108 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



cattle ; four negroes, Charles, twenty-five years of age, worth $600, Sam, twenty 

 years of age and George fourteen years, worth $500 each; and James, thirty years 

 old worth $400, and their clothing ; and four little cabins near by. The lessee 

 was authorized to cut as much wood as he needed on the premises. Glamorgan 

 was to receive thirty (minots) bushels of measured dry salt as the monthly rent, 

 and in case of any failure $6 for every bushel of salt not delivered according to 

 contract, and besides, if any kettle were broken, Tyler was to pay five pounds of 

 lead for each pound of iron in the broken cauldron, that being the price it had 

 cost. We have here an apt illustration of the value of old documents. I have 

 just been quoting from a legal instrument executed nearly one hundred years ago, 

 a paper in which one would scarcely expect to find anything that would interest 

 us to-day, and it furnishes a definite account of the construction, extent, and 

 equipment of the first salt works in Missouri; the price of men, farm slaves, and 

 the relative value of several articles of merchandise at that date (archive 2,893). 



In the immediate vicinity of the Spring there are several groups of stone 

 graves ; but every cyst has been opened and its contents disturbed. I have never 

 heard of any thick or salt-kettle pottery having been found in the neighborhood 

 of the Spring. 



Beyond Fenton, in the direction of Meramec Station, I discovered several 

 localities where spear-heads can be found, which I examined carefully ; but al- 

 though my searches were rewarded with finds, there was not a single fine speci- 

 men among them. 



MINING AND METALLURGY. 



THE SUBSTANTIAL PROSPERITY OF GOLORADO. 



BY HON. THOS. M. PATTERSON. 



* * * For the twenty-seven years beginning with 1850, the 



money invested, the labor expended and material used in mining for precious 

 metals in the United States, are fairly estimated at $709,000,000, while the money 

 returns therefrom, and created values in mines and mills, amount to $2,200,000,- 

 000, giving to the investors more than 200 per cent as actual profit. Within the 

 last twelve years the mining States and Territories have produced more than 

 $875,000,000 of gold and silver bullion — the highest value of any of the years 

 being $95,000,000 and the lowest being $52,000,000. 



For the same period of twelve years the struggle for the supremacy in the 

 contest of precious metals had been with Galifornia and Nevada. Like well- 

 matched athletes, now one seemed to prevail and now the other. 



Colorado, though robust and aspiring, seemed a pigmy beside these giants, 

 but in 1879 she took up the gauntlet, and from a product of $8,000,000 the pre- 



