THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE 57 



dred teams of horses began to haul it thirteen miles to 

 Hancock. 



In the summer of 1866, after his father's return from 

 Brazil, Agassiz took a vacation from the management of 

 the Museum, and went up to Michigan to see the new 

 mine. The so-called Calumet conglomerate, a stratum 

 of felsitic porphyry, about twelve to fourteen 1 feet 

 wide, carrying native copper, dips to the northwest at 

 an angle of about thirty-seven degrees. The forma- 

 tion thereabout is singularly uniform, so that Agassiz 

 was able to obtain some idea of the possible extent 

 of the lode. He was so much impressed by its prob- 

 able richness that during his visit, Mr. Shaw and a party 

 of Boston gentlemen bought the land to the south of 

 the Calumet Mine, on which the old Indian pit was 

 situated, and organized the Hecla Mining Company. It 

 must have been about this time that Agassiz succeeded 

 in borrowing a comparatively small sum of money with 

 which he secured the interest in these properties that 

 formed the basis of his fortune. 



On his return, he was made the treasurer of both 

 companies. Toward the end of the year matters did not 

 look so promising. Hecla was still in the first stages of 

 development, but it was evident that Hulbert was not 

 making Calumet pay. Consequently the company decided 

 to operate Calumet themselves, and close the lease under 

 which Hulbert had held practically complete control at 

 the mine. When the working of the mine was reorgan- 

 ized on this new basis, Agassiz again went to Michigan 

 late in December, 1866, stayed there about a month, 

 saw a new man, Davis, put in charge of Calumet, and 

 once more looked over the ground. 



1 In the lowest levels it widens out to nearly thirty feet. 



