
business promises a greater yield from the employment of la- 
bor than is offered at the La Motte mines. We close our re- 
marks, confident that the wealth of these mines is as Lesad scarce 
2 
. 
- As to lead bnew worth five cents, it may be resaiiidhsigiey that 
it seldom sells in St. Louis for more than four. 
Current River—Between the region just described sndiiles 
Current river, the country is rough and uninhabited, except by a 
few half farmers, half hunters, who live with as little labor as is 
necessary just to support themselves and families. 
The rocks are sandstone and limestone, and a quartzose rock 
into which the sandstone seems to pass on going south, and veins 
or beds of which fill a large part of the limestone strata: The 
high hills which one crosses near the heads of Big Black. river, 
and between it and the Current, consist almost universally of this 
quartzose rock, with the limestone strata just appearing beneath 
it in the ravines. The roads over the hills are made up of sharp 
flinty nodules, and these also form the greater part of the surface 
of the country, rendering it totally unsuitable for cultivation. 
Some few pieces of lead ore are occasionally found loose in the 
ravines and valleys. The ridges are of great cma nowt often 
very steep, forming between the streams narrow 
long” valleys) too, extending nearly nha ty of no > great 
width, which on Pp g y rising into 
the hills beyond, and whi chem fi ion one with 
another, from their occasionally ka and 
into broad flats like bays, as though they Sight have been “ag 
bed of a large stream long ago left dry. The growth is princi- 
pally oak and pitch-pine trees of good size,and abundant. Along 
the banks of the streams are many buttonwood trees of enormous 
— sugar-maple too are plenty there, but they do not grow on 
hills, (The streams are remarkably clear, their bottoms con- 
ps eoml rolled fragments of quartz, flint, chalcedony, andj jas- 
per, and the water runs very ants over them. 
' Vol. xxx, No, 1.—April-—June, 1842. Se 
