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bore the appropriation was exhausted. It was estimated that the same result 

 could have been had under contract for $1,500. Senator Hill obtained the last 

 appropriation from the agricultural fund, and is confident of discovering the 

 flowing well belt. If successful a vast expanse of country now barren and unin- 

 habitable will be converted into lands for agriculture and stock raising. 



MISSOURI COPPER MINES. 



We have frequently had occasion to refer to the great mineral resources of 

 this State, which as yet have attracted comparatively little attention abroad. For 

 years Missouri's iron, coal, lead and zinc mines have been worked in a quiet sort 

 of a way, but with great profit. Three mining regions only have been brought 

 prominently into notice since mining first assumed the proportions of an industry, 

 namely, the Rich Hill coal fields, the Joplin lead and zinc mines, and the iron 

 ore beds in central and southeast Missouri. But the growth of mining has been 

 steady, if not rapid, and every new development encourages the hope that Mis- 

 souri will finally rank head and shoulders above any other State in the Mississippi 

 Valley as a producer of the useful metals. Coal, zinc, lead and iron have been 

 mined on a large scale for years, and copper, in small quantities, in different 

 parts of the State. Now, however, appearances would seem to indicate that the 

 mining of copper, so long neglected, will ultimately assume a magnitude that will 

 place Missouri among the leading copper-producing States of the Union. The 

 richest and most promising copper fields at this time are located in St. Genevieve 

 County, south of St. Louis. In presenting a brief history and description of 

 these mines we are indebted for data to a report of Prof. W. B. Potter, of the 

 firm of Potter & Riggs, engineers, on the principal mine in the county — the Corn- 

 wall — and to a paper presented by Mr. Frank Nicholson, M. E., to the Ameri- 

 can Institute of Mining Engineers. 



Copper ore was first noticed in St. Genevieve County in 1863, but it was 

 not until 1868 that explorations were begun, Mr. Harris being the leading spirit. 

 After considerable prospecting on the section where the outcroppings had been 

 noticed the work was abandoned without result. In 1872 Messrs. Harris, Rozier 

 & Co. obtained a lease on the Grass mining property for twenty-five years, pay- 

 ing 10 per cent royalty. In 1876 a Chicago firm, Hitchcock, Wilson & Co., 

 began work on a hill opposite that on which copper was first discovered and after 

 a year's fruitless labor the firm failed. The Chicago company's mine was bought 

 m by O. D. Harris, who now owns the Grass and Chicago mines and operates 

 them under the name of the Cornwall Copper Mines. In 1880 the Cornwall 

 mines erected works for making raw mattes and in 1881 refining works were 

 added. From 1876 to 1879 two other mines were opened in the neighborhood 

 of the Cornwall mines, Swansea Copper Mine and the Herzog Copper Mine. 

 These three mines all belong to the same formation, and a study of one reveals 

 the characteristics of all. 



