The mine tract, according to Mr. Schoolcraft, the best authority on the subject, extends in length from the head waters of St. Francis, in a north-west direction, to the Merrimack, a distance of 70 miles, and from the Mississippi, in a south-west direction, to the Fourche a Courtois, a distance of about 45 miles, and covering an area of 3t50 square miles. The same author remarks, that it is not in every section of it that lead is to be traced, and he describes the mineral character of the soil, rocks, and other fossil bodies of this tract, as subject to so much variety, as to render indications of ore difficult to reduce to any safe result. The aspect of the country is sterile, hilly, and in many places precipitous. Many highland barrens, level but sterile, chequer the mine dis trict. The soil in general is a reddish coloured, hard, stiff clay, admixed with much siliceous gravel. No dules of iron-ore and pyrites are frequent. The mineral hills are covered in most places by a stunted growth of oaks, principally the post oak, the querctis obtusiloba of Michaux. A line of pine separates the sources of St. Francis from those of Merrimack, and passes through the mine tract in a direction from north-west to south east. Though in general the soil of this tract is unpro ductive, the banks of some of its streams are very fa vourable exceptions. This fact is elucidated by the forest trees found on this alluvial soil ; which are, syca more, elm, cotton-wood, walnut, maple, buckeye, hack berry, ash, papaw, spicewood, and other trees and shrub bery, indicative of fertile land. Mr. Schoolcraft mentions a fact, of which, from the accompanying remarks, he seems not to have understood the cause. Ile observes, that around many of the mines, the earth, thrown out and raised from great depths, produces trees and shrubs which are not peculiar to the surface, and instances the cotton-wood, or poplar, and beach-grapes, the vitis riparia, I presume. He states, that he frequently saw those vegetables growing near old diggings, where the earth had been raised thirty or forty feet, and where, pre vious to those diggings, no such trees or vines existed. It is well known to botanists, that the seeds of many, perhaps most plants, if buried at great depths in the earth, will retain their vegetable organization for count less ages. The indestructibility of the seeds of plants is, indeed, one of the most curious subjects of philosophical reflection and research. Mr. Schoolcraft ascribes the cause of the phenomenon to that opprobrium of science, equivocal generation : a supposition at variance with all the laws of analogy, as applied to organized beings. The fact proves unequivocally, that the country has under went great changes in its external crust, since the vege tables cited deposited their seeds in the soil, now cover ed by extraneous and very different bodies.
Here, as in every other place where silica forms a large part of the soil, the spring water is clear, cool, and of course wholesome ; and being exempt from causes that produce disease, stagnant water and decaying vege tables, the mine country is possessed of an atmosphere of the utmost salubrity.
The change of climate between the region watered by Black and St. Francis rivers, and that by Merrimack, is apparent in the vegetables cultivated by the inhabitants of each. On the Merrimack, wheat succeeds extremely well, a fact no where perceptible south of the dividing ridge. Wheat, and indeed all the cerealia, may be, it is
Uue, cultivated even in Louisiana ; but below the 38th degree of north latitude, wheat, rye, and barley, evince that they arc removed from their congenial climates ; and in no part of North America, except some of the table land of the great spine of Analinac, or Chippewan, where elevation compensates advance towards or into the tropics, does the cereal gramina, except maize, at tain the full development of their growth. And even maize, in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, does not by any means attain the rich and abundant produce of that grain, as in the Mississippi basin, above N. Lat. 35°. The same remark applies in a striking manner to the apple. This most valuable of all tree fruits deteriorates about the same latitude with wheat. The apple, west of the Mississippi, first grows to advantage above the mine district. The peach-tree finds its most congenial air about N. Lat. 38°, though it is a fruit possessing in the United States a much wider range than the apple.
The Osage rises about N. Lat. 37', W. Long. from Washington City 21°, and flows east a little north, having a comparative course of four hundred miles, one-third of which is in Missouri. This river rises in the great western prairies, and, like every stream of that region, exhibits some very productive, and a large proportion of steril land. Its meanders are in the lower part of its course very winding, consequently it contains much alluvial soil in proportion to its length, estimated comparatively.
The banks of the Missouri and Mississippi are uni formly in a high degree productive, and contain perhaps one-third of all the valuable arable land of the state. The right shore of the Mississippi is, from Tewapaty bottom to the mouth of the Missouri, in most places, an enormous limestone wall. This distance is about 170 miles. This limestone is merely the buttress of the un derlaying strata of the interior country. The Mississippi flows in a deep channel, whose sides are elevated near 200 feet above its highest sot face. Those precipitous banks are continued in the Missouri. The rich alluvial bottoms are at the base of this limestone precipice, and no doubt derive much of their fertility from the calcareous debris that the abrasion of the waters, in past ages, have worn away and deposited below.
About one-third part of Missouri lies north of Missouri river, and west of Mississippi river. This, in point of soil, is much the best part of the state. It is more uni formly fertile, though less diversified in surface, than the section south of Missouri, and south-west of the Missis sippi river. The northern section is also much chequer ed by small rivers, which generally flow south into Mis souri, and though mostly forest land, some extensive and very productive prairies occur. South of Missouri,there exists no medium between the best and worst lands, and similar to all those parts of the United States below the Missouri, and west of the Mississippi, the good soil ex tends in lines mostly upon the alluvial banks of rivers, or along the margin of prairies, and, consequently, can never admit a dense and scattered population. This is not so much the case with the northern section ; the farms will assume in that quarter something of the promiscuous extension over the face of the country, which is charac teristic of settlements in the northern and eastern states.