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VISIT TO THE IRON MOUNTAINS OF MISSOURI.

FOR many years, I had desired to visit

the noted mineral regions of South Eastern Missouri, but professional engagements had hitherto prevented. My long cherished design was accomplished in the autumn of 1853. In company with a friend, I left home in my buggy, equipped with all necessary appurtenances for a somewhat tedious journey, through a wild rough region. Desiring to see somewhat of "Egypt," we kept the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, as far as St. Genevieve, which lies sixty miles south of St. Louis. The first night we passed at Waterloo, a thriving county seat, twenty-five miles southeast from St. Louis. The town and neighboring county are fast filling up with the lower order of Germans, a hard working and hard drinking people, who seem to be about to take complete possession of the best portions of Illinois and Missouri. Southern Illinois, long before the German invasion, was known as "Egypt" by all outsiders; its settlers being mostly from the ground tier of the population of Kentucky and Tennessee, poor, shiftless, ignorant and indolent. In moral and intellectual culture, and also in horti- and agriculture, the State of Illinois tapers of as you travel southward, just as it does topographically and geographically upon the maps, till you get to Cairo. This is its present status-what it may be when our system of railroads shall be completed, is a question; let us postpone an answer for ten years.

The next day we rode over a hilly and heavily timbered country, sparsely settled even by Germans, until, at about noon, we came in sight again of the American Bottom, at the verge of the steep bluffs which every where inclose the river. Here we had one of those magnificent views which are only to be found in the vicinity of western rivers. Little lakes here sparkled in the sunshine, and there darkened in the shade of passing clouds. Broad meadows, green and cheerful, spread out in all directions, losing themselves only under the shadow of giant cypresses, moisture-loving cotton woods, and in the embrace of tangled vines. Here the vegetable luxuriance of the tropics is tempered and diminished but slightly by the blasts and chills of our uncertain winter. We ought to have tigers, lions, and anacondas in these jungles and marshes, and the fact of their pertinacious avoidance of our excellent

accommodations, can only be accounted for by their lack of an educated taste, or a decided want of natural judgment.

With some difficulty we descended the precipitous hill, the road being badly gullied by a recent rain, but at length found ourselves riding along a narrow path, directly under ragged cliffs of carboniferous limestone, which every where threatened to topple down and put a sudden quietus on us and our journey. The immense masses of rock, thrown promiscuously all around, and the smaller fragments (about the size and shape of a blacksmith's anvil) which constituted the pavement over which we rode, reminded us of walks at Niagara under the cliffs-not quite as smooth and nicely rolled and gravelled as a garden walk. We found a substitute for the roar of the falls, in the voice of the wind among the thrifty trees, which every where, in spite of any uncertainty of tenure, had planted themselves and forced their way between the edges and interstices of incumbent rocks. Soon we came to a little stream of water, which crossed our track with such swiftness as to attract our curiosity towards its source. We alighted from the carriage, and a few yards walk brought us where the stream rushed horizontally from the bowels of the bluff, its diameter being about the size of a pipe of wine, and its current as swift as the arrow, so that it made a very respectable cataract; in fact, it seemed to laugh and spread itself still more while we looked on, as if rejoicing to be able to prove even to two admirers, "fit audience though few," that some things could be done in Illinois, as well as in other places. Probably, this was the outlet of one of the "sink-holes" common in the limestone regions. In dry times, doubtless the stream is nowhere, but a very heavy rain had fallen two days previous, and caused all this commotion, and more also, as will be seen hereafter. Hurrying on as fast as possible, that is, nearly as fast as a terrapin with a live coal on his back, we arrived at length at a little French village called Prairie de Rocher, which is one of the earliest settlements on the Mississipi, being nearly 150 years old. Its population must have increased at a rate rather unusual to western towns, there being nearly twenty houses in the place in 1853. The inhabitants are old Fogies to a man, woman and child-all French, with a stubborn love for ancient ponycarts and white-wash. We dined at a

