Knowledge that Transforms

In a paper referring to the mineral wealth of Wisconsin Dr. 0. G. Libby has shown that the lead and shot trade together attracted capital to that state, helped to fill its southern counties with population, and gave an impulse to industrial life which has never since been lost.' It might be observed in this connection that the lead resources of southern Missouri have produced here similar results, and, in the second place, that up to I852 or I853, when the building of railways caused a diversion eastward of a large part of the traffic, St. Louis received the principal commercial benefits of the lead business of the upper Mississippi region including southern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois. The quest for furs was not the pioneer industry in Missouri as it was in other parts of the interior. The priority belongs to lead.2 This was due in part to the mineral wealth of the territory, and in part to the enterprise of John Law, and to the requirements of the Company of the West which made the search for precious metals a matter of great importance. Thus the beginning of mining in Missouri antedated the founding of the first trading post by about forty years. While the site of St. Louis, settled in I764, was chosen with reference to the needs of the fur trade, a number of factors combined to make this city one of the leading lead markets of the country. The concentration here of a large part of the western Indian trade was in itself one of the elements in the situation, for the trappers, who brought hither their furs, bought supplies, one of the most important of which was shot. While the bulk of the product of the upper Mississippi mines, for a number of years, had no other outlet than down river, it did not follow from this circumstance that this traffic would seek St. Louis rather than other places, such as Alton, Ill., which at one time made a vigorous effort to get it, or Ste. Genevieve, Mo., which was already a place of