wisdom and business ability characteristic of her superior intelligence has never failed most punctiliously to fulfil her engagements to her creditors, has effected a foreign loan at the price of 97 in gold for bonds bearing only 5 per cent interest. While our Government bonds bear 6 per cent (also in gold) will command in the same market only 65 (equal to about 70 in American gold). And yet our ability is not now dubted at home or abroad. The bugbear of war with England or France no longer alarms capitalists. No one now seriously questions that our material resources are abundant; but there is still some apprehension engendered by the artifices of selfish unprincipled politicians seeking to gain a few venal votes to their faction, or to annoy the dominant party by agitating the question of repudiation. Thus far, however, the popular sentiment is most firmly and decidedly in favor of an honest fulfilment of all our obligations and taxation for the purpose, is most cheerfully submitted to.

Another ground for this apprehension is the possibility that the late rebel States will be permitted again to exert a political influence which with the feelings still manifested, they may insidiously use to destroy the national credit, and thus subvert the power which in openly assailing, they encountered such disastrous and mortifying defeat. It is quite possible that treason may next assert itself in this way, and with the mean, and unworthy spirit of an assassin by this subtle poison seek to destroy the power it no longer dares to meet in open conflict. The danger of any successful attempt of this kind is perhaps already past. Independent of the direct interest in the public debt which, through the amounts of it held by the banks and savings institutions prevades the whole community, it has become most obvious that no nation can afford to repudiate. To do so, is to put itself in the power of any other nation, that is strong in its credit, however weak in all other respects. It is doubtful whether any nation of even very moderate intelligence ever did repudiate except as a sheer necessity, and with us there can be no such necessity. We cannot afford even to seriously discuss or harbor such a thought. The possibility of our committing such folly should be at once scouted as an insult to our intelligence, and an ab-urd negation of our admitted shrewedness, and still more as an imputation upon our honor. Nothing is more sensitive than credit. The breath of suspicion too slight to tinge a youthful maiden's cheek will suffice to crimson it in confusion. This is especially the case with the credit of sovereign States, whose debts are of necessity debts of honor -no superior power to compel them to comply with their contracts-I repeat that all propositions involving or tending to bad faith, whether by denial or neglect of payment of what is due or by payment in depreciated value, (coin or paper) or by special taxation of debt, or otherwise, should at once be scouted, the mere entertaining of them being a stain upon our national honor, and destructive of our ability to contend with foreign foes, or to preserve our institutions and maintain domestic order and tranquility. It were better for us that all our forts and magazines, with all our munitions of war should be blown up, and every ship in our navy sunk, than that we should trifle with and impair our national credit. With the elastic energies of our people unrepressed, and their patriotic pride and spirit unbroken and undebased, we would soon repair such material damage, while centuries might not suffice to restore to us the untarnished honor which demagogues and traitors would so ruthlessly and foully desecrate.

MISSOURI AND ITS MINERALS.

BY 8. WATERHAUS, OF ST. LOUIS, MO.

MISSOURI may safely challenge the world to produce its equal in the number, extent, and value of its minerals. The immensity of its mineral wealth subjects even a truthful exposition to a suspicion of exaggeration. The sober calculations of geology seem to be mere figures of rhetoric. The imperfect explorations which have been made have disclosed the superiority, but not the full magnitude, of the metallic resources of Missouri. Some of the vaults of nature's bank have been opened, but the treasure is too vast to be counted. The earth has hoarded in its coffers an unminted and incalculable wealth. The inventory of the mineral resources of Missouri enumerates springs whose waters are impregnated with salt, sulphur, iron, and petroleum, jasper, agate, chalcedony, vitrious sand, granite, marble, plastic and fire-clays, metallic paints, hydraulic cement, litographic quick-lime, mili and grind-stone, fire-rock, kaolin, emory, plumbago, nickel, cobalt, zinc, copper, silver, gold, lead, coal, and iron. Most of these minerals occur in quantities that are literally inexhaustible. In case of many of these articles, the nines and quarries of Missouri could easily supply the markets of the world. If an incomplete geologic survey and the rude efforts of unscientific miners, who have as yet scarcely touched the vast deposits of the State, have disclosed such results, we may justly expect far richer developments when an exhaustive investigation has been made, and systematic mining been extensively prosecuted.

Of silver and gold, traces only have been discovered.
Cobalt and nickel exist in profusion.

