Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 63 



feet only, no one can judge how large a supply may be here ob- 

 tained. The ore is considered richer than that from any other 

 part of the mines, but I cannot speak positively of its qualities 

 until I have had opportunity to examine the specimens. 



Other places which are wrought for lead, furnish copper ore 

 also, in greater or less quantities. At the " Deep Diggings," a 

 light porous carbonate of copper is abundant, with carbonate of 

 lead in white crystals intimately mixed with it, furnishing beau- 

 tiful specimens. The gangue is a yellowish ferruginous earth, 

 with layers of a black earthy matter running through it. This I 

 found on examination to consist of oxide of cobalt and manganese, 

 not a workable ore of cobalt, but rather a rare mineral, the cobalt 

 of commerce being derived altogether from arsenical cobalt ores. 



All these copper ores were, until within three years, considered 

 worthless and troublesome to the workmen in their search for 

 galena ; so it was with the rich and easily smelted carbonate of 

 lead, which was buried up in great quantities, and is now redug 

 from out the old rubbish. The proprietors say that the workmen 

 can afford to sell the copper ores prepared for the furnace for less 

 than twenty dollars per thousand weight, and forty dollars per 

 ton. 



Owing to the miserable system in which their mining opera- 

 tions are conducted, no attempts have been made to prove the 

 real importance of these ores, and no estimate can be made of 

 their probable duration. The whole estate is owned by a few 

 "proprietors," who do not work the mines themselves, but re- 

 ceive from any one who chooses to work them, one tenth of the 

 produce. The proprietors may as individuals work also on the 

 same terms. A certain lot is marked out to each miner, (most 

 of whom are common farmers from the adjacent country,) and 

 he goes to work after his own ideas of mining, so as to get out 

 the most available ores with as little expense as possible. He 

 has no desire to discover permanent veins, and no care for the 

 welfare of the whole mine, since his interests cannot continue 

 longer than about six years from this time, when the whole falls 

 back again to the sole possession of the proprietors. Thus two 

 hundred men are employed in skimming off the surface ores ; one 

 set throwing their rubbish over unwrought tracts, which another 

 set will remove again another year to get at the ore below. Most 

 of the workings are open to the day, and no search is made for 