very neat little tavern, and pushed on. Passing through the sleepy-looking street of the village, we came suddenly on the banks of the little stream before mentioned, and a few miles further, we found it directly crossing our path, as it did near its source; but here, it was quite another sort of thing, it had spread over a breadth of a hundred yards, besides scooping out for itself a comfortable bed in the middle, which two Creole Frenchmen, whom we met hunting, assured us would not be so very comfortable for us, if we got into it. the water being deep, and the mud under it deeper. In short, they told us it was absolutely impassable. It was very easy to go back and give up the object of our journey altogether. We could take another road and go down to Kaskaskia, twelve or fifteen miles, cross the river, and come up on the other side a like distance, or we could leave our horse, swim the stream and do the rest of the journey on foot, neither of these plans was very agreeable. We then asked our Frenchmen, if there were no other place to cross the stream; they told us, pointing in a certain direction, that we might possibly cross there, as the water was not so deep. "How deep is it?" "Probably, it will come into your wagon a leetle." We offered money, if they would go in and sound, which they respectfully declined, though with assurances of their distinguished consideration. H. and I, then held a council of war, and came to the decision to risk crossing, our Frenchmen, agreeing, like some other European powers, to stand by, at safe distance, and see us into or out of this "free fight" just as fate might order. We put our luggage on the seat, I plied the whipthe horse took to the water, and in a few seconds, he was floundering in the mud, with the water six inches deep in the bottom of the buggy. Bob seemed determined to drown himself, endeavoring all the time to get his head under water. H. being a man of enterprise and strong physical force, stripped and jumped into the vasty and nasty deep, with intent to take the horse by the head, and lead him through. But Bob probably had never seen a naked man before, and, being a western horse, his acquaintance with the best styles of statuary was rather limited. The consequence was, that our nude Apollo so terrified the horse, that he gave a sudden convulsive plunge which broke a shaft of the toughest material, and greatly damaged the harness, after which struggle, he quietly settled down again into the mud, I being no longer able to VOL. III.-20

keep his nose out of the water. H. then released him from the thills, and fairly dragged him by main force into shoal water, when the beast got up, and attempted to run, but was secured by the Frenchmen, who thus manifested a disposition, at all hazards, to preserve a balance of power, so far as it could be done without detriment to themselves. These men then consented to be hired to come in, and help us out of our predicament. We had now to follow a mere bridle path for several miles, over and around fallen trees, and through brake and tangled brier, till we arrived on the bank of the Mississippi, where we saw the long-hidden sun just dipping his disk behind the hills. Fortunately the ferryman, with his small flat-boat, was ready, and we were safely rowed across, for the nice little sum of $1,50. On our complaining somewhat of the exorbitance of this tax, he informed us that he had only a dozen jobs or so, in the course of a year, and he must have enough to keep up the concern.

Immediately on landing on the western bank of the river, we met with decided evidence, in the shape of huge piles of pigiron, that we were in the great mineral region of the West. It was the first place we had seen, except Galena, where pigs of metal were more plentiful than pigs of pork. Two miles down the river, brought us to St. Genevieve, where we were soon comfortably housed in the hotel of Mr. Dutchaminny-no Dutchman at all, as his name would seem to imply, but a very sociable, gentlemanly Frenchman-a politican, formerly member of the Senate of Missouri. He is the best specimen of landlords to be found west of the Alleghanies. In general, our western landlords partake of the careless, independent manners of the other inhabitants. They behave as if they feel they are doing you an extraordinary and undeserved favor, by allowing you to stay in their houses at all. Traveller! visit my friend Dutchaminny, if you want to find a courteous landlord, good fare, good beds, and good servants, at reasonable rates. H., who is an ultra-abolitionist, and for a good while Director of the Grand Junction Underground, did not relish seeing so many of his colored brothers and sisters in bonds, and I was in great fear lest he should make use of the old flatboat in the night, and leave me and good Mr. Dutchamninny in the lurch. But the cold bath and other toils of the journey made him speedily forget his colored brethren, in the strong embraces of Morpheus; and as I have seen no advertise

