SOLON ROBINSON, 1845 439 



present abode. Much of the lead ore here found, is what 

 is termed "dry bone mineral," and is intimately mixed 

 with the dirt overlying the blue ore. To prepare it for 

 smelting, it is taken up, dirt and all, and hauled in ox- 

 carts to a stream, where, in a place fixed for the purpose, 

 the dirt is washed out by a somewhat tedious operation. 

 It also requires a different and hotter furnace to smelt it 

 than the blue mineral. Until within five or six years it 

 has been considered worthless. It now yields about 55 

 per cent of lead. What vast quantities of "dry bones" 

 are still thrown away by farmers as worthless; and if 

 they would not yield 55 per cent on the labor necessary 

 to prepare them for manure, they are still too valuable 

 to be thrown away. 



After leaving this last mining tract, and passing over 

 a few miles of equally poor land, we came to Frederick- 

 ton, the county seat of Madison, around which is some 

 excellent land, and I am sorry that I cannot apply the 

 same term to its cultivation ; but I must speak of things 

 as they are, and not as I would like to see them. Here 

 it was my intention to have taken a route leading into 

 Arkansas, but finding that to do so I must make a long 

 detour to the south-west, on account of impassable 

 swamps that would lay between me and the Mississippi ; 

 I took the road to Jackson, and passed over about forty 

 miles of as miserable country, as one seeking after such 

 a tract, could wish to find. It is very hilly, some of 

 which are covered with pitch pine, and only along the 

 banks of the streams are found a few settlers, who with 

 few exceptions, it may be said, rather stay than live. 

 After passing a long, lonely road, from the few houses 

 upon which, it seemed as though the inhabitants had died 

 or run away, I arrived long after dark, at a place where 

 I had been told I should find the only "house of entertain- 

 ment" upon the road. * * * 



"And would'nt I like something warm and good for 

 supper?" asked my landlady — I certainly should — and it 

 length it came. Oh ye epicureans, what a treat! Wild 



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