Читать книгу Western Scenes and Reminiscences - Henry Rowe Schoolcraft - Страница 4

NO. IV.

After stopping a day or more at Shawneetown, and reconnoitering its vicinity, I proceeded to the mouth of the Cumberland, and from thence, after many days detention at that point waiting for a boat, to the mouth of the Ohio. I found this to be a highly interesting section of the river, from its great expanse and its fine water prospects. The picturesque calcareous cliffs on the west banks, display a novel and attractive line of river scenery. The Ohio had, from its commencement, well sustained the propriety of its ancient appellation of the Beautiful River; but it here assumed something more than beautiful—it was majestic. Let it be borne in mind that this stream, in the course of some seven or eight hundred miles flow from Pittsburgh to Shawneetown, had been swelled on the right and left hand by the Scioto, the Muskingum, the Kentucky, the Miami, Green River, Wabash, and other rivers of scarcely inferior size. It is still further augmented, from the left bank, with those noble tributaries, the Cumberland and Tennessee, which bring in the gathered drain of the middle ranges of the Alleghanies. It is below Shawneetown, too, that the cliffs of the Cave-in-Rock-Coast present themselves on the west shore—with their associations of the early robber-era which has been commemorated by the pen of fiction of Charles Brockden Brown. These cliffs are cavernous, and assume varied forms. They rise in bold elevations, which bear the general name of the Knobs, but which are well worthy of the name of mountains. Distinct from the interest they have by casting their castle-like shadows, at sunset, in the pure broad stream, they constitute a kind of Derbyshire in their fine purple spars, and crystalized galena and other mineralogical attractions. I was told that a German of the name of Storch, who pretended to occult knowledge, had, years before, led money and mineral diggers about these Knobs, and that he was the discoverer of the fine fluates of lime found here.

One can hardly pass these broken eminences, with the knowledge that they tally in their calcareous structure and position with the rock formation of the Missouri state border, lying immediately west of them, without regarding them as the apparent monuments of some ancient geological change, which affected a very wide space of country north of their position. A barrier of this nature, which should link the Tennessee and Missouri coasts, at Grand Tower, would have converted into an inland sea the principal area of the present states of Illinois, Indiana, and Southern Ohio. The line of separation in this latitude is not great. It constitutes the narrowest point between the opposing rock formations of the east and west shores, so far as the latter rise through and above the soil.

I was still in a floating Monongahela ark as we approached this coast of cliffs. The day was one of the mildest of the month of June, and the surface of the water was so still and calm that it presented the appearance of a perfect mirror. Our captain ordered alongside the skiff, which served as his jolly boat, and directed the men to land me at the Great Cave. Its wide and yawning mouth gave expectations, however, which were not realized. It closes rapidly as it is pursued into the rock, and never could have afforded a safe shelter for gangs of robbers whose haunts were known. Tradition states, on this point, that its mouth was formerly closed and hid by trees and foliage, by which means the unsuspecting voyagers with their upward freight were waylaid. We overtook the slowly floating ark before it had reached Hurricane Island, and the next land we made was at Smithfield, at the mouth of the Cumberland. While here, several discharged Tennessee militiamen, or volunteers from the still unfinished Indian war in the south, landed on their way home. They were equipped after the fashion of western hunters, with hunting shirts and rifles, and took a manifest pride in declaring that they had fought under “old Hickory”—a term which has, since that era, become familiar to the civilized world. I here first saw that singular excrescence in the vegetable kingdom called cypress knees. The point of land between the mouth of the Cumberland and Ohio, was a noted locality of the cypress tree. This tree puts up from its roots a blunt cone, of various size and height, which resembles a sugar loaf. It is smooth, and without limb or foliage. An ordinary cone or knee would measure eight inches in diameter, and thirty inches high. It would seem like an abortive effort of the tree to put up another growth. The paroquet was exceedingly abundant at this place, along the shores, and in the woods. They told me that this bird rested by hooking its upper mandible to a limb. I made several shooting excursions into the neighbouring forests, and remember that I claimed, in addition to smaller trophies of these daily rambles, a shrike and a hystrix.

