Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 5T 



After working through these large openings they are found to 

 shut nearly up, leaving only a crack with a thread of ore, and 

 this often leads on through unprofitable rock to a rich vein again, 

 and to other chambers. The richest mine now wrought in Mis- 

 souri — Vallee & Perry's, in the southern part of Jefferson County — 

 is of this character. Shafts have been sunk into the hill one 

 hundred and ten feet, and adits driven into the hillsides. 



In general the workings are very superficial, much of the ore 

 being raised from the clay diggings, which seldom extend to the 

 depth of twenty feet. Here the ore is in a horizontal position in 

 the clay, as I remarked, and lies in thin sheets of limited and 

 varying width, seldom exceeding thirty feet, and they are proba- 

 bly always in or connected with one of these fissures so common 

 in the limestone. Throughout the several counties which are 

 occupied with this formation, the miner recognizes a proximity 

 to the fissures by the abundance of the peculiar red clay, of the 

 hematite iron ore, and of the botryoidal and mammillary masses of 

 quartz rock, and the exact position of the fissure itself is often, 

 indicated to his experienced eye by a slight sinking of surface, 

 and by an east and west or north and south line of bushes or 

 small plants, which have deep striking roots, and choose a 

 situation, where they can send them deep down into the clay. 

 Still these guides are not always sure, for men used to the busi- 

 ness often spend a year or more in " prospecting," that is, in sink- 

 ing experimental shafts, or following a fissure in hopes of its 

 yielding a rich return of ore, and all wit?iout success. But by 

 continuing their work, if their means allow of it, they seldom 

 fail of finally striking a " lead," the sale or working of which 

 repays them for all their labor. 



Waldroti Mine. — This though now considered of little impor- 

 tance is a place where considerable copper ore has been raised. 

 It lies a little east of the Iron Mountain ridge, five miles east of 

 Caledonia. The diggings are on the side of a low hill, and ap- 

 pear to follow an old fissure extending northwest and southeast, 

 nearly in a direct line, with some branching, over an extent of 

 about fifteen rods in length. No rock is exposed any where in 

 place ; the loose pieces are of a compact quartz rock, of a similar 

 character with that of the Iron Mountain ridge. Here it may be 

 meeting the limestone, though none is exposed. The diggings 

 are all superficial, and nothing is now to be seen of the contents 



Vol. xLiii, No. 1.— April-June, 1842. 8 



