Scenes and Adventures in the Semi-Alpine Region of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas Part 17

III. COMBUSTIBLES.

20. Sulphur.

_a._ Crystallized.

_b._ Concrete.

21. Graphite.

22. Coal.

_a._ Slaty-bituminous.

_b._ Wood-coal.

Bituminous shale.

IV. METALS.

23. Native copper.

24. Iron.

25. Sulphuret of iron.

26. Iron glance.

27. Micaceous oxide of iron.

28. Brown oxide of iron.

29. Ironstone.

30. Argillaceous oxide of iron.

31. Ochrey oxide of iron.

32. Sulphuret of lead.

_a._ Common galena.

_b._ Specular.

_c._ Granular.

_d._ Cobaltic.

33. Carbonate of lead.

34. Earthy oxide of lead.

35. Sulphuret of zinc.

36. Sulphuret of manganese.

FIRST CLa.s.s.

1. NITRE--SALTPETRE. This salt, in its efflorescent state, exists extensively in the limestone caves of Missouri and Arkansas. It also impregnates the ma.s.ses of earth found in these recesses. This earth is lixiviated with wood-ashes, which allows the nitre to take a crystalline form. I visited a large cavern, about eighty miles south-west of Potosi, where this salt was manufactured, and observed its efflorescences in other caves in the Ozark range.

2. MURIATE OF SODA. About one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of common salt are annually made from the United States' saline on Salt river, in Illinois. It appears, from the remains of antique broken vessels found in that locality, to have been manufactured there by the ancient inhabitants. There is a saline, which has been profitably worked, on Saline creek, in St. Genevieve county. Two salt springs are worked, in a small way, in Jefferson county, Mo. The springs in Arkansas are reported to be extensive, and rumors of rock-salt on its plains have been rife, since the purchase of Louisiana. The hunters whom I met in the Ozark range, invariably affirmed its existence, in crystalline solid ma.s.ses, in that quarter; from which also, it is to be recollected, De Soto's scouts brought it, in 1542.

3. SULPHATE OF BARYTES--HEAVY SPAR. This mineral is found, in considerable quant.i.ties, at the princ.i.p.al lead-mines of Missouri, west of the Mississippi. It presents its usual characters--it is heavy, white, s.h.i.+ning, opaque, and easily fractured. It is sometimes found crested, columnar, prismatic, or in tabular crystallizations. Its surface is frequently covered by a yellowish, ochrey earth, or ferruginous oxide. It sometimes exists as the matrix of the sulphuret of lead--more frequently, as one of its accompanying minerals.

4. CARBONATE OF LIME.

a. _Calc. Spar._ This form of the carbonate of lime is common in the lead-mine regions of Missouri. At Hazel run, it const.i.tutes, to some extent, the gangue of the lead-ores. It is generally imbedded in lumps in the red clay mineral soil. These lumps are round, externally; but, on being broken, reveal a rhomboidal structure, and are beautifully transparent.

b. _Stalact.i.tes._ This form of the carbonate of lime is found in a cave on the head-waters of Currents river, in Missouri. The stalact.i.tes are found in concretions resembling icicles hanging from the roof, or in columns reaching to the floor. The specimens are translucent.

Stalact.i.tes are also found in a very large cave (Winoca) on Findley's fork, one of the tributaries of White river, Arkansas. They form two large vases in this cave, which are filled with the most crystalline water.

c. _Stalagmite_ (Calcareous Alabaster). The cave which has just been mentioned on Findley's fork, affords this mineral in small, solid globules, which strew the floor of the cave.

5. FLUOR SPAR. The elevated lands on the west banks of the Ohio, near the picturesque sh.o.r.es of Cave-in-Rock, in Illinois, disclose this mineral. It exhibits its well-known character. It is generally of a purple, or amethystine hue, and crystallized, as its primary form, in cubes. Externally, these crystals are dull. Its a.s.sociation here is with the ores of lead, which have been extensively searched for in former times. It is plentifully found, sometimes in large crystals, which have an external appearance as if they had been subjected to the influence of turbid water. It has been thus far, chiefly, explored in the diluvial stratum.

6. GYPSUM. Foliated ma.s.ses of this mineral occur in the river cliffs in St. Clair county, Illinois. It is found in large quant.i.ties near the salines in Upper Arkansas. Dr. Sibley, speaking of the formation in that vicinity, says: "It is a tract of about seventy-five miles square, in which nature has arranged a variety of the most strange and whimsical vagaries. It is an a.s.semblage of beautiful meadows, verdant ridges, and rude misshapen piles of red clay, thrown together in the utmost apparent confusion, yet affording the most pleasing harmonies, and presenting in every direction an endless variety of curious and interesting objects. After winding along for a few miles on the high ridges, you suddenly descend an almost perpendicular declivity of rocks and clay, into a series of level and fertile meadows, watered by some beautiful rivulets, and adorned here and there with shrubby cotton trees, elms, and cedars. These meadows are divided by chains formed of red clay, and huge ma.s.ses of gypsum, with here and there a pyramid of gravel. One might imagine himself surrounded by the ruins of some ancient city, and that the plain had sunk by some convulsion of nature more than one hundred feet below its former level; for some of the huge columns of red clay rise to the height of two hundred feet perpendicular, capped with rocks of gypsum, which the hand of time is ever crumbling off, and strewing in beautiful transparent flakes, along the declivities of the hill, glittering like so many mirrors in the sun."