ment of runaway negroes from St. Genevieve, I infer that he forgot to furnish any tickets during his stay. We left St. Genevieve at 7 A. M., in excellent spirits, at the thought that our whole day's journey of forty-three miles must be accomplished on an excellent plank road, surveyed and laid out by my old college friend, Singleton. A few miles of travel convinced us that report had not belied the road. We had both travelled on four or five plank roads in Illinois, and were obliged to yield the palm to this. The planks were four inches thick-the grades all easy, though the natural country was abominably hilly and broken-its culverts, bridges, &c., were all of the best material and workmanship. The whole affair was no sixpenny operation, designed for a mere beginning, and accommodated to the poverty of the country through which it passed. It cost about $200,000, and was designed to stand a while after being finished.

About five miles from the river, we met the first object of much interest to a mineralogist. It was a fine bed of pure carbonate of lime, very white, and so soft as to be rubbed off with the fingers and on our clothes. If it is not oolite, it answers the description of it, as well as any thing I have seen. Here was a steam saw-mill, sawing blocks of this rock into slabs for coping, &c.

The country for twenty miles abounded in oak timber of various species. We saw but few cabins or houses, and those were inhabited chiefly by Germans and Frenchmen, who had seized on the only tillable patches of earth in this regionlittle valleys between the everlasting hills; and who eke out a living by keeping sheep and cattle, suffering them to wander at will, in summer and winter, over the unfenced country. As to the amount of corn and potatoes which they raise on their nineteen-cornered lots, I got no statistics, but I reckon, judging from the spindled appearance of the stalks when we passed, that this year they must have garnered a couple of bushels to the acre. Limestone, however, is plentiful, cropping out very conveniently, all around and above the dwellings; and, in some places, we observed stone walls, a great rarity in the West, and a pleasant sight to an Eastern man. In the first twenty miles, we met more than fifty teams, loaded with pig and bloom iron, after which we ceased to count them, though they continued as abundant to the end of our journey. The wagons are generally drawn by four or six mules, though sometimes

by oxen, and they haul an average of 1000 lbs. to each mule, though often much more. The wagoners are allowed twenty cents per hundred for hauling to St. Genevieve, and they accomplish the journey there and back in three days.

We began now to pass occasional yellow pine trees, growing out of beds of gravel (drift), of which the whole surface of the country seemed to be composed. In this gravelly soil, intermixed with red clay, we began to observe very plentiful traces of iron. The streams also were clear, and ran swiftly over pebbled beds, very different in style from the dull, muddy, cat-fish creeks, so common in Illinois and Northern Missouri. Twentyfive miles from St. Genevieve we came to a pretty extensive forge, owned by Baily, Prewitt & Co., who produce from six to eight tons of iron per day. Their ore comes exclusively from the Iron Mountain, by arrangement. From July 1st to October 1st, 1853, 249 tons of pig-metal and blooms were sent to St. Genevieve from this forge. It was not in working order when we arrived, the hammer being broken.

Three miles further ride brought us to Farmington, a pleasant little village, lying in a fertile basin of land, and around which were some very respectable and productive farms. After dinner, we commenced our travels again, and six miles east of Iron Mountain, came upon the first formation of granite. For this, our eager eyes had been on the watch ever since we left St. Genevieve, and it gave us as much joy as the first sight of the hills of New England gives to him who has been long absent, living in regions where for years he has seen nothing but monotonous stratifications. This old hill was surmounted by a cap of red granite, resting on a bigger head and body of the same, and all covered with mosses and lichens. We mounted the highest pinnacle, and made the woods resound with three cheers for old Massachusetts. rock here is sienite rather than granitehornblende taking the place of mica, which is absent. It disintegrates easily, in consequence of the softness of the feldspar, and the action of the weather upon it here, and throughout this region, has given a peculiar rotundity to every mass of rock, great or small.