At length a keel boat came in from the Illinois Saline, commanded by a Captain Ensminger—an Americo-German—a bold, frank man, very intelligent of things relating to river navigation. With him I took passage for St. Louis, in Missouri, and we were soon under weigh, by the force of oars, for the mouth of the Ohio. We stopped a short time at a new hamlet on the Illinois shore, which had been laid out by some speculators of Cincinnati, but was remarkable for nothing but its name. It was called, by a kind of bathos in nomenclature, “America.” I observed on the shores of the river at this place, a very recent formation of pudding-stone, or rather a local stratum of indurated pebbles and clay, in which the cementing ingredient was the oxyde of iron. Chalybeate waters percolated over and amongst this mass. This was the last glimpse of consolidated matter. All below, and indeed far above, was alluvial, or of recent origin. Nothing could exceed the fertile character of the soil, or its rank vegetation and forest growth, as we approached the point of junction; but it was a region subject to periodical overflows, the eras of which were very distinctly marked by tufts and bunches of grass, limbs, and other floating matter which had been lodged and left in the forks and branches of trees, now fifteen or twenty feet above our heads. It was now the first day of July, and I felt the most intense interest as we approached and came to the point of confluence. I had followed the Ohio, in all its sinuosities, a thousand miles. I had spent more than three months in its beautiful and varied valley; and I had something of the attachment of an old friend for its noble volume, and did not well like to see it about to be lost in the mighty Mississippi. Broad and ample as it was, however, bringing in the whole congregated drain of the western slopes of the Alleghanies and the table lands of the Great Lakes, the contest was soon decided. The stream had, at that season, sunk down to its summer level, and exhibited a transparent blue volume. The Mississippi, on the contrary, was swelled by the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, and was in its vernal flood. Coming in at rather an acute angle, it does not immediately arrest the former, but throws its waters along the Tennessee shores. It runs with prodigious velocity. Its waters are thick, turbid, and replete with mingled and floating masses of sand and other comminuted rock and floating vegetation, trees, and rubbish. For miles the line of separation between the Ohio and Mississippi waters was visible by its colour; but long before it reaches the Iron Banks, the modern site of Memphis—the Father of Waters, as it is poetically, not literally, called—had prevailed, and held on its way to make new conquests of the St. Francis, the White, the Arkansas, and other noble streams.

Our captain, although he had no lack of self-confidence, did not seem to be in haste to grapple with this new foe, by plunging at once into the turbid stream, but determined to try it next morning. This left me, a good part of the day, in a position where there was not much to reward inquiry. I fished awhile from the boat’s side, but was rewarded with nothing besides a gar, a kind of sword, or rather billed fish, which appears to be provided with this appendage to stir up its food or prey from a muddy bottom. Its scales and skin are nearly as hard and compact as a shark’s, and its flesh is equally valueless. It is at this point that the town of Cairo has since been located. There were, at the period mentioned, several arks and flat-boats lying on the higher banks, where they had been moored in high water. These now served as dwellings, and by cutting doors in their sides they formed rude groceries and provision stores. Whatever else, however, was to be seen at so low and nascent a point, the mosquito as night came on, soon convinced us that he was the true magnate of those dominions.

The next morning at an early hour our stout-hearted commander put his boatmen in motion, and turned his keel into the torrent; but such was the velocity of the water, and its opacity and thick turbidness, that I thought we should have been precipitated down stream, and hurled against sunken logs. Those who have ascended this stream in the modern era of steamboats, know nothing of these difficulties. It seemed impossible to stem the current. A new mode of navigation, to me at least, was to be tried, and it was evidently one which the best practised and stoutest-hearted men by no means relished. These boats are furnished with a plank walk on each side, on which slats are nailed to give a foothold to the men. Each man has a pole of ash wood about 16 feet long, with a wooden knob at the head to rest against the shoulder, and a blunt point at the other end shod with iron. Planting these upon the bottom near shore, with their heads facing down stream, the men bend all their force upon them, propelling the boat by their feet in the contrary direction. This is a very laborious and slow mode of ascent, which has now been entirely superseded on the main rivers by the use of steam.

Such is the fury and velocity of the current, that it threatens at every freshet to tear down and burst asunder its banks, and run lawless through the country. Often whole islands are swept away in a short time. We had an instance of this one night, when the island against which we were moored, began to tumble into the channel, threatening to overwhelm us by the falling earth and the recoil of the waves, and we got away to the main shore with much effort, for night was set in, the current furious, and the shore to which we were going entirely unknown. To have struck a sunken log on such a traverse, under such circumstances, must have been fatal. We got at length upon a firm shore, where we moored and turned in at a late hour; but a curious cause of alarm again roused us. Some animal had made its appearance on the margin of the stream, not far below us, which in the dimness of the night appeared to be a bear. All who had arms, got them, and there was quite a bustle and no little excitement among the cabin passengers. The most knowing pronounced it to be a white bear. It produced a snorting sound resembling it. It seemed furious. Both white and furious it certainly was, but after much delay, commendable caution, and no want of the display of courage, it turned out to be a large wounded hog, which had been shot in the snout and head, and came to allay its fevered and festered flesh, by night, in the waters of the Mississippi.

