The American Indians. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

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СКАЧАТЬ possessed a fund of local knowledge and experience, the communication of which rendered the time I spent at his house both profitable and pleasing.

I reached Potosi on the second of August. The next day was the day of the county election[1], which brought together the principal miners and agricultural gentlemen of the region, and gave me a favourable opportunity of forming acquaintance, and making known the object of my visit. I was particularly indebted to the civilities of Stephen F. Austin, Esq. for these introductions. During my stay in the country he interested himself in my success, omitted no opportunity of furthering my views, and extending my acquaintance with the geological features and resources of the country. He offered me an apartment in the old family mansion of Durham Hall, for the reception and accumulation of my collections. Mr. Bates and sons, Mr. Jones and sons, Mr. Perry and brothers, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Brickey, Mr. Honey and others, seconded these civilities. Indeed the friendly and obliging disposition I uniformly met with, from the inhabitants of the mines, and the mine country generally, is indelibly impressed on my memory.

[1] About 70 votes were polled in the town of Potosi. Mr. Austin, the younger, was returned by the county to the Territorial Legislature.

      I was now at the capital of the mines, and in a position most favourable for obtaining true information of their character and value. Three months devoted to this object left scarcely a nook of the country which I had not either personally explored, or obtained authentic information of. I found forty-five principal mines, or mineral diggings as some of them are called, within a circumference of less than forty miles. Potosi, and its vicinity yielded annually about three millions of pounds of lead, and furnished employment to the estimated number, of eleven to twelve hundred hands. The business was however depressed, like almost every other branch of domestic arts or industry, after the peace of 1814, owing to the great influx and low prices of foreign products, and the general derangement of currency and credit. Prepared ore, delivered at the furnaces, was worth two dollars per cwt., paid chiefly in merchandize. Pig lead sold at four dollars, at the mines; and but half a dollar higher on the banks of the Mississippi, and was quoted at seven dollars in the Atlantic cities. Judged from these data, there appeared no adequate cause for the alleged depression; for in addition to the ordinary merchant's profit, in the disposition of his stock to the operative miner or digger of ore, a profit of one cent and a half per pound was left, over and above the cost of transportation to an eastern market; besides, the difference in exchange, between the south western and eastern cities. And it was evident, from a view of the whole subject, that the business could not only be profitably pursued, with economical arrangements, but that the public domain, upon which most of the mines are seated, might be made to yield a revenue to the treasury, at least equal to the amount of this article required for the national consumption, over the expenses, the superintendence and management. Besides which, there was great room for improved and economical modes of mining; and there was hardly one of the manipulations, from the making of a common drill or pick, to the erection of a smelting furnace, which did not admit of salutary changes for the better. The recovery of the mere waste lead, in its sublimated form, around the open log furnaces of the country, promised to add a valuable item to the profit of the business. The most wasteful, hurried, and slovenly of all systems is pursued in exploring and raising the ore, by which the surface of the country is riddled with pit holes, in the most random manner; the loose and scattered deposits in the soil hastily gathered up, and the real lead and veins of metal left, in very many cases, untouched. Thousands of square acres of land were thus partially rifled of their riches, and spoiled, and condemned, without being exhausted. By having no scientific knowledge of mineral veins and geological structure, as practically adopted in Europe, all rule in the process of mining and raising the ore had degenerated into mere guess work, and thousands of dollars had been wasted, in some places, where the application of some of the plainest mining principles, would not have warranted the removal of a shovel full of earth. In short, there was here observed, a blending of the miner and farmer character. Almost every farmer was a miner. Planters who had slaves, employed them part of the year in mining; and every miner, to some extent was a farmer. Because the ore found in the clay beds did not occur in east and west, or north and south lines, or its rules of deposition had not been determined by careful observation, all success in the exploration was supposed to be the result of chance. And whoever surveys the mineral counties of Missouri, will be ready to conclude, that more labour has been thrown away in the helter-skelter system of digging, than was ever applied to well directed or profitable mining. Had an absolute monarch called for this vast amount of labour from his people to build some monument, he would have been declared the greatest tyrant. Indeed, I know of no instance in America, of the misapplication of so great an amount of free labour—labour cheerfully bestowed, and thrown away without a regret. For the losers in mining, like the adventurers in a lottery, have no one to blame but themselves.

      It appeared to me that a statement of the actual condition of the mines, would be received with attention at Washington, and that a system for the better management of them could not but be approved, were it properly brought forward. I determined to make the attempt. It did not, however, appear to me, that nature had limited the deposits of ore to one species, or to so limited an area, and I sought means to extend my personal examinations farther west and south. To bring this about, and to collect the necessary information to base statements on, in a manner correspondent to my wishes, required time, and a systematic mode of recording facts.

      To this object, in connexion with the natural history of the country, I devoted the remainder of the year, and a part of the following year. I soon found, after reaching the mines, that I had many coadjutors in the business of collecting specimens, in the common miners, some of whom were in the habit of laying aside for me, any thing they found, in their pits and leads, which assumed a new or curious character. Inquiries and applications relative to the mineralogy and structure of the country were made, verbally and by letter, from many quarters. I established my residence at Potosi, but made excursions, from time to time, in various directions. Some of these excursions were fruitful of incidents, which would be worth recording, did the cursory character of these reminiscences permit it. On one occasion, I killed a horse by swimming him across the Joachim river, at its mouth, whilst he was warm and foaming from a hard day's ride. He was put in the stable and attended, but died the next day, as was supposed, from this sudden transition. There was scarcely a mine or digging in the country, for forty miles around, which I did not personally examine; and few persons, who had given attention to the subject, from whom I did not derive some species of information.

      The general hospitality and frankness of the inhabitants of the mine country could not but make a favourable impression on a stranger. The custom of riding on horseback, in a region which affords great facilities for it, makes every one a horseman and a woodsman, and has generated something of the cavalier air and manners. But nothing impressed me more, in this connexion, than the gallant manner, which I observed here, of putting a lady on horseback. She stands facing you, with the bridle in her right hand, and gives you her left. She then places one of her feet in your left hand, which you stoop to receive, when, by a simultaneous exertion and spring, she is vaulted backwards into the saddle. Whether this be a transmitted Spanish custom, I know not, but I have not observed it in the French, or American settlements west of the Alleghanies.

      The earthquakes of 1812, which were so disastrous in South America, are known to have propagated themselves towards the north, and they exerted some striking effects in the lower part of the valley of the Mississippi, sending down into the channel of the latter, large areas of deluvial earth, as was instanced, in a remarkable manner, at New Madrid. Portions of the forest, back of this town, sunk, and gave place to lakes and lagoons. These effects were also witnessed, though in a milder form, in the more solid formations of the mine country. Soon after reaching Potosi, I visited the Mineral Fork, a tributary of the Merrimack, where some of these effects had been witnessed. I descended into the pit and crevices of the Old Mines. These mines were explored in the metalliferous rock. Every thing had an old and ruinous look, for they had been abandoned. Large quantities of the ore had been formerly raised at this mine, which was pursued into a deep СКАЧАТЬ