60 JSTotice of Mr. Schooler ajVs View of 



Mr. Schoolcraft appears to have made good use ol' the 

 advantages which he enjoyed, and his countrj^raen are in- 

 debted to him for a great amount of vakiable information. 

 He appears also to have studied the observations of prece- 

 ding writers, and, with their works before him, it was in his 

 power to correct errors and to supply deficiencies. 



He has prefixed an historical sketch which we presume 

 will be acceptable to every reader. The French as is well 

 known were the original discoverers and settlers of the Mis- 

 souri, and Illinois regions, which were embraced in their vast 

 scheme of forming a chain of posts and settlements from the 

 mouth of the St. Lawrence, to that of the Mississippi. — 

 They did not occupy the country of the Missouri and Illi- 

 nois, till more than a century after the settlement of Que- 

 bec, and about a century before the present period. At 

 that time, (1720) the lead mines were discovered by Philip 

 Francis Renault, and M. La Motte, and by them they were 

 v/rought, although they and the adventurers under them 

 were disappointed in their expectations of finding gold and 

 silver. 



At the end of about half a century, the country passed 

 into the hands of the Spaniards, and under their dominion, 

 probably about forty years since, the principal mine was 

 discovered by a man of the name of Burton, and from him 

 it has derived the name of Mine a Burton.^' 



It appears that the processes of mining under the Span- 

 iards were very imperfect as they obtained only fifty per 

 cent, of lead from the ore, threw away the lead ashes, and 

 did not attempt any manufactures of shot or any other ar- 

 ticles. They employed only the open log furnace. 



In 1797, Moses Austin, Esq. a native of Connecticut, 

 who had been occupied with lead mines, in Weythe Coun- 

 ty in Virginia, obtained from the Spanish government, a 

 grant of a league square in the mining district in considera- 

 tion of his introducing a reverberatory furnace. He sunk 



* It seems lie was iiunting and found the Jead ore lying upon llie surface 

 of the ground. This remarkable man was living iast year, near St. Gene- 

 vieve, at the great age of one hundred and nine. He had been employed 

 under tiie first adventurer, Renault, and has passed an eventful life, having 

 served both in Europe and America, as a soldier under distinguished com- 

 manders, and on various raemorable occasions, as at Fontenoy and Bergen 

 op zoom, under Marshal! Saxe, and at Braddock's defeat, near Pittsburgh. 