To stem the current along this portion of the river required almost superhuman power. Often not more than a few miles can be made with a hard day’s exertions. We went the first day six miles, the second about the same distance, and the third eight miles, which brought us to the first cultivated land along a low district of the west shore, called the Tyewapety Bottom. There were six or eight small farms at this spot; the land rich, and said to be quite well adapted for corn, flax, hemp, and tobacco. I observed here the papaw. The next day we ascended but three miles and stopped, the crew being found too weak to proceed. While moored to the bank, we were passed by several boats destined for St. Louis, which were loaded with pine boards and plank from Olean, on the sources of the Alleghany. They told us that sixty dollars per thousand feet could be obtained for them.

Additional men having been hired, we went forward the next day to a point which is called the Little Chain of Rocks, where, from sickness in some of the hands, another halt became necessary. It is at this point that the firm cherty clay, or diluvial soil of the Missouri shore, first presents itself on the banks of the river. This soil is of a sterile and mineral character. I noticed beneath the first elevated point of it, near the river’s edge, a locality of white compact earth, which is called chalk, and is actually used as such by mechanics. On giving a specimen of it, after my return to New York in 1819, to Mr. John Griscom, he found it completely destitute of carbonic acid; it appears to be a condition of alumine or nearly pure clay. Large masses of pudding-stone, disrupted from their original position, were seen lying along the shore at this locality, being similar in their character to that seen on approaching the mouth of the Ohio.

We ascended the river this day ten miles, and the next five miles, which brought us to Cape Girardeau, at the estimated distance of fifty miles above the mouth of the Ohio. At this place I was received with attention by one of the principal residents, who, on learning that my object was to examine the natural history of the country, invited me to his house. In rambling the vicinity, they showed me a somewhat extra but dilapidated and deserted house, which had been built by one Loramee, a Spanish trader, who has left his name on one of the branches of the river St. Mary’s of Indiana. This old fabric excited a strong interest in my mind as I walked through its open doors and deserted rooms, by a popular story, how true I know not, that the occupant had been both a rapacious and cruel man, siding with the Indians in the hostilities against our western people; and that he had, on one occasion, taken a female captive, and with his own hands cut off her breasts.

The journey from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis occupied nineteen days, and was fraught with scenes and incidents of interest, which I should detail with pleasure were it compatible with my limits. Indeed, every day’s voyage along this varied and picturesque shore presented objects of remark, which both commended themselves to my taste, and which the slow mode of ascent gave me full means to improve. This might be said particularly of its geological structure and its mineralogical productions—themes which were then fresh and new, but which have lost much of their attractions by the progress which natural science has made in the country during six and twenty years. To these topics it is the less necessary to revert, as they were embraced in the results of my tour, given in my “View of the Mines,” published in 1819.

The article improperly called pumice, which floats down the Missouri during its floods, from the burning coal banks in the Black Hills, I first picked up on the shore in the ascent above Cape Girardeau, and it gave me an intimation that the waters had commenced falling. We came to, the same night, at a well known fountain, called the Moccasin Spring, a copious and fine spring of crystal water, which issues from an elongated orifice in the limestone rock.

While lying at the mouth of the river Obrazo, where we were detained on account of hands, several boats touched at the place, carrying emigrants from Vermont and New York, whose destination was the most westerly settlements on the Missouri. At higher points in the ascent we encountered emigrants from Maine, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Kentucky, which denotes the wide range of the spirit of migration at the era. The ends of the Union seemed to be brought together by this general movement towards the west. It was not uncommon to find representatives from a great number of the states in these accidental meetings; they were always of a social and highly friendly character, and the effect of such a system of intercommunication and residence, from districts widely separated, could not but be highly auspicious in promoting uniformity of manners and opinions, and assimilating customs, dress, and language. If long continued it must destroy provincialisms, and do much to annihilate local prejudices.

