GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS IN MISSOURI. 



The first geological survey of Missouri, having for its field 

 of operations the whole state, exclusively, was provided for by 

 an act of legislature just fifty-one years ago. A period of par- 

 tial surveys by state and national governments had immediately 

 preceded this, and a period of exploration and travel, and of 

 primitive mining, was of still earlier date. 



The explorations of Joliet, of La Salle, and of Hennepin, in 

 the last quarter of the seventeenth century, had transformed the 

 Mississippi valley from terra hicognita to a promising field for 

 adventure or profit, and, with the establishing of a settlement at 

 the mouth of the Mississippi by Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699, 

 excursions up the river became frequent. In Le Sueur's expedi- 

 tion, in 1700, the existence of Missouri lead ores became known. 

 This served, a few years later, as one of the incentives leading to 

 the settling of the country by the Company of the West under 

 the Crozat patent. From this time to the end of the eighteenth 

 century the lead deposits were almost continuously worked, 

 sometimes on a large scale, but no record of any careful investi- 

 gation has come down to us from these early days. 



With the beginning of the present century and the transfer 

 of the territory to the United States, an era of somewhat closer 

 observation seems to have been inaugurated. Among the earliest 

 papers touching the geology of Missouri is Austin's " Descrip- 

 tions of the Lead Mines in Upper Louisiana," written in 1804, 

 covering a few pages of the American State Papers.^ This is 

 almost entirely descriptive of the lead mines of southeastern 

 Missouri, and treats principally of their superficial features and 

 conditions of development. During the next thirty years, a 



'Public Lands, Vol. I., p. 188. Reprint Report Mo. Geol. Surv. 1873-74, p. 686. 



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