The

About sunset, we arrived at Iron Mountain village. We found at the supper table a very intelligent German, who was, like ourselves, on a tour of observation. He had just come down from the Iron Mountain, but offered to escort us to

the summit, and as it was bright moonlight, we decided to forget our fatigue, and accept his offer. There was no road, not even a footpath, any where. Travellers here are all men of genius, who strike out original tracks-never following the footsteps of their predecessors, however illustrious. Consequently, we had to toil our weary way through the brush to the very top. We walked the entire distance over a solid iron pavement, which resounded to our footsteps, like a brick sidewalk to the iron-heeled boots that tramp over it in the still midnight. Occasionally, we paused to pick up fragments of the pavement, to assure ourselves it was no vulgar stone we were walking on, and we found it always solid iron ore. You cannot pick up a stone any where on the surface of the mountain, and I was forcibly reminded of the description of the land of Canaan-" A land whose stones are iron." Next day, we travelled over the entire surface of the mountain. It is 250 feet high, has a superficial area of 500 acres, and seems to be, throughout its whole length and breadth and depth, composed of specular peroxyd of iron. So far as any excava、 tions have been made, the same appearances are presented as at the surface, viz., pieces of iron ore, from the size of a lady's thimble to the size of a man's head, closely packed together with a slight filling-in of brown clay. On the very top of the hill, however, the masses are much larger, some of several tons weight. All the diggings are at the bottom of the hill, close as possible to the only furnace yet erected there. The workmen seem to be digging the hill down bodily with mattocks, as if making a deep cut for a railroad. The hill. however, will outlast several generations of Irishmen at the rate they are working now.

We were introduced by our German friend to Mr. Valle, one of the principal owners of the works, and also to Mr. Scott, manager and part owner. These gentlemen were very civil to us, and invited us to witness the operation of casting the melted ore into pig-metal, promising to ring the bell when all was ready, while we amused ourselves by examining the furnace and the roasting-pits near by. It is not my intention in the present article, to describe minutely all the machinery and processes of iron-inaking. For these, vide Encyclopedias, &c. Let it suffice to say, that the ore, when taken from its native bed, is first roasted in heaps, by means of charcoal, to expel the sulphur, carbon, water, &c., and to ren

der it more friable. It is then macadamized into small pieces (by hand at the Iron Mountain, by hammers or stampers, worked by steam, at Pilot Knob), after which it is put into the blast furnace, to be melted and separated from all remaining earthy matter. When the crucible or "hearth" of the furnace becomes filled with melted metal. the mouth is unstopped, and the metal is suffered to run out, down a slightly inclined plane, into a ditch of damp sand, which has lateral openings or gullies to receive the melted metal. The iron which has thus run out into these moulds, is called cast-iron, or pig-metal. As soon as the moulds are filled, the mouth of the furnace is stopped again, and the workmen, with very longhandled hoes, scrape a thin covering of sand over the whole surface of the metal, and leave it to cool.

The operation of casting is interesting, particularly by night. A fierce red glare lights up the interior of the cavern-like building. The red-shirted workmen leap about with their iron rods and hoes, like so many frolicsome demons stirring up the fires of Tartarus, and occasionally running a pitchfork into a writhing victim; and the fiery liquid vomits forth from the mouth of the furnace at the rate of three tons in three minutes.

Iron Mountain, the works, and an immense quantity of land, are owned chiefly by Choteau, Harrison and Valle. A Mr. Van Doren, from New-York, laid the first foundation of the enterprise which is now going on so prosperously. At all events, to him belongs the undisputed honor of doing the principal part of the windwork. About 1836, he and others, by the special aid of my friend and host, Hon. Mr. Dutchaminny, got a charter from the legislature, on the basis of which, Van Doren created a breeze in the eastern cities, which, to use the language of the logbooks, increased to a perfect hurricane. He published pamphlets, articles in newspapers, &c. He calculated, to a pound, the quantity of ore, and its value to a decimal fraction. He broached the project of a railroad to the Mississippi, to transport the iron. But the grand collapse of 1837 came, and down went Mr. Van Doren and his projects, without the building of any furnace or forge. The charter remained unused, till as late as the year 1845. Then, several wealthy men of St. Louis, Pierre Choteau, James Harrison and Lewis V. Bogy bought of Messrs. Zeigler and others land and stock, and went to work under the name of the American Iron Mountain Company.