Every one who has ascended this stream will recollect the isolated cliff, standing in its waters, called Grand Tower, with the corresponding developments of the coast on the contiguous shores, which tell the traveller plainly enough that here is the site of some ancient disruptive process in the physical history of the valley. The current has an increased velocity in sweeping around this obstacle; and we found, as the waters fell, that there were numerous eddies and strong jets or currents along this precipitous coast, which it required extra force to surmount. We saw one day a number of pelicans standing on a sand bar. The wild turkey and quail were daily encountered on shore.

Our approach to St. Genevieve was preceded by a sight of one of those characteristic features in all the early French settlements in this quarter—the great public field extending several miles, five miles I think, along the banks of the river. St. Genevieve itself lies about a mile from the river, and is concealed by irregularities in the surface. It is a highly characteristic antique French town, and reminds one strongly of the style and manner of building of the provincial villages and towns of the parent country, as still existing. Three miles above this place we came to a noted point of crossing called the Little Rock Ferry; a spot worthy of note at that time as the residence of a very aged Frenchman, called Le Breton. Statements which are believed to be true, made him 109 years old. From his own account he was at the siege of Bergen-op-zoom, in Flanders; at the siege of Louisburg; at the building of Fort Chartres, in Illinois; and at Braddock’s defeat. After his discharge, he discovered those extensive lead mines in Washington county, about forty miles west of the river, which still bear his name.

The coast between St. Genevieve and Herculaneum is almost one continuous cliff of precipitous rocks, which are broken through chiefly at the points where rivers and streams discharge. Herculaneum itself is seated on one of these limited areas, hemmed in by cliffs, which, in this case, were rendered still more picturesque by their elevated shot towers. I landed at this place about noon of my twenty-second day’s ascent, and finding it a convenient avenue to the mine district, determined to leave my baggage at a hotel till my return from St. Louis, and pursue the rest of the journey to that place on foot. It was at this point that I was introduced to Mr. Austin, the elder, who warmly approved my plan of exploring the mines, and offered every facility in his power to further it. Mr. Austin was, he informed me at a subsequent stage of our acquaintance, a native of Connecticut. He had gone early into Virginia and settled at Richmond, where his eldest son was born, and afterwards removed to Wythe county. In 1778 he went into Upper Louisiana, enduring severe sufferings and the risk of life, in crossing the country by way of Vincennes to St. Louis, where he was well received by the Spanish local governor. He obtained a grant of land in the present area of Washington county, the principal seat of the older mines. About the time I went to Missouri, or soon after it, he resolved to visit San Antonio, in Texas, with a view of introducing a colony of Americans into that quarter. This plan he carried into execution, I think, in 1820, and returned with an ample grant; but he did not live to carry its stipulations into effect, having died suddenly after his return, at the house of his daughter, Mrs. Bryant, at Hazel Run.

Mr. Austin was a man of great zeal and fervour of imagination, and entered very warmly into all his plans and views, whatever they were. He was hospitable, frank, intelligent, and it is with feelings of unmixed pleasure, that I revert to my acquaintance with him, no less than with his talented son, Stephen, and the excellent, benign, and lady-like Mrs. Austin, and other members of this intelligent family.

NO. V.

Herculaneum had nothing in common with its sombre Italian prototype, which has been dug out of dust and ashes in modern times, but its name. Instead of buried palaces and ruins of a luxurious age of marble, bronze and silver, most of the houses were built of squared oak logs, and had bulky old fashioned chimneys, built outside with a kind of castelated air, as they are seen in the old French and Dutch settlements in Canada, and along the vallies of the Hudson and Mohawk. The arts of painting and gilding and cornices, had not yet extended their empire here. Mr. Austin’s residence, was the only exception to this remark, I remember. The Courts of Justice were content to hold their sessions in one of the oaken timber buildings named; the county jail had a marvellous resemblance to an ample smoke-house, and my kind host, Ellis, who was a native of South Carolina, was content to serve up substantial and good cheer in articles, not exhumed from a city buried in volcanic ashes, but in plain fabrics of Staffordshire and Birmingham. In addition to the host-like and agreeable resort, which travellers unexpectedly found at his hands, in a mansion whose exterior gave no such signs, he presided over the department of a public ferry, established at this place, across the wild and fluctuating Mississippi; and had he kept note book, he could have given account of many a one, from other lands, with golden hopes of the far west, whom he had safely conducted, against the most adverse floods, to the Missouri shore. I found a few old books at his house, which showed that there had been readers in his family, and which helped to while away moments, which every traveller will find on his hands.

