APPENDIX. 371 



It is cxclianged for the lead of Missouri, the iron of Sweden, or 

 the silver of Mexico ; and the same ready communication trans- 

 ports the return cargo to Buffalo, from whence the commerce is 

 extended, by means of the lakes, throughout western New York, 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the inter- 

 minable regions of the north. Thus it is seen that, when the Erie 

 Canal is completed, a free and direct water communication, from 

 the mines to one of the best markets in America, will exist, in 

 which the rapids of St. Mary's are the only interruption, and this 

 is only an interruption to large vessels. Not only so, but the 

 Ontonagon Eiver may be ascended many miles with vessels of 

 light burden, and thus the copper of Lake Superior, wafted from 

 the heart of the interior, and from the base of the Porcupine 

 Mountains, into the harbors of New York, Philadelphia, &c. Of 

 this whole distance, 1,047 miles are now navigated by the largest 

 class of river craft and lake schooners; the balance of the distance 

 is the length of the Erie Canal. (See Note D.) 



Let it be recollected that there are no mines of copper situated 

 upon the margin of the sea, and that every quintal of sheet cop- 

 per, bolts, nails, &c., which we receive from Great Britain, Russia, 

 Sweden, or Japan, is transported a greater or less distance on 

 turnpikes or canals, before it reaches the place of shipment. The 

 richest copper mines of the Russian empire are seated on the 

 summits of the Uralian Mountains; those of Fahlun, in Sweden, 

 and Cornwall, in England, are scarcely more favored as to posi- 

 tion ; and, owing to a want of coal, all the ores raised at the latter 

 are transported into "Wales to be smelted.* But we need not 

 resort to Europe for instances. All the lead raised at the fertile 

 mines in Missouri is transported an average distance of forty 

 miles in carts and wagons before it reaches the banks of the Mis- 

 sissippi. Steamboats take it to New Orleans, a distance, by the 

 shortest computation, of 1,000 miles. But it must still pass 

 through the Gulf of Mexico, and encounter the perils of the Capes 

 of Florida, and a voyage of 2,000 miles along the coast of the 

 United States, before it reaches its principal marts. The average 

 cost of transporting a hundredweight of lead from Mine au Breton 

 and Potosi to the banks of the Mississippi, during the year 1818, 



* Silliman. 



y 