7. SULPHATE OF MAGNESIA. A large and curious cavern has been discovered in the calcareous rocks at Corydon, near the seat of government of Indiana, which is found to yield very beautiful white crystals of this mineral. To what extent these appearances exist, is unknown; but the cavern invites exploration.

8. ALUM. Efflorescences of the sulphate of alumina exist in a calcareous cavern in the elevated ranges of Bellevieu, in the county of Was.h.i.+ngton, Mo. No practical use is made of it.

9. QUARTZ. This important family of mineral bodies exists, in many of its forms, on the west banks of the Mississippi. They will be noticed under their appropriate names.

a. _Granular Quartz._ There is a very large body of this mineral about eight miles west of St. Genevieve, near the Potosi road. It is known as the site of a remarkable cave. The sides, roof, and floor of the cave, consist of the most pure and white granular quartz. It is quite friable between the fingers, and falls into a singularly transparent and beautiful sand. Each of these grains, when examined by the microscope, is found to be a transparent molecule of pure quartz. It possesses no definable tint of color, is not acted upon by either nitric or muriatic acids, and appears to be an aggregation of minute crystals of quartz. It occurs in several caves near the road, whose sides are entirely composed of it; and its snowy hue, and granular structure, give it the appearance of refined sugar. It appears to me to be composed of silex nearly or quite pure, and possesses, as I find on treatment with potash, the property of easy fusibility. Could the necessary alkali and apyrous clays be conveniently had at this spot, I cannot conceive a more advantageous place for a manufactory of crystal gla.s.s.

b. _Radiated Quartz._ This mineral is found in great abundance at the Missouri lead-mines, where it bears the striking name of mineral blossom, or blossom of lead--an opinion being entertained that it indicates the presence or contiguity of lead-ore. Examined with care, it is found to consist of small crystals of quartz, disposed in radii, which resemble the petals of a flower. These crystals are superimposed on a basis consisting of thin lines, or tabular layers, of agate. It is found either strewn on the surface of the soil, imbedded in it, or existing in cavities in the limestone rock.

c. _Chalcedony._ This species is brought down the Mississippi or Missouri, and deposited in small fragments along the Missouri sh.o.r.e. It also const.i.tutes the princ.i.p.al layers in the thin tabular, or mamillary ma.s.ses, which const.i.tute the basis of the radiated quartz. Most commonly, it is bluish-white, or milk-white.

d. _Agatized Wood._ Fragments of this mineral are brought down the Missouri, and deposited, in occasional pieces, along the banks of the Mississippi.

e. _Hornstone--Chert._ This substance appears to have been imbedded extensively in the calcareous strata of the Mississippi valley; for it is scattered, as an ingredient, in its diluvions. Frequently it is in chips, or fragments, all of which indicate a smooth conchoidal fracture.

Sometimes it consists of parts of nodules. Sometimes it is still solidly imbedded in the rock, or consolidated strata, as on the coast below Cape Girardeau, Mo. Indeed, so far as observation goes, it characterizes all the district of country between the western banks of the Mississippi river, and the great prairies and sand deserts at the foot of the Rocky mountains. Its color is generally brown, with different shades of yellow, black, blue, or red. It appears nearly allied to flint, into which it is sometimes seen pa.s.sing. It runs also into varieties of jasper, chalcedony, and common quartz; and the different gradations from well-characterized hornstone, until its distinctive characters are lost in other sub-species of quartz, may be distinctly marked. The barbs for Indian arrows, frequently found in this region, appear to have been chiefly made of hornstone.

f. _Jasper._ This mineral also appears to have been imbedded in the silico-calcareous rocks of the western valley; and it is found, in the fragmentary form, on the banks of the Mississippi, and also on its plains below the Rocky mountains. The fine yellow egg-shaped pebbles of White river, are common jasper. Several specimens, picked up in a desultory journey, possess striking beauty. The first is a uniform bottle-green, very hard, and susceptible of a high polish. The second is the fragment of a nodular ma.s.s, consisting of alternate concentric stripes of green, brown, and yellow; the colors pa.s.sing by imperceptible shades into each other. A specimen found in Potosi consists of alternate stripes of rose and flesh red.

g. _Agate._ This mineral is picked up, in a fragmentary form, along the banks of the Mississippi. Its original repository appears to have been the volcanic and amygdaloidal rocks about its sources, which have been extensively broken down by geological mutations, during ante-historical periods. The fragments are often beautifully transparent, sometimes zoned or striped. Sometimes they are arranged in angles, presenting the fortification-agate. The colors are various shades of white and red, the latter being layers of carnelian. All the pieces found in this dispersed state are harder than the imbedded species, and are with difficulty cut by the lapidary.

h. _Opal._ A single specimen of this mineral, from the right banks of the Ohio, near Cave-in-Rock, Illinois, is of a delicate bluish-white, and opalesces on being held to the light. It is not acted on by acids.