I have intimated that there was nothing in the way of the antique, in Herculaneum, but its name. To this I might add, that there was no exception, unless it be found in the impressions of objects, in the structure, of the rocks, in this quarter, denoting a prior age of existence. I was shown an impression, in the surface of a block of limestone, quarried here, which was thought to resemble a man’s foot. It did not appear to me to bear this similitude, but was rather to be referred to some organic extinct forms, which are not yet well understood.

Having passed a couple of days here, I set out early one morning, on foot, for St. Louis, accompanied by two young men from Pennsylvania, with whom I had become acquainted on prior parts of my route. They had come with an adventure of merchandize from the waters of the Yioughagany, and were desirous of seeing the (then) capitol of the Territory. Nothing untoward occurred, until we reached and crossed the river Merrimack, where night overtook us, and set in with intense darkness, just as we reached the opposite shore. There was but one house in the vicinity; and not distant more than a mile, but such was the intensity of the darkness, owing to clouds and a gathering storm, that we lost the road, wandered in the woods for some hours, during which the rain commenced, and were at length directed to the house we sought, by the faint and occasional tinkling of a cow bell.

We travelled the next morning twelve miles, to breakfast at the antique looking village of Carondalet. The route lies over an elevated tract of uplands, eligibly situated on the right bank of the Mississippi, in which a growth of wild prairie grass and flowers, filled up the broad spaces between the trees. There was no habitation visible on the route—a standing spring under a ledge of rocks, about halfway, was the only spot where we could get a drop of water to allay our thirst—for it was a hot August day. We encountered several deer, and from the frequent occurrence of their tracks, deemed such an occurrence to be common. It is on this elevated and airy tract, that the site of Jefferson Barracks, has since been judiciously established by the government.

Beyond Carondalet, the country has the appearance of a grown-up heath. It is a bushy uninviting tract, without mature forest trees. The most interesting feature we saw, consisted of a number of regular depressions, or cup-shaped concavities in the soil, caused by the passage of springs over a clay basis, upon which there is deposited a heavy diluvial stratum of sand, mixed earth and pebbles. Within about three miles of the city, this heathy and desolate tract began to assume a cultivated character; dwellings and gardens soon succeeded, and we found ourselves, by almost imperceptible grades, introduced into the city, which we reached about four o’clock in the afternoon. On entering its ancient Spanish barriers, we noticed one of the old stone towers, or defences, which constituted a part of the enclosure. This town, I afterwards learned, had been regularly walled and fortified, during the possession of the country by the Spanish crown. As soon as I had taken lodgings, I called on R. Pettibone Esq., a friend formerly of Vernon, in western N. Y. who had established himself in this central city of the west, in the practice of the law; he was not in, at the moment, but his family received me with cordiality. He returned my visit in the evening, and insisted on my taking up my quarters at his house. The time that I spent here, was devoted to the most prominent objects which the town and its vicinity presented to interest a stranger, such as the private museum of the late Gen. Wm. Clark, containing many articles of rich and valuable Indian costume; the large natural mounds above the city, and the character of the rock formation along the shores of the river, which was said to have had the impressions of human feet, on its original surface. The latter I did not see till the summer of 1821, when the block of stone containing them was examined in Mr. Rapp’s garden, at Harmony, on the Wabash.

My inclinations having led me, at this time, to visit the extensive lead mines, south-west of this city, on the waters of the Merrimack, I lost no time in retracing my way to Herculaneum, by descending the Mississippi.

When I was prepared to descend the river, the two gentlemen who had been my travelling companions, on the journey up, had completed the business of their adventure, and offered me a seat, in a small boat, under their control. It was late in the afternoon of the day that this arrangement was proposed, and it was dusk before we embarked; but it was thought the village of Cahokia, some five or six miles below, could be reached in good season. A humid and misty atmosphere rendered the night quite dark, and we soon found ourselves afloat on the broad current of the stream, without knowing our position, for it was too intensely dark to descry the outlines of either shore. Being in a light open boat, we were not only in some peril, from running foul of drifting trees, but it became disagreeably cold. On putting in for the Illinois shore, a low sandy bar, or shoal was made, but one of my companions who had landed came running back with an account of a bear and her cub, which caused us to push on about a mile further, where we passed the night, without beds or fire. Daylight disclosed to us the fact that we had passed Cahokia; we then crossed over to the Missouri shore, and having taken breakfast at Carondalet, continued the voyage, without any further misadventure, and reached Herculaneum at noon.

