THE SCILNTIST, 
83 
foldi'd; at the san.e time, wljile the cool- 
ing continued, there must have bceii 
formed also, a stratiflcation below the 
folded rocks as well as above. As re- 
marked before, in my opinion, no miner- 
als are found in the rocks of the archasan 
period, unless they were subsequently 
disturbed, and therefore, the lower strati- 
fications must also have been broken be- 
fore the mineral could i)ass throu,2jh, and 
this must !iave been below the lowest 
stratification. 
In mountainous countries where dikes 
and igneous rocks are. this theory can 
<'asily be explained, but down in Missouri 
the mineral is found in a perfectly level 
country. The sti-atified rocks are all in 
place, only slightly altered by ero- 
sions. 
"Whenever in a mineral counti'y, I try 
to tiiid an explanation for the manner in 
which the minerals were deposited, and, 
naturally try to have the exphination in 
accordance with the theory previously 
advanced. 
Before examining the luineral depos- 
its in IMissouri, I tried to obtain infor- 
mation as to the cause of such deposits 
and how they were made. There may 
be other theoi'ies advanced by compe- 
tent men. nevertheless, I have not been 
able to find any, and all 1 could learn 
was, that some said, there were horizon- 
tal veins or deposits; others that mineral 
deposits were caused by subterranean riv- 
ers, etc., etc. Nevertheless, they were all 
of the opinion, and it seemed to be the 
universal belief among mining men 
around Joplin and that section of the 
countiy, that it was simply a matter of 
"luck'' to find ziric or lead ores, and that 
a person is justined in sinking a shaft 
anywhere, and is liable to strike ore, as 
it is all "Mineral Land." 
There are no doubt cases ''where 
ignorance is bliss" and while it may 
liave happened that some people have 
struck ore in that manner I could not 
accept the theory that there was no rule 
for its deposition. 
So a couple of years ago when called 
u[)on to made an examination of some 
mining property, it was with consider- 
able interest that I made the visit, and 
here is my experience: 
The work on the mine was a shaft 
about 130 feet deep. Jn the bottom 
were about 200 feet of drifts in various 
directions. In going down, we found 
the timber in the shaft gradually pressed 
together; the deeper we went the 
narrower the shaft. The drifts, wdiich 
evidently had been seven feet high, 
were so low in places tliat we had 
to creep in order to get through 
them: this was caused by the 
pressure of fhe soft ground upon the 
timberf, Near the shaft I noticed a 
di'ift, full of mud to the roof, which evi- 
dently had been pressed in between the 
timbers. Where they took out the min- 
eral it was imbedded in a clay substance. 
As remarked before, the drifts ran irregu- 
larly, that is at least a hundred feet in an 
east and westerly direction and also that 
much or more in a north and southerly 
direction; everywhere w^as this soft mat- 
erial. Coming to the surface again, I 
looked at the surroundings and follow- 
ing the course of various so-called dig- 
gings, went down a slope towards a river 
bottom. Out of all these diggings and 
also out of a shaft near the river bottom 
ninety-seven feet deep a material was 
brought out similar to that describ- 
ed in the other mine. On both sides 
of me at a distance of 60 to 150 feet were 
bluffs of white lime rocks laying per- 
fectly undisturbed in their original places. 
This at once convinced me that wdiere 
this slope was there must be a fissure 
at least 200 feet wide, and it did not then 
take long to determine its course. In 
looking further over the country these 
fissures appeared very irregular, and nat- 
urally I was trying to find an explana- 
tion for their existence. We will sup- 
