ANNUAL REPORT—MINING. 
51 
MINING. 
Although we have but little to add to what has been said 
in our last two reports under this head, some circumstances of 
considerable interest deserve mention. 
The lead interest has been somewhat encouraged by the 
legislative provisions of 1870, for a survey of the lead region, 
now in progress. This important act originated in a strong 
desire on the part of large numbers of intelligent people of the 
lead district, for a more careful and full examination into the 
reasons which induced Prof. J. D. Whitney, of the late 
Geological Commission, to discourage the hope of making 
deep mining successful. 
Commissioner Murrish, to whom your Excellency entrusted 
tbe responsible duties of conducting these investigations, 
appears to have entered heartily into the work during the past 
season, and is still pursuing his labors in the expectation of 
concluding them during the current year. He possesses 
excellent qualifications for the task assigned him, and great 
interest is felt in his forthcoming report, which it is under¬ 
stood will warrant, at least in part, a reversal of the judgment 
pronounced in 1860. 
The correct settlement of the questions involved is a matter 
of great importance to the state, inasmuch as the investment 
of large amounts of capital, home and foreign, in the business 
of thorough mining will turn upon its decision. 
It is also worthy of mention, in this connection, that deposits 
of lead ore were found during the past year near Rio, in 
Columbia county. We are unable to state, on the basis of the 
limited explorations hitherto made, how extensive these 
deposits are likely to prove, but the fact, which is unques¬ 
tionable, is of itself interesting. 
The iron interest, still further stimulated by the progress of 
iron manufacture at Milwaukee, and by the demand springing 
up in the west, as mentioned in our last report, for the Dodge 
county ore, has been of late somewhat feverishly excited over 
the announcement of very extensive deposits of the magnetic 