I lost no time in preparing to visit the mines, and having made arrangements for my baggage to follow, set out on foot for Potosi. The first day I proceeded eighteen miles, and reached Steeples, at the head of the Zwoshau, or Joachim river, at an early hour. The day was excessively hot, and the road lay for the greater part of the distance, over a ridge of land, which afforded no water, and very little shelter from the sun’s rays. I met not a solitary individual on the route, and with the exception of the small swift footed lizard, common to the way side, and a single wild turkey, nothing in the animal kingdom. The antlers of the deer frequently seen above the grass, denoted it however to abound in that animal. I was constrained while passing this dry tract, to allay my thirst at a pool, in a rut, not, however, without having disconcerted a wild turkey, which had come apparently for the same purpose.

Next day I crossed the valley of Grand or Big river, as it is commonly called, and at the distance of twelve miles from the Joachim, I entered the mining village of Shibboleth—the feudal seat, so to say, of the noted “John Smith T.” of whose singularities rumour had already apprized me. Here was a novel scene. Carts passing with loads of ore—smelting furnaces, and fixtures, and the half-hunter, half-farmer costumes of the group of men who were congregated about the principal store, told me very plainly, that I was now in the mining region. Lead digging and discovering, and the singular hap-hazards of men who had suddenly got rich by finding rich beds of ore, and suddenly got poor by some folly or extravagance, gave a strong colouring to the whole tone of conversation at this spot, which was carried on neither in the mildest or most unobtrusive way; quite a vocabulary of new technical words burst upon me, of which it was necessary to get the correct import. I had before heard of the pretty term, “mineral blossom,” as the local name for radiated quartz, but here were tiff (sulphate of barytes), glass-tiff (calcareous spar), “mineral sign,” and a dozen other words, to be found in no books. At the head of these new terms stood the popular word “mineral,” which invariably meant galena, and nothing else. To hunt mineral, to dig mineral, and to smelt mineral, were so many operations connected with the reduction of the ores of galena.

I soon found the group of men about the village store, was a company of militia, and that I was in the midst of what New Yorkers call a “training,” which explained the hunter aspect I had noticed. They were armed with rifles, and dressed in their every day leather or cotton hunting shirts. The officers were not distinguished from the men, either because swords were not easily procured, or more probably, because they did not wish to appear with so inefficient and useless an arm. “Food for powder,” was the first term that occurred to me on first surveying this group of men, but nothing could have been more inapposite; for although like “lean Jack’s” men, they had but little skill in standing in a right line, never were men better skilled for personal combat,—from the specimens given, I believe there was hardly a man present, who could not drive a bullet into the size of a dollar at a hundred yards. No man was better skilled in this art, either with rifle or pistol, than the Don of the village, the said John Smith T, or his brother, called “the Major,” neither of whom travelled, or eat, or slept, as I afterwards witnessed, without their arms. During my subsequent rambles in the mine country, I have sat at the same table, slept in the same room, and enjoyed the conversation of one or the other, and can say, that their extraordinary habit of going fully armed, was united in both with courteous manners, honourable sentiments, and high chivalric notions of personal independence; and I had occasion to notice, that it was none but their personal enemies, or opponents in business, that dealt in vituperation against them. John Smith T. was doubtless a man of singular and capricious humours, and a most fiery spirit, when aroused; of which scores of anecdotes are afloat. He was at variance with several of his most conspicuous neighbours, and, if he be likened to the lion of the forest, it will be perfectly just to add, that most of the lesser animals stood in fear of him.

My stop here had consumed some time, but thinking I could still reach Minè a Burton, I pushed on, but had only proceeded a couple of miles when I was hastily compelled to seek shelter from an impending shower. As it was late, and the storm continued, I remained at a farm house, at Old Mines during the night. They gave me a supper of rich fresh milk and fine corn bread. In the morning, a walk of three miles brought me to Potosi, where I took lodgings at Mr. Ficklin’s, proprietor of the principal inn of the place. Mr. F. was a native of Kentucky, a man of open frank manners, and most kind benevolent feelings, who had seen much of frontier life, had lived a number of years in Missouri, and now at a rather advanced period of life, 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.

