146 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 3. 



veins, and that economical administration of the 

 mines which will enable them to contribute pow- 

 erfully to the national resources. 



These works, which, when I visited them, be- 

 longed to Messrs. Taplit and Perry, are distant 

 four or five miles from Vallee's mines and about 

 twenty-five miles trom the point where I observed 

 the quartzose sandstone jut out into the Mississip- 

 pi. They are. situated in a small valley at the loot 

 of a ridge of calcareo-siliceous hills, and abound 

 in the external indications I have before described. 

 The proprietors, disregarding the superficial ores, 

 and confiding in the metalliierous nature of the 

 rock formation, had boldly sunk a shaft, in imita- 

 tion of some practical miners from England, on 

 the other side of the hill, and had been rewarded 

 with the most perfect success. In sinking this 

 shaft, they had come, at random, at a depth of 

 about sixty feet deep, through decomposing calca- 

 reo-siliceous rock, upon a vein of sulphuret of 

 lead, and going down, had reached another hori- 

 zontal vein upwards of one foot thick, and throw- 

 ing out from it numerous subordinate veins and 

 threads, into all of which they had cut drifts, 

 wherever the mineral was sufficiently abundant. 

 They had sunk this shaft to a depth of about one 

 hundred and ten feet, when 1 was there, and very 

 obligingly let me down into it, andgave me every aid 

 and facility in examining their works, which ena- 

 bled me to observe the very curious structure of 

 these metalliferous rocks, and to form a satisfactory 

 opinion of the geological structure of all this re- 

 markable country. 



In pursuing the maine horizontal vein, I came, 

 in succession, to a great number of cavities or 

 pockets — analogous to those of some parts of the 

 gold region in Virginia — in the calcareo-siliceous 

 rock, of various sizes. Some of these caves, as 

 they are there called, are not more than four or five 

 feet across, whilst others are much more exten- 

 sive. I examined one which was about forty 

 feet from top to bottom, and about thirty-five feet 

 in diameter. The uniform horizontally of the 

 veins would keep the true nature of their origin in 

 great obscurity; but, before I reascended, I had an 

 opportunity of examining what they called the 

 main channel, which proved to be an almost verti- 

 cal vein, filled with compact galena, and about 

 eighteen inches broad. I found the course of 

 this lode to be about N. N. E. and S. S. 

 W., with an inclination of about 18°; and upon 

 examining it further, and reviewing what I had 

 seen before, I had no longer any difficulty in 

 understanding that these horizontal veins, and 

 their subordinate ones, were lateral jets from the 

 main lode, after the manner that Mr. McCulloch 

 has described the structure of the horizontal injec- 

 tions of trap rock into sandstone at Trotternish, in 

 Scotland.* Having made these observations upon 

 the direction of these veins, I commenced an ex- 

 amination of their structure more in detail, and 

 found they were all what is called in some of the 

 mining districts of England ioet veins, being, 

 without exception, encased, not in sulphate of 

 barytes, but, in pure brigh red argillaceous matter, 

 quite wet below, and cutting with a bright waxy 

 face. This red clay accompanies the galena wher- 



* Vide McCulloch's "Western Highlands of Scot- 

 land." 



ever it goes, always including it as in a sheath, 

 and carrying along with it sometimes nodules of 

 quartz, and of iron, zinc, and galena, which last 

 compound is called by the miners dry bones. Every 

 one of the pockets or cavities was filled with this 

 red clay, even the large one I mentioned; but at 

 the bottom of each of them was a thick bright 

 plate of sulphuret of lead, that seemed to have 

 sunk to the bottom by its specific gravity. AH 

 these circumstances seem to point to a projection 

 of this metallic and mineral matter from below.* 

 At these mines, when circumstances are iavorable, 

 they can raise and bring to the surface, as I was in- 

 formed, five thousand pounds of the mineral a day 

 — a quantity that could be easily quadrupled if the 

 demand for the metal justified it. This sulphuret 

 yields sixty-five per cent, pure lead of commerce. 

 I had occasion to observe, in numerous instances, 

 that the mineral indications on the public lands 

 were quite as encouraging as at the established 

 mines; but this mineral of lead, to judge from ob- 

 vious appearances, exists in such inconceivable 

 profusion in the metalliierous region of the south 

 of Missouri and the north of Arkansas, that, like 

 the iron of which I am about to speak, it may be 

 relied on for countless ages as a source of national 

 wealth, and an interminable supply of the most 

 useful metals. 



From the Same, 

 REMARKABLE DEPOSITE OF IRON ORE. 



Having completed my examinations of the lead 

 mines, I pursued a southerly course, with the in- 

 tention of visiting the district of primitive rocks, 

 as it had been described to me, which lies on about, 

 the same parallel with the heads of the Merrimack 

 river. At a considerable distance I perceived 

 very lofty hills of a different aspect from any I had 

 yet crossed, and having an abrupt and stony 

 ascent. The rocks upon the slope of the chain 

 are for a considerable distance denuded, and pre- 

 sent a well defined syenite. The chain at a dis- 

 tance appears to run N. E. and S. W., but, upon 

 crossing it, and examining it inside, it deflected 

 into a crateri-form, reminding me in some of its 

 features, of some ancient volcanoes I had seen. 

 In various portions of this district I found varieties 

 of greenstone, alternating with some horizontal 

 rocks entirely quartzose, and containing no lime. 

 Upon one lofty hill of syenite I found immense 

 breadths of this siliceous rock, extremely and pon- 

 derously impregnated with iron; and at. a distance 

 of about a mile from this, the iron increasing in 

 quantity in the intermediate distance, I came upon 

 one of the rarest natural metallic spectacles I have 

 ever seen. Upon a mound sparingly covered with 

 trees, I observed a veinlike mass of submagnetic 

 iron, and having a bright metallic fracture, of a 

 steel gray color. This vein was about one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet above the surface of the adja- 

 cent plain, and at the surface had the appearance 

 of being roughly paved with black pebbles of 

 iron, from one to twenty pounds weight; beneath 

 the surface it appeared to be a solid mass. I mea- 

 sured the vein from east to west full five hundred 

 feet, and I traced it north and south one thousand 



* During the eruption off Sicily, in 1832, when the 

 volcanic island was formed, the agitated ocean waa 

 filled for several weeks with red mud. 



