LEAD MINES IN MISSOURI. 81 



The week passed by without further incident. I 

 worked very hard, and it seemed all the harder as it 

 was the first time that I had to work incessantly. As 

 the brothers offered me no more than eight dollars a 

 month, I thought that I should find better pay in Lit- 

 tle Rock, so took the two dollars that I had earned, bade 

 them all a hearty farewell, and w^ent on my way in 

 good spirits. 



Next morning I came to the most important lead 

 mines of Missouri, not far from Farmington, a pretty 

 little town. The lead was laid in great heaps on both 

 sides of the road, and as it looked very like silver, it 

 was capable of making a strong impression on any one 

 who possessed a slightly excitable imagination. As my 

 bullets were getting scarce, I took a couple of pounds 

 from one of the heaps, in order to cast a few in the 

 next house that I stopped at. All these mines are 

 private property, and the workmen carry on their 

 excavations when they please, wherever they expect 

 to find ore, and are paid according to the quantity 

 they procure ; if they find none, they receive nothing, 

 and many poor fellows have worked for weeks in vain. 

 Their labors are carried on in the simplest manner. 

 A workman, or generally two together, come and offer 

 themselves; a certain space is given, and while one 

 digs, the other clears out the shaft; sometimes they 

 find a vein of pure lead, in which case they are very 

 well paid. The whole place is so full of holes, that it is 

 very dangerous to go about at night. The proprietors 

 have erected smelting furnaces on the ground between 

 the shafts, where the ore is cast mto pigs, and then it is 

 forwarded to the Mississippi. 