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 diluvial 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 fissure of the limestone rock. I descended into this fissure, and found among the rubbish and vein stones, large elongated and orbicular masses of calc spar, the outer surfaces of which bore strong marks of geological abrasion. They broke into rhombs very transparent, and of a honey-yellow colour. Mr. Elliot, the intelligent proprietor of this mine, represented the indications of ore to have been flattering, although every thing was now at a stand. Masses of sulphuret of zinc, in the form of blende, were noticed at this locality. Mr. Elliot invited me to dine, and he filled up the time with interesting local reminiscences. He stated, among other facts, that a copious spring, at these mines, dried up during the remarkable earthquakes of 1812. These earthquakes appear to have discharged their shocks in the direction of the stratification from the south-west to the north-east, but they spent their force west of the Mississippi. Their chief violence was at Natchitoches and New Madrid, at the latter of which they destroyed an immense area of alluvial land. Their effects in the Ohio valley, lying exactly in the direction of their action, were slight. A Mr. Watkins, of Cincinnati, accompanied me on this examination, and rode back with me to Potosi.

On the 9th of August, I had dined with Samuel Perry, Esq., at Mine á Burton, one of the principal inhabitants of the county, and was passing the evening at Mr. Austin’s, when Mr. and Mrs. Perry came suddenly in. They had hardly taken seats, when a rabble of persons with bells and horns surrounded the house, and kept up a tumult that would have done honor to one of the wildest festivals of St. Nicholas, headed by Brom Bones himself. This, we were told, was a Chiraviri. And what is a Chiraviri? I am not deep enough read in French local customs to give a satisfactory answer, but the custom is said to be one that the populace may indulge in, whenever a marriage has taken place in the village, which is not in exact accordance with their opinions of its propriety. I was, by this incident informed of Mr. Perry’s recent marriage, and should judge, moreover, that he had exercised both taste and judgment in his selection of a partner. The affair of the Chiraviri is said to have been got up by some spiteful persons.

Towards the middle of the month (12th,) I set out, accompanied by Mr. James B. Austin, on horseback, for Herculaneum, by the way of Hazel Run, a route displaying a more southerly section of the mine country than I had before seen. A ride on horseback over the mine hills, offers one of the most delightful prospects of picturesque sylvan beauty that can be well conceived of. The hills are, with a few exceptions, not precipitous enough to make the ride irksome. They rise in long and gentle swells, resembling those of the sea, in which the vessel is, by an easy motion, alternately at the top of liquid hills, or in the bottom of liquid vales. From these hills the prospect extends over a surface of heath-grass and prairie flowers, with an open growth of oaks; giving the whole country rather the aspect of a park than a wilderness. Occasionally a ridge of pine intervenes, and wherever there is a brook, the waters present the transparency of rock crystal. Sometimes a range of red clay hillocks, putting up rank shrubs and vines of species which were unknown before, indicates an abandoned digging or mine. Farms and farm houses were then few; and every traveller we met on horseback, had more or less the bearing of a country cavalier, with a fine horse, good equipments, perhaps holsters and pistols, sometimes a rifle, and always something of a military air, betokening manliness and independence. Wherever we stopped, and whoever we met on the way, there was evinced a courteous and hospitable disposition.

We did not leave Potosi till afternoon. It was a hot August day, and it was dusk before we entered the deep shady valley of Big River. Some delay arose in waiting for the ferryman to put us across the river, and it was nine o’clock in the evening when we reached Mr. Bryant’s, at Hazel Run, where we were cordially received. Our host would not let us leave his house, next morning, till after breakfast. We rode to McCormick’s, on the Platten, to dinner, and reached Herculaneum before sunset. The distance by this route from Potosi is forty-five miles, and the road, with the exception of a couple of miles, presented a wholly new section of the country.

The Mississippi was now low, displaying large portions of its margin, and exhibiting heavy deposits of mud and slime, which broke into cakes, as they dried in the sun. I know not whether these exhalations affected me, but I experienced a temporary illness for a few days during this visit. I recollect that we had, during this time, some severe and drenching rain storms, with vivid and copious lightning, and heavy pealing thunder. These drenching and rapid showers convert the brooks and rills of the mine country to perfect torrents, and this explains one cause of the washing away and gullying of roads and streets, so remarkable on the west bank of the Mississippi. My illness induced me to give up returning on horseback; and I set out, on the 18th of the month, in a dearborn, accompanied by Mrs. Austin. On descending the long hill, near Donnell’s, beyond the Joachim, the evening was so dark that I became sensible I must have got out of the road. I drove with the more care a few moments, and stopped. Requesting Mrs. Austin to hold the reins, I jumped out and explored the ground. I found myself in an abandoned, badly gullied track, which would have soon capsized the wagon; but leading the horse by the bridle, I slowly regained my position in the direct road and got down the hill, and reached the house without further accident. Next day we drove into Potosi by four o’clock in the afternoon. This was my second visit, and I now accepted a room and quarters for my collection, at their old homestead called Durham Hall.

