JO DAVIESS COUNTY. 55 



heavy capitalists and companies, who will be able to put steam pumps 

 <>u. and thus" conquer the difficulties in the way of making them remu- 

 nerative. Deeper and more scientific mining will be carried on in the 

 future, and new mines and heavy bodies of mineral will yet be discov- 

 ered. It is a fact, that not much over a tenth of the supposed pro- 

 ductive lead distiict has yet been prospected. In all human proba- 

 bility, when these unexplored lead regions have been thoroughly and 

 > -icntincally examined, other heavy bodies of mineral will be discov- 

 ered. Science has already done an important work in the lead basin, 

 and made many valuable suggestions, which the practical miner is now 

 willing to avail himself of. Science has yet a great work to do, taking 

 capital by the hand and exploring this lead field in search of hidden 

 treasures yet locked in the bosom of the earth. It is the opinion of 

 many pracrcal miners and amateur geologists, that labor in the lead 

 field will now pay more uniformly and better than in any past period 

 of its history, and that an intelligent expenditure of capital in this 

 direction is one of the very best investments. 



The Romance of Mining, Lead mining, like all other mining, is at- 

 tended with hazard and uncertainty. The instances are numerous 

 where poor, hard working miners have suddenly found themselves in 

 >n of a vast fortune. Indeed this phase of lead mining is so 

 common that it hardly excites comment in the localities where it occurs. 

 The case of the purchase and discovery of the Marsden mine is an 

 illustration in point. The history of Mr. CHAMPION'S twenty-five years 

 of persevering labor in running a certain adit level, until he had bank- 

 rupted himself and almost bankrupted some of his generous friends, 

 to be at last rewarded with a magnificent fortune, is one example of a 

 numerous class of cases. The instances where workmen have slowly 

 and laboriously sunk their shafts and run their drifts through the solid 

 rock and finally abandoned the "enterprise into the hands of some new 

 man, whose very first efforts struck the "discovery" which the former 

 proprietor had just missed, are by no means rare. Instances of hope 

 long deferred until the heart was made sick, to be at last elated with 

 the looked-for discovery, are numerous enough to make a book. 



The hazards, the expectations, the disappointments, the perseverance, 

 if fully written out, would contain much that is wonderful and even ro- 

 mantic. The unwritten history of almost every great mine in the lead 

 region would have in it some chapter of romance, some story illus- 

 trating some phase of human character. Gold mining has its wonders 

 and wonderful effects on the human mind ; the finding of wonderful oil 

 deposits lias been the cause of some curious chapters in human history : 

 lead mining, where sudden fortunes have been poured into the laps of 

 those unused to fortunes, or where steady persevering toil, with its 