Zinc is very abundant. Its masses have often retarded the mining of more valuable ores. Thousands of tons of this metal, thrown away by the lead miners, as a vexatious and worthless impediment to their progress, night be with a profitable cheapness reclaimed to the uses of commerce. The ore is very pure.

Copper has been found in 15 counties. At Hinch's Mine, 800 pounds of ore gave 272 pounds of good copper. At this locality the gangue is red clay, chert and magnesian limestone. At Rives's Mine the ore lies only 20 feet below the surface. The deposit is several feet thick, and contains a rich, proportion of copper.

The Copper Hill Mine has yielded 100,000 pounds.

The ore from the Stanton Mines gives, according to two analyses, 48.41 per cent of pure copper. The ore is usually a sulphuret or carbonate. But very little attention has been paid to the zinc and copper mines of Missouri. The larger profits of other kinds of mining have diverted public enterprise from a fair trial and full development of these ores. The success of the copper works at Frederickstown would justify more extended operations in this neglected branch of mining.

Lead has been discovered in more than 500 localities. Its purple veins run through 20 counties and intersect an area of more than 6,000 square miles. The richness of these mines is exhibited by the following statistics:

Total yield of Perry's mine to 1854.....
Total yield of Valle's mine.

Total yield of Franklin's mine from 1824 to 1854.

.lbs. of lead

12,000,000

18,000,000

20,000,000

Yield of Shibboleth mine in 1811.

Yield of Washington and St. Francois counties from 1841 to 1854.

Annual yield of Washington County..

.......

Yield of Wi liam's mine in nine months of 1854.

Total yield of Virginia mine...

3,000,000

50,000,000

3,000,000

10,000,000

145,000

100,000

50,000

70,000,000

4,000,000

At the mine of Price, Bray & Co., 2,000 pounds of galena have been taken from a shaft which is only 10 feet deep. The ore at Mineral Point is 18 inches thick.

The lead is mostly sulphuret. Out of 120 specimens of ore, 113 were sulphuret, 6 sulphuret and carbonate, and 1 sulphate.

From 60 to 85 per cent of the cre is pure lead. The gange is generally sulphate of baryta. The ore is often found in magnesian limestone or red clay interspersed with brown hematite, pyrites and ochre.

The mines which have been worked are mostly shallow.
The shaft of Williams's mine was from 25 to 75 feet deep.
The shaft of Shibboleth mine was from 16 to 60 feet deep.
The shaft of Price's mine was 10 feet deep.

At Granby, the lead comes to the very surface of the ground.

In November, 1865, Mr. Butler, the Superintendent of the St. Louis White Lead Factory, made a careful examination of Mine la Motte. His report to Mr. Banker, President of the Lead and Oil Company, embraces the following interesting facts: The ore, which is almost exclusively a sulphuret, contains from 60 to 66 per cent of pure lead. It is found in a limestone formation, at a depth of from 22 to 30 feet below the surface. The earth which overlies the limestone varies from 6 to 12 feet in depth. Horizontal sheets of almost pure galena, varying from 1 to 12 inches in thickness, cover the beds of mineral; beneath them lies a less productive sulphuret, which extends downward from 4 to 6 eet. The mean thickness is 8 inches. The weight of a square foot of lead one inch thick is 40 pounds; the weight of a square foot of lead, eight inches thick, is 320 pounds.

Sometimes a single drill yields 100 of these nearly cubic feet in a month. But an average of 50 feet gives, as the product of one drill, 615 pounds a day, or 16,000 pounds a month. The daily expense of each drill is $750. Each furnace smelts from 40 to 80 pigs of lead a day. An average product of 50 pigs, or 3,700 pounds, requires the reduction of 6,166 pounds of ore. The cost of smelting is $37 a day.

Ten drills are necessary to keep one furnace in blast.
We are now ready for a summary of results:

8,700 lb. lead at $5 71, the average price in this market for the five

At this rate 100 drills, a number not exceeding the capacity of a large company, would yield an annual revenue of $369,252.

During the first year large operations would involve a heavy outlay for shafts, drainage and machinery. But the cost of repairs and improvements could hardly exceed 30 per cent of the year's earnings.

The preceding estimates are based upon present facts, and not upon theoretical possibilities. They are founded upon the practical results of recent mining. An enlargement of present operations and a more extended use of existing facilities are all that is necessary to secure the success which the foregoing figures indicate.

