5# Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 



ness. Four are in Iowa, and about as many in Illinois. About 

 sixteen are reverberatory furnaces, the rest principally blast. 

 These fifty furnaces make about 30,000,000 pounds of lead an- 

 nually, which is 600,000 pounds to each on the average. But 

 six of them are estimated to make 1,000,000 pounds each, and 

 four from 1,260,000 to 1,502,200 pounds each, while seven make 

 only from 400,000 to 194,610 pounds each, the least made by 

 any one furnace. 



He estimates the whole number of miners to be three thousand, 

 but considers they do not work on the average more than half 

 their time. From many examples of their success in mining, he 

 says, " it would seem then to be a very low and safe estimate, to 

 calculate each miner's daily work on the average at 150 pounds 

 of ore. Now supposing that of the three thousand miners esti- 

 mated to be at work in the district, one third are engaged in 

 ' prospecting,' and other unproductive preparations, and only two 

 thousand actually employed in raising ore, and that these two 

 thousand work only one hundred and fifty days in each year, 

 we have the following result. Each miner will raise annually 

 22.500 pounds of ore. The two thousand miners will raise annu- 

 ally 45,000,000 pounds of ore, and this at 70 per cent., which is 

 rather below than above the average yield of the galena of this 

 district, will give 31,500,000 pounds of lead as the annual pro- 

 duce of these mines." 



So far goes the calculation of Dr. Owen ; from it and from a 

 number of instances of miners raising a large amount of ore in 

 a short time, and of small tracts proving wonderfully productive, 

 he draws a vague conclusion of the unbounded richness of this 

 region, and of the profits to be derived from the business. But 

 I propose to carry out these estimates and see the results. 



Allowing that 45,000,000 pounds of ore is the annual yield of 

 the mines, and dividing this according to customary shares be- 

 tween the miners and smelters, we must allow to the former 530 

 pounds of lead for every 1000 pounds of ore, for in this way they 

 often take their pay for the ore, receiving from 520 to 540 pounds 

 of lead. The mean 530 is equivalent to 757 of ore ; it is divi- 

 ded then as by the following calculation. 



