Year: 1865




Mississippi river, he found the rock
penetrated at depth of fifteen hun
dred feet belongs to the same strata,
filed with the same fossil remains as
the blue limestone at Fanning's quar-.
ry, and was once the floor of an ocean.


We have now two great land marks,
and may draw base line to survey
this blue limestone, which is the low
est strata of the dead measures, or up
per magnetism limesteae Of this lead
field, and from which, large amounts
of lead ore have been worked about
Dodgeville and Mineral Point, in the
northern part of the lead field. From
the eastern 6anks of the Rocky Noun
tains to the Ozark Mountains in South
Missouri, to Kentucky, to the western
slopes Of the Alleghanies, to Chicago
and St Paul, we may trace this rock.
The same stratifed blue limestone
with the same fossil remains, once fill
ed with animal life that swarmed
in the waters Of an ancient ocean.
Our base line drawn from the level of
the Mississippi river at Dubuque to
these several points, would find this
| blue limestone sonnet mes hundreds of
! feet above and again thousands of feet
below this level, it having gone down
in great basins that hold the coal meas
, ures that underle the prairies, and in
cludc parts of ten States in the cen
trail part of the Valley of the Missis-
sippi. We will leave this blue lime
stone and say nothing of the hundreds
of feet of stratifed rocks below it,
or of the hundreds of families of cor
al and fish buried in the strata above,
and take a glance at the metcorology
of this great basin, for the winds and
rains have boundaries, and are direct
ed by fixed economic laws. In study
ing the mcteorology of our continent,
Mr. Maury found that vast amount
of vapors were needed to form rains
to supply the valley of the Mssissip-
pi, and set to work to learn the source
of this supply, and found il In The
South Pacific Ocean. There, over
large area, are vapor springs, where
moisture is continually rising and
this is taken by an upper current of
air and waited across lower Califor-
MIA over in the basin of the continent.
When it reaches the eastern side of
the Rocky Mountains it is waited
north, then east across the upper part
of the valley, then turned south, and
swept round, forming a vast eddy of
which the city of st. Louis would be
near the centre, and out of this vapor,
showers and storms that originate un-
der the action of natural laws, receive
their supply and carry on the system
of irrigation throughout this basin, so
ers to lay the dust in the streets of Du-
buquc, has gone up in the form of va
por in the South Pacific Ocean, has
been waited by upper currents of air,
has been carried by electric laws in
showers, and precipitated OF this
water, part is cvaporated by the sun,
part pcrcolated down thro' the soil and
rocks, and forms the supply of springs,
and part is taken up by the myriad
spongolcs that form the mouths of the
roots of plants, and is used to
build up and supply the circulating
system of trees and grasses and
part finds its way at once in the creeks
and rivers, and flows out of the mouths
Of the Mississippi river, carrying ont
millions of tons Of sediment dai-
! ly that have been worn down from
rocks and soil-and this process has
{
back to the time when the limestone
! lay in solid strata from the top of the
Table Mound to the top of the Sinsin-
ava Mound, and the surface of the
country was six hundred feet above
the blue limestone, on which the city
of Dubuque is now built. You may
ask why has not the basin of the Gulf
been filled up? We shall see. There
! is an ocean current, river in the
depths of the ocean its channel is
five miles deep, its width one hundred
miles and this current has its part to
perform in the economy or circulation
system of the ocean, as the vapor cur
rents had in the economy of the rain
system of this basin. This ocean cur
rent, for untold ages, has drawn this
sediment from the Gulf of Mexico out
in its channel, swept it north along the
Atlantic coast, and formed the banks
of New Foundland, and carried it in
| its circuit across the Atlantic towards
the coast of Spain, and turning west,
it forms q vast eddy in the central
part of the Atlantic, and there, in com
paratively still water, this sediment,
worn down from the bluffs of limestone
around Dubuque, is being precipitated
on the floor OF the ocean and forming
stratified rocks. Here we see the same
causes now in action that laid down
this blue limestone and all the strata
above and below it on the floor Of an
ancient ocean. In this way was the
limestone and sandstone piled atom by
atom, until the country became dry
land, and the age had arrived to map
out the river system of this great ba-
sin, erode the valleys, and form a top
ographical system and drainage to the
country. 1t may be asked, at what
age commences the repletion or filling
of the lead veins of this great lead
field, and at what age was this work
completed? and shall we at any time
understand the subterranean connect
ing link that may bind in one great
system the hundreds of discoveries Of
ore and lead diggings found at inter-
walls Of many miles throughout this
field? An ancient adage says, moth
ing so hard but search will find it out" /"
and time may yet unrayel all things.


Cosmopolitan.
/ The new rebel pirate Sea King, now
the Shenandoah, is actively at work on
the Atlantic. The brig Susan barks