18 University Geological Survey of Kansas. 
‘‘The Wythe county zinc ores of Virginia were not utilized 
until after the war. IJ urnaces have been built here and also 
at Knoxville, Tenn., in recent years, for the reduction of the 
home ores. 
‘‘in the Mississippi valley the beginning of the zinc indus- 
try was with the erection of the works at Mineral Point and 
at La Salle, Ill., by the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Com- 
pany in 1860. Those at Peru were built later. 
‘In Missouri zinc was not manufactured until 1867, when 
a small plant was erected at Potosi. The Martindale zinc 
works at Carondelet were established in 1869. Following 
closely upon these were established at the same place suc- 
cessively the works of the Missouri Zinc Company and of 
the Carondelet Zinc Company; at St. Louis, those of Page 
& Ikrause and the Washington furnace; and in Washing- 
ton county, the Hopewell furnace. The great zinc de- 
posits of Jasper and Newton counties were not drawn upon 
until 1871. These ores were first shipped to La Salle, but, in 
1873, the Weir City, Kan., works were built, and others at 
Pittsburg in 1878. The Joplin and other Missouri works 
were not built until after 1883.”’ 
Discoveries in Missouri. 
The above somewhat lengthy quotation from Winslow gives 
a brief but interesting outline of the discovery of lead ores 
and zinc ores throughout the entire world. Discoveries in 
Kansas have grown out of mining operations in Missouri to 
such an extent that a bird’s-eye view of the history of the 
latter may be given. 
It seems that in the year 1700, when the exploring party 
under LeSueur made their trip northward by the Mississippi 
river from New Orleans, they discovered lead ore in Missouri, 
and later in the season made the first general discovery of 
ore in southwest Wisconsin. The Missouri discoveries were 
so promising that in 1712 King Louis XIV issued the Crozat 
patents for the operation of mines in the then territory of 
Louisiana. Five years later, in 1717, patents were trans- 
ferred to ‘‘The Company of the West,’’ or, the ‘‘ Mississippi - 
Company,’ alarge company organized by a man by the name of 