Doubtless a treatment by the economic methods of science would give a measurably higher per centage of profit.

Perfectly pure galena contains 13.34 per cent of sulphur and 86.66 per cent of lead.

An uncrystalized specimen from Mine la Motte, analyzed by Dr. Litton, gave, together with traces of iron, copper and nickel, 13,50 per cent of sulphur and 84.50 per cent of lead.

Under our present wasteful processes the sulphurets of Mine la Motte sometimes yield 77.7 per cent of pure lead.

I except the slave labor of three proprietors, and scarcely 200 men have been ever at one time employed in the mines of Missouri. The operations have commonly been desultory and the methods unscientific. Miners have chiefly sought superficial deposits in soft clay, where the ore could easily be reached with the spade. Mining, by the systematic process which sei ence teaches, will provably develop far richer deposits than any yet found. Coal underlies a large portion of Missouri. It has already been discovered in thirty counties. Beds of cannel coal, 45 feet thick, have been found. There are 160 square miles of coal in St. Louis County. The amount of coal in Cooper County has been estimated at 60,000,000 tuns. Under every acre of Boone County there is supposed to be at least $1,000 worth of coal. The deposits in the vicinity of Booneville cover an area of 2,000 square miles. The strata have a mean thickness of three feet, and are calculated to contain 60,000,000 tuns of coal.

The following estimates are based upon the survey of Professor Swallow:

Upon this lowest estimate-which is more than 34,400,000,000 tuns below the calculation of Professor Swallow-it would take, at 100,000 tuns a day, more than 3,000 years, of 300 working days each, to exhaust the coal deposits of Missouri.

Iron abounds in different portions of Missouri, but the stupendous masses of almost solid iron, found in St. Francois, Iron and Reynolds Counties, dwarf the discoveries of other localities into significance. Before the blomaries of Ironton, the furnaces in other sections of the State must pale their ineffectual fires. The results of Dr. Litton's investigations

have been often published, but perhaps the use for which this article is designed will justify their reproduction.

Shepherd Mountain is 660 feet high. The ore, which is magnetic and specular, contains a large percentage of pure iron. The hight of Pilot Knob above the Mississippi River is 1,118 feet. Its base, 581 feet from the summit, is 360 miles. The iron is known to extend 440 feet below the surface. The upper section of 141 feet is judged to contain 14,000,000 tuns of ore.

The elevation of Iron Mountain is 228 feet, and the area of its base 500 acres. The solid contents of the cone are 230,000,000 tuns. It is thought that every foot beneath the surface will yield 3,000,000 tuns of At the depth of 180 feet, an artesian auger is still penetrating solid

ore.

ore.

Dr. Litton thinks that these mountains contain enough iron above the surface to afford for 200 years an annual supply of 1,000,000 tuns. The ore is almost exclusively specular.

It yields 56 per cent of pure iron.

The iron is strong, tough and fibrous.

Most of these statistics of the mineral resources of Missouri are takenthough sometimes with reductions-from the calculations of Professors Swallow and Litton, their estimates of the amount of lead, coal, and iron in the State are founded upon elaborate researches. Their deductions are based upon geologic investigations and chemical analyses. The well-considered judgments of men of scientific eminence are certainly entitled to audience and respect. But suppose these learned geologists are mistaken in their statements-take one-hundredth part of their aggregates and you still have proofs of vast and exhaustless mineral riches. The fictions of Arabian wealth hardly equal the reality of Missouri's treasures.

These ores underlie some of the richest land in the State. The owner possesses at once a fertile farm and a valuable mine. In some cases it is difficult to determine whether the agricultural or mineral resources are most productive. Full coffers are the result of either industry. A poor man can earn enough in a few months to purchase a mineral farm under prescribed conditions; less than $20 will secure a homestead of 160 acres. The workman who, with a full knowledge of the facts, would prefer delving for a mere pittance in the mines of Europe to the independent ownership of a mine in Missouri, must be a miner who has not yet reached the years of discretion. He must be too young to have a mine of his own. It is to be hoped that the majority of foreigners have more wisdom.

No State can offer the miner better openings for business. The inducements which Missouri presents to him are great and substantial. Liberal wages will reward his service and enable him to satisfy his love of independence and home by the early acquisition of a freehold. Political equality, social respect, and material success await the myriads whom a knowledge of our mineral resources will soon make citizens of Missouri.