73 Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Region. 



hogs. But the wolves and a sickness pecuhar to the sheep here, 

 will prevent their being raised to any extent. 



It is a good country for water power, fine springs, ever flowing 

 and never freezing, bursting out on the hillsides, and sometimes 

 aflTording power enough for any works at their very source. Some 

 of these are described as curiosities, such as are seldom met with 

 elsewhere. Connected with these springs by similar causes, are 

 the phenomena of sinking creeks, natural tunnels through the 

 hills, and vast caves hardly explored as yet, all due to the ten- 

 dency of the limestone to be worn and hollowed out by the ac- 

 tion of water. The river being supplied by these springs, and 

 running quick, never freezes over ; but it is only at intervals, 

 except in the spring months, that it is up so that rafts can run. 

 When they do go they are carried down very rapidly, but there 

 are no dangerous rapids ; boats are sometimes dashed against the 

 cliffs in the sharp turns of the river, which are frequent. Steam- 

 boats have come up within eighty miles of the Forks, (Jack's 

 Fork and the Current,) and it is thought that if there were an 

 object, they might come to the Forks in the spring months and 

 during the winter. 



There are about ten mills, principally saw-mills, along the Cur- 

 rent and its branches, north of the Arkansaw line. Rafts of pitch 

 pine are sent down every year in great numbers. The boards 

 bring from |15 to f 20 per thousand feet, but they may be bought 

 for $10 at the mills. They are put together to the amount of 

 six in thickness, and so run nine miles below the state line, when 

 the rafts are doubled. 



The copper that was made was sent down on large flat boats, 

 which were constructed for the purpose, and could carry from, 

 twenty to thirty tons each. About seventy five tons altogether 

 were made on the Current and thus shipped for New Orleans. 



The statistical account of the expenses of making lead, which 

 I had no means in Missouri, as before mentioned, of obtaining, 

 cannot differ essentially from the account given of the Wisconsin 

 furnaces. There is this difference, however, in the price of the 

 "mineral" or lead ore, that when it is sold by the miners in Wis- 

 consin for from |15 to $16 per thousand pounds, it brings them 

 in Missouri about $18 for the same quantity. Lead is worth 

 about half a cent more a pound in St. Louis than it is at Galena. 