This locality is remarkable as yielding galena, heavy spar, blende, calcareous spar, fluor spar, pyrites, coal, and salt. It belongs to the great secondary limestone formation of the Ohio valley. It is cavernous, and yields some fossil impressions.

i. _Red Ferruginous Quartz._ This occurs as one of the imbedded materials of the diluvion of the Mississippi valley.

k. _Rock Crystal._ Very perfect and beautiful crystals of this mineral are procured near the Hot Springs of Arkansas. They consist, generally, of six-sided prisms, terminated by six-sided pyramids. Some of these are so perfectly limpid, that writing can be read, without the slightest obscurity, through the parallel faces of the crystals.

l. _Pseudomorphous Chalcedony._ Lake Pepin, Upper Mississippi. This appears to have been formed by deposition on cubical crystals, which have disappeared.

m. _Tabular Quartz._ West bank of the Mississippi, Missouri. Of a white color, semi-transparent. The plates are single, and the lines perfectly parallel.

n. _h.o.a.ry Quartz._ West banks of the Mississippi, Mo. The character of h.o.a.riness appears to be imparted by very minute crystals, or concretions of quartz, on the surface of radiated quartz.

o. _Common Quartz._ This mineral is found in veins of from one to eight or ten feet wide, in the argillaceous rock formation in the vicinity of the Hot Springs of Was.h.i.+ta. It is also seen, in very large detached ma.s.ses, on the south bank of White river. The character of these rocks will not be recognized on a superficial view; for they have a gray, time-worn appearance, and are so much covered by moss, that it was not until I had broken off a fragment with a hammer, that I discovered them to be white quartz. Pebbles of quartz, either white or variously colored by iron, are common on the sh.o.r.es of White river, and, joined to the purity and transparency of the waters, add greatly to the pleasure of a voyage on that beautiful stream.

p. _Buhrstone._ Racc.o.o.n creek, Indiana. This bed is noted throughout the western country, and affords a profitable branch of manufacture. It covers an area of from ten to fifteen acres square. Its texture is vesicular, yet it is sufficiently compact to admit of being quarried with advantage, and the stones are applied to the purposes of milling with the best success.

q. _Sedimentary Quartz--Schoolcraft.i.te._ This mineral occurs three miles from the Hot Springs of Was.h.i.+ta. It is of a grayish-white color, partaking a little of green, yellow, or red; translucent in an uncommon degree, with an uneven and moderately glimmering fracture, and susceptible of being scratched with a knife. Oil stones for the purpose of honing knives, razors, or tools, are occasionally procured from this place, and considerable quant.i.ties have been lately taken to New Orleans. It gives a fine edge, and is considered equal to the Turkish oil-stone. It appears to me, from external character and preliminary tests, to consist almost entirely of silex, with a little oxide of iron.

Its compactness, superior softness, specific gravity, and coloring matter, distinguish it from silicious sinter. It has been improperly termed, heretofore, "novaculite." It contains no alumine. It sometimes reveals partial conditions, or spots, of a degree of hardness nearly equal to common quartz.

r. _Carnelian._ Banks of the Mississippi, above the junction of the Ohio. Traces of this mineral begin to be found, as soon as the heavy alluvial lands are pa.s.sed. It is among the finest detritus of the minerals of the quartz family, brought down from upper plains. The fragments, in these lower positions, are small, transparent, and hard, colored red or yellowish.

s. _Basanite--Touchstone._ This mineral is found in the Mississippi detritus; but no fixed locality has been ascertained.

10. PUMICE. The light, vesicular substance, found floating down the Missouri and Mississippi, is not, properly speaking, a true pumice, capable of the applications of that article in the arts; but it cannot be cla.s.sified with any other species. It is more properly a pseudo-pumice, arising from partial volcanic action on the formations of some of the tributaries of the Missouri, which originate in the Rocky mountains. It is brought down by the June flood, sometimes in large ma.s.ses, which, as the waters abate, are left on the islands or sh.o.r.es.

It is incompletely vitrified, consisting of spongy globules. The ma.s.ses are irregularly colored, agreeably to the vitrified materials, red, black or brown. Its tenacity is very great.