Lead is one of the metals most anciently known, being mentioned in the
books of Moses. It is found in some thirteen species of ore, only one of
which (_galena_) occurs in masses sufficiently large to make it valuable
as an object of mining and metallurgy. The uses of lead are so familiar
that they need not be mentioned: they are known to all.
Among the most remarkable lead mines of the world, may be mentioned
those of the state of Illinois, including also parts of Iowa and
Wisconsin, which have been, and still are immensely productive,
extending over thousands of acres, and furnishing the mineral in the
richest abundance. These mines were formerly known as the mines of
“Upper Louisiana.” They are now chiefly worked in the vicinity of
Galena, a city which has sprung up, and is almost entirely supported by
the trade in lead. So vast is the production of these mines, that forty
million pounds of lead, valued at sixteen hundred thousand dollars, were
shipped from Galena alone, in 1853. The mineral in one of the earliest
opened mines, is said to be of two kinds, the gravel and fossil. The
gravel mineral is found immediately under the soil, intermixed with
gravel, in pieces of solid mineral weighing from one to fifty pounds.
Beneath the gravel is a sand rock, which being broken, crumbles to a
fine sand, and contains mineral nearly of the same quality as that of
the gravel. But the mineral of the first quality is found in a bed of
red clay, under the sand rock, in pieces of from ten to five hundred
pounds’ weight, on the outside of which is a spar, or fossil, of a
bright, glittering appearance, resembling spangles of gold and silver,
as solid as the mineral itself, and of a greater specific gravity. This
being taken off, the mineral is solid, unconnected with any other
substance, of a broad grain, and what mineralogists call potters’ ore.
In other mines, in the vicinity of the above, the lead is found in
regular veins, from two to four feet in thickness, containing about
fifty ounces of silver in a tun.
In Great Britain, there are numerous and exceedingly valuable lead
mines, among which may be cited that of Arkingdale, in Yorkshire, and
those with which Shropshire abounds. In the south of Lanarkshire, and in
the vicinity of Wanlock-head, Scotland, are two celebrated lead mines,
which yield annually above two thousand tuns of metal. The Susannah-vein
lead-hills, have been worked for many years, and have been productive of
great wealth. The above are considered as the richest lead mines of
Europe.
Several of the Irish lead mines have yielded a considerable proportion
of silver; and mention is made of one, in the county of Antrim, which
afforded, in thirty pounds of lead, a pound of that metal. Another, less
productive of silver, was found at Ballysadare, near the harbor of
Sligo, in Connaught; and a third in the county of Tipperary, thirty
miles from Limerick. The ores of this last were of two kinds, most
usually of a reddish color, hard and glittering; the other, which was
the richest in silver, resembled a blue marl. The works were destroyed
in the Irish insurrections in the reign of Charles I. The mine, however,
is still wrought on account of the lead it contains.