S34 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
posed indication of ore. How else, it may be asked, could prospecting be so 
well or so cheaply done ? And there is a class of enterprising, skillful, well-to-do 
miners, naturally associated as partners, who have made one or more good strikes, 
and are always ready to take hold of any new venture that promises well, either 
in working a lot or in forming a land company to open new mines. Where else 
could be found capitalists so willing to risk their money in a speculative venture ? 
Men of this sort are always ready and able to work themselves, or to direct the 
work above or below ground. How else could be obtained as willing and watch- 
ful superintendents, foremen, and clerks ? New towns are started every year, 
and the mining district is rapidly extending. No uniform development seems to 
lead to this extension ; chance and the policy of the land-owners appear to be the 
only determining causes. 
The towns of Galena and Empire, on Short Creek, in Kansas, were brought 
into sudden prominence in 1878, and restored the waning fortunes of the Joplin 
region, by the exertions of two land companies, which, on the strength of two or 
three rich but undeveloped prospects, laid out two rival towns, and sold town- 
lots without reserving mineral rights ; and by extensive advertising throughout 
Missouri and neighboring States, created an excitement which had a purely spec- 
ulative basis, but led to the collection of a large number of miners and a consid- 
erable aggregate of money. Fortunately, the results very nearly justified their 
most sanguine representations. The land companies then withdrew all of their 
remaining lots from the market, and the success of the mines was secured. They 
are now the principal mines for lead ore in the region, and their output of zinc 
is increasing. 
For the discovery and working of shallow deposits, the present system seems 
the best that can be devised ; but it is clearly not adapted to solve the problems 
of discovering deeper deposits or working them to advantage. No system can 
be defended which involves extravagant expense in mining and preparing the ore 
for market, forces the sale of it without regard to its value, and renders worthless 
large bodies of ore that might be profitably worked by a better system ; and no 
basis for a great industry, like the zinc industry, which makes it depend on a 
hundred chances independent of the price of metal, the cost of smelting, or the 
known deposits of ore, can be considered very safe to build upon. The caving 
in of a single mine, the breaking down of a pump, less activity in lead mining, or 
the scattering of the miners to richer camps may cause a falling off in the output 
of ore from which it would be very difficult to recover. That mining has on the 
whole been very profitable in this region, is established from the fact that the 
•country around has steadly and rapidly increased in wealth and population. 
Within the last few years, three railroads, the St. Louis & San Francisco, the 
Missouri Pacific, and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf, have built branches 
through the ore-fields to each of the three towns, Joplin, Webb City, and Galena. 
Joplin, with its good streets, gas and water-works, machine-shops and foundries, 
flour and woolen mills, lead and zinc furnaces, street-cars, and extensive jobbing 
and retail houses has been built almost entirely from the profits of mining. 
