ANNUAL KEPORT—MANUFACTURES. 
47 
Another noticable feature, in the progress of our manufac¬ 
turing industry, is 
THE MANUFACTURE OF ZINC OXIDE. 
This branch of industry has been carried on for some time 
at Bellevue, near mineral Point. For a time metallic zinc or 
spelter was also manufactured there, but this branch of the 
business has been wholly transferred within the year, to La 
Salle, Illinois, at which point it has been carried on upon a 
considerable scale for some years. 
The Bellevue works are owned and managed by the New 
York Zinc Manufacturing Company. The white oxide or 
“ zinc white,” as it is sometimes called, has steadily improved 
in quality, until it is now believed to equal the best in the 
market. 
When it is considered that the ore from which is made this 
beautiful product, so useful in the arts, was for a long time 
thrown out of the lead mines of the Mineral Point region as 
useless, and kicked about as so much rubbish, or at the best 
used for filling mud-holes on the highway, the importance of 
the Bellevue enterprise will be the better ap];)reciated. I 
have not been able to secure reliable statistics as to the actual 
amount of the oxide manufactured done, but have judged from 
observation of the works in the absence of the superintendent, 
the number of men employed, and the quantities of ore and 
oxide in and about there, that the company is doing a quite 
large and successful business. 
But the most remarkable advance made by any branch of 
our manufacturing industry has been in the department of 
metallurgy. Eeference is especiallj made to the development 
of the iron-manufacturing interest, under the energetic manage¬ 
ment of 
THE MILWAUKEE IRON COMPANY, 
To whose initiatory movements allusion was made in my last 
report. In laying before you and the people of the state a 
fuller account of this company’s operations, I can hardly do 