From this period till the middle of September, I pursued with unremitting assiduity, the enquiry in hand, and by that time had made a cabinet collection, illustrating fully the mineralogy, and, to some extent, the geological structure of the country. I erected a small chemical furnace for assays. Some of the clays of the country were found to stand a high heat, and by tempering them with pulverized granite, consisting largely of feldspar, I obtained crucibles that answered every purpose. Some of the specimens of lead treated in the dry way, yielded from 75 to 82 per cent.

Accident threw in my way, on the 25th of August, a fact which led to the discovery of a primitive tract, on the southern borders of the mine country, the true geological relation of which to the surrounding secondary formations, formed at the outset rather a puzzle. I rode out on horseback on that day, with Mr. Stephen F. Austin, to Miller’s, on the Mineral Fork, to observe a locality of manganese, and saw lying, near his mills, some large masses of red syenitic granite, which appeared to have been freshly blasted. He remarked that they were obtained on the St. Francis, and were found to be the best material at hand for millstones. On examination, the rock consisted almost exclusively of red feldspar and quartz. A little hornblende was present, but scarcely a trace of mica. This species of syenitic granite, large portions of which, viewed in the field, are complete syenite, and all of which is very barren of crystals, I have since found on the upper Mississippi, and throughout the north-western regions above the secondary latitudes. The hint, however, was not lost. I took the first opportunity to visit the sources of the St. Francis: having obtained letters to a gentleman in that vicinity, I set out on horseback for that region, taking a stout pair of saddle-bags, to hold my collections. I passed through Murphy’s and Cook’s settlements, which are, at the present time, the central parts of St. Francis county. Mine a la Motte afforded some new facts in its mineralogical features. I first saw this red syenite, in place, on Blackford’s Fork. The westernmost limits of this ancient mine extends to within a mile or two of this primitive formation. The red clay formation extends to the granitic elevations, and conceals their junction with the newer rock. The nearest of the carboniferous series, in place, is on the banks of Rock Creek, at some miles’ distance. It is there the crystalline sand stone. How far this primitive district of the St. Francis extends, has not been determined. The St. Francis and Grand rivers, both have their sources in it. It is probable the Ozaw Fork of the Merrimack comes from its western borders. Not less than twenty or thirty miles can be assigned for its north and south limits. The Iron mountain of Bellvieu is within it. The vicinity of the pass called the Narrows, appears to have been the locality of former volcanic action. A scene of ruder disruption, marked by the vast accumulation of broken rock, it would be difficult to find. Indeed the whole tract is one of high geological, as well as scenic interest. Had the observer of this scene been suddenly dropped down into one of the wildest, broken, primitive tracts of New England, or the north-east angle of New York, he could not have found a field of higher physical attractions. Trap and greenstone constitute prominent tracts, and exist in the condition of dykes in the syenite, or feldspathique granite. I sought in vain for mica in the form of distinct plates. Some of the greenstone is handsomely porphyritic, and embraces green crystals of feldspar. Portions of this rock are sprinkled with masses of bright sulphuret of iron. Indeed iron in several of its forms abounds. By far the largest portion of it is in the shape of the micaceous oxyde. I searched, without success, for the irridescent specular variety, or Elba ore. In returning from this trip, I found Wolf river greatly swollen by rains, and had to swim it at much hazard, with my saddle-bags heavily laden with the results of my examination. It was dark when I reached the opposite bank: wet and tired I pushed for the only house in sight. As I came to it the doors stood open, the fences were down, a perfect air of desolation reigned around. There was no living being found; and the masses of yawning darkness exhibited by the untenanted rooms, seemed a fit residence for the genius of romance. Neither my horse nor myself were, however, in a temper or plight for an adventure of this kind, and the poor beast seemed as well pleased as I was, to push forward from so cheerless a spot. Four miles’ riding through an untenanted forest, and a dark and blind road, brought us to a Mr. Murphy’s, the sponsor of Murphy’s settlement.