THE LEAD AND ZINC REGION OF MISSOURI AND KANSAS. 3 J 
crushed yields from lo to 50 per cent of cleaned ore, and the No. i grade assays 
about 60 to 62 per cent of metallic zinc. The tailings must in most cases be 
piled up on the lot from which they have come; they are drawn up into a mound 
with two-horse scrapers or belt elevators, and it is not an unusual sight to see 
jigs and crushing machinery perched on top of these mounds fifteen or twenty 
feet above the surface level, the shafts being timbered up to a corresponding 
height. Several land companies have put in fairly effective pumping machinery. 
Plunger-pumps working in pairs, with wooden walking-beams or bob cranks, 
and driven by gearing and a crank-shaft, are the most common ; but direct-acting 
steam-pumps, hke the Worthington or Blake, have been largely introduced of 
late, notwithstanding the disadvantages they labor under from the gritty water of 
the mines. From a distance, these mines, with their swarms of busy men and 
heaps of tailings piled around the shafts, remind one strongly of gigantic ant-hills, 
and present a sight not soon to be forgotten. No one can fail to be struck with 
the glaring defects of such a method of mining, the absence of system, the useless 
duplication of machinery, the cheap yet expensive expedients, and the crowding 
together of conflicting operations. Below ground, the effects are, if possible, 
worse. Each lot is affected by the policy of its neighbors; pillars are left only 
when they are thought to be absolutely necessary ; each miner tries to get as 
much as possible out of his own lot, is only interested in it as long as he expects 
to work it, and is not disposed to improve the value of adjoining lots by unwater- 
ing them or proving their ore. The roof and pillars are badly trimmed, and in 
many cases dangerous, fatal accidents being distressingly common. The officers 
of the land companies are generally individually interested in one or more lots, 
and all sorts of questions are continually arising from the conflicting interests of 
the company and miners. 
Looked at altogether, as the main dependence of the zinc industries of this 
country, such a condition of afi'airs is far from satisfactory, and yet it is not easy 
to suggest a practicable remedy. If a single company with sufficient capital could 
control all the lots and work them in connection with each other, the output 
could be largely increased, the cost of mining and dressing the ore greatly re- 
duced, and the value of the mines kept up for a longer period, and the ore could 
be sold to better advantage than can be hoped for under the existing method- 
But this is seldom possible after the present system is once in operation ; too 
many individuals have acquired rights in the mines, which they value at what they 
hope to get out of them. Nor is the present arrangement without obvious ad" 
vantages in a new country, and it is seriously questioned whether any other could 
be as effective or as economical. When mineral is once discovered, it requires 
but little capital to open mines, and conseequently the individual risks are small. 
The miners, working on their own account, with hopes of large ultimate gains, 
have every inducement to work hard and cheaply, and to follow every clew that 
may lean to the discovery of ore. There is a large body of keen, hard-working 
prospectors, who during the season wander from place to place, live in wagons, 
under tents, or in open air, and carefully observe and follow every real or sup 
