The next day we ascended seven miles, and next the same distance, and stopped at the Moccason Spring, a basin of limpid water occupying a crevice in the limestone rock. The day following we ascended but five miles, and the next day seven miles, in which distance we passed the Grand Tower, a geological monument rising from the bed of the river, which stands to tell of some great revolution in the ancient face of the country. The Mississippi River probably broke through one of its ancient barriers at this place. We made three unsuccessful attempts to pass Garlic Point, where we encountered a very strong current, and finally dropped down and came to, for the night, below it, the men being much exhausted with these attempts. We renewed the effort with a cordelle the next morning, with success, but not without exhausting the men so much that two of them refused to proceed, who were immediately paid off, and furnished provisions to return. We succeeded in going to the mouth of the Obrazo, about half a mile higher, when we lay by all day. This delay enabled Ensminger to recruit his crew, and during the three following days we ascended respectively six, seven, and ten miles, which brought us to the commencement of Bois-brule bottom. This is a fertile, and was then a comparatively populous, settlement. We ascended along it about seven miles, the next day seven more, and the next eleven, which completed the ascent to the antique town of St. Genevieve. About three hundred houses were here clustered together, which, with their inhabitants, had the looks which we may fancy to belong to the times of Louis XIV. of France. It was the chief mart of the lead mines, situated in the interior. I observed heavy stacks of pig lead piled up about the warehouses. We remained here the next day, which was the 20th of July, and then went forward twelve miles, the next day thirteen, and the next five, which brought us, at noon, to the town of Herculaneum, containing some thirty or forty buildings, excluding three picturesque-looking shot towers on the top of the rocky cliffs of the river. This was another mart of the lead mines.
I determined to land definitively at this point, purposing to visit the mines, after completing my ascent by land to St. Louis. It was now the 23d of July, the whole of which, from the 1st, we had spent in a diligent ascent of the river, by setting pole and cordelle, from the junction of the Ohio--a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. We were still thirty miles above St. Louis.
I have detailed some of the incidents of the journey, in order to denote the difficulties of the ascent with barges prior to the introduction of steam, and also the means which this slowness of motion gave me of becoming acquainted with the physical character of this river and its shores. A large part of the west banks I had traveled on foot, and gleaned several facts in its mineralogy and geology which made it an initial point in my future observations. The metalliferous formation is first noticed at the little chain of rocks. From the Grand Tower, the western shores become precipitous, showing sections and piled-up pinnacles of the series of horizontal sandstones and limestones which characterize the imposing coast. Had I passed it in a steamer, downward bound, as at this day, in forty-eight hours, I should have had none but the vaguest and most general conceptions of its character. But I went to glean facts in its natural history, and I knew these required careful personal inspection of minute as well as general features. There may be a sort of horseback theory of geology; but mineralogy, and the natural sciences generally, must be investigated on foot, hammer or goniometer in hand.
CHAPTER III.
Reception at Herculaneum, and introduction to the founder of the first American colony in Texas, Mr. Austin--His character--Continuation of the journey on foot to St. Louis--Incidents by the way--Trip to the mines--Survey of the mine country--Expedition from Potosi into the Ozark Mountains, and return, after a winter's absence, to Potosi.
1818. The familiar conversation on shore of my friendly associates, speaking of a doctor on board who was inquiring into the natural history and value of the country at every point, procured me quite unexpectedly a favorable reception at Herculaneum, as it had done at Cape Girardeau. I was introduced to Mr. Austin, the elder, who, on learning my intention of visiting the mines, offered every facility in his power to favor my views. Mr. Austin was a gentleman of general information, easy and polite manners, and enthusiastic character. He had, with his connections, the Bates, I believe, been the founder of Herculaneum, and was solicitous to secure it a share of the lead trade, which had been so long and exclusively enjoyed by St. Genevieve. He was a man of very decided enterprise, inclined to the manners of the old school gentlemen, which had, I believe, narrowed his popularity, and exposed him to some strong feuds in the interior, where his estates lay. He was a diligent reader of the current things of the day, and watched closely the signs of the times. He had lived in the capital of Virginia, where he married. He had been engaged extensively as a merchant and miner in Wyeth county, in the western part of that State. He had crossed the wilderness west of the Ohio River, at an early day, to St. Louis, then a Spanish interior capital. He had been received by the Spanish authorities with attentions, and awarded a large grant of the mining lands. He had remained under the French period of supremacy, and had been for about sixteen years a resident of the region when it was transferred by purchase to the United States. The family had been from an early day, the first in point of civilization in the country. And as his position seemed to wane, and clouds to hover over his estates, he seemed restless, and desirous to transfer his influence to another theatre of action. From my earliest conversations with him, he had fixed his mind on Texas, and spoke with enthusiasm about it.
I left my baggage, consisting of two well-filled trunks, in charge of Mr. Ellis, a worthy innkeeper of the town, and when I was ready to continue my way on foot for St. Louis, I was joined in this journey by Messrs. Kemp and Keen, my fellow-voyagers on the water from Louisville. We set out on the 26th of the month. The weather was hot and the atmosphere seemed to be lifeless and heavy. Our road lay over gentle hills, in a state of nature. The grass had but in few places been disturbed by the plough, or the trees by the axe. The red clay soil seemed fitter for the miner than the farmer.
At the distance of seven miles, we came to a remarkable locality of springs strongly impregnated with sulphur, which bubbled up from the ground. They were remarkably clear and cold, and deposited a light sediment of sulphur, along the little rills by which they found an outlet into a rapid stream, which was tributary to the Mississippi.
Five miles beyond these springs, we reached the valley of the Merrimack, just at nightfall; and notwithstanding the threatening atmosphere, and the commencement of rain, before we descended to the stream, we prevailed with the ferryman to go down and set us over, which we urged with the view of reaching a house within less than a mile of the other bank. He landed us at the right spot; but the darkness had now become so intense that we could not keep the road, and groped our way along an old wheel-track into the forest. It also came on to rain hard. We at last stood still. We were lost in utter darkness, and exposed to a pelting storm. After a while we heard a faint stroke of a cow bell. We listened attentively; it was repeated at long intervals, but faintly, as if the animal was housed. It gave us the direction, which was quite different from the course we had followed. No obstacle, though there were many, prevented us from reaching the house, where we arrived wet and hungry, and half dead with fatigue.
The Merrimack, in whose valley we were thus entangled, is the prime outlet of the various streams of the mine country, where Renault, and Arnault, and other French explorers, expended their researches during the exciting era of the celebrated illusory Mississippi scheme.
The next day we crossed an elevated arid tract for twelve miles to the village of Carondalet, without encountering a house, or an acre of land in cultivation. On this tract, which formed a sort of oak orchard, with high grass, and was a range for wild deer,