The metal of the Iron Mountain ore, makes what is called red short iron; that is, iron which breaks too easily when it is at a cherry-red heat. They remedy this fault, by mixing about half Tennessee pigmetal with it. This is a great disadvantage, for obvious reasons. When metal

reaches a very high price as now, $40 to $50, they have to pay this extravagant price for stock, out of which to make bar iron, besides all the inconvenience and delays to which such dependence must always subject them.

The Iron Mountain Company, from July 1 to October 1, 1853, sent to the river 3,318 tons of iron. Most of this goes to St. Louis to be worked up-some of it is said to be sent up the Ohio River.

On Saturday, we left Iron Mountain for Pilot Knob, six miles distant. The road winds all the way through a valley, and is the worst road I ever travelled, always excepting all the other natural roads in this vicinity. To say that the roads, for thirty or forty miles around, are bad, expresses no meaning whatever. They are a continuous, agonizing collocation of all the rocks, stumps, roots, and mud, which could be brought together for .miles and miles. You come down from a pile of paving-stones, only to plunge into a hub-deep gully of mud. Your wheels mount a big log lying across the road, only to become fast between a stump and a ledge of outcropping rocks. It is like following the bed of a narrow stream which has dug out its own course among the hills, wrenching it step by step, from the unwilling hand of nature. Our journey in fact resembled that of Milton's fiend, on his travels into the thinly settled territory of Chaos and Old Night.

"O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or

rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies "

all but the flying. Nothing flies in these regions, except horse-flies and buffalo-gnats -even the birds, at least those we saw, only have room to dance and hop a little.

However, a couple of hours brought us within sight of the gray head of Pilot Knob, 700 feet above us, looking out from its clothing of verdure like the head of the fat woman from the surrounding mass of ——green and striped calico. We could now understand whence it got its name. There it stood just as it did a hundred years ago, when the first white hunters saw it afar off, from every hill-top.

We left our horse and carriage at the tavern, and started for the summit, leav

ing furnaces, forges, &c. to take care of themselves, till we got ready to attend to them. We found a road leading nearly to the top, for, unlike Iron Mountain, the diggings here are more than half way up the hill. We met with little that was interesting on this rough road to the diggings, except occasional blocks of feldspar and granite, which convinced us that Pilot Knob was not all iron, like Iron Mountain. In fact, the first point where iron made its appearance in workable quantities, was at the diggings aforesaid, and from this point to the top of the hill, a further height probably of 150 feet, the Knob seemed to consist of solid and immense blocks of ore, not of small pieces like most of the Iron Mountain. Nothing short of the furnace of the last day will ever be able to smelt it. On we clambered, toiling our way up the ascent, which was all the while growing steeper, till at length we gained the highest pinnacle, and sat down to rest, breathe, and, in silence, to admire. Below and around us, rose on all sides turrets of iron, like towers of a cathedral or castle-taking more shapes than the fancy of human architect ever devised-battlements, buttresses, and bastions of iron, inclosing a natural fortress of several acres; and directly beneath was a precipitous gulf, threatening death for one false step. Afar off, all around us, rose hills, unnamed, but rivalling in height the mount on which we sat. West of us was Shepard Mountain, named for Shepard the mineralogist, entered and owned till lately by his brother. South of us, a few miles distant, nestling in the valley, lay Arcadia, the seat of a flourishing Methodist Seminary.

The top of the Knob appears, from the valley below, to be nearly bare of vegetation, and one is surprised on arriving there, to find thrifty trees, as well as flowers, growing out of the interstices of the iron rocks. We gathered, from the very apex, an abundance of mosses, ferns, and flowers in bloom, for our female friends, who we knew valued botanical mementoes of noted places, far more than mineralogical specimens. Before we began to descend, we noticed, a considerable distance from us, an apparently small and easily movable block of ore, resting on the summit of one of the natural towers before mentioned, and promising an easy tumble into the gulf below. We then determined to have a little boyish sport, to crown our adventure. Seeking to approach the object of our anxiety, we crept along sharp and dizzy ridges of iron, till. lo! we found the tower so isolated as to

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