Having examined whatever was deemed worthy of attention here, I drove on about fifteen miles to Willow Springs.  In this drive we had the Platte Mounds, a prominent object, all the afternoon on our left.  We stopped at Irish Diggings, and I took specimens of the various spars, ores, and rocks.  Lead ore is found here in fissures in the rock.  An extraordinary mass of galena was recently discovered, in this geological position, by two men named Doyle and Hanley.  It is stated to have been twenty-two feet wide by one hundred feet in length, and weighed many tons.  It was of the kind of formation called sheet mineral, which occupies what appears to have once been an open fissure.

The face of the country is exceedingly beautiful, the soil fertile, and bearing oaks and shagbark hickory.  Grass and flowers cover the prairies as far as the eye can reach.  The hills are moderately elevated, and the roads excellent, except for short distances where streams are crossed.  We passed the night at Willow Springs, where we were well accommodated by Mr. Ray.

On the 18th it rained in the morning.  We stopped at Rocky Branch Diggings, and I obtained here some interesting specimens.  We also stopped at Bracken’s Furnace, where I procured some organic remains.  I examined Vanmater’s lead; it runs east and west nearly nine miles.  There was so much certainty in tracing the course of this lead, that it was sought out with a compass.  The top strata are thirty-six to forty feet—­then the mineral clay and galena occur.

While examining some large specimens which had been thrown out of an old pit forty feet deep, whose edges were concealed by bushes, I had nearly fallen in backwards, by which I should have been inevitably killed.  The fate that I escaped fell to the lot of Bennet’s dog.  The poor fellow jumped over the cluster of bushes without seeing the pit beyond.  By looking down we could see that he was still living.  Mr. Vanmater promised to erect a windlass over the pit and get him out before Mr. Bennet returned.

We reached Mineral Point about eleven o’clock.  I immediately called on Mr. Ansley, to whom I had a letter, and went with him to visit his copper ore discovery.  On the way he lost his mule, and, after some exertions to catch the animal, being under the effects of a fever and ague, he went back.  A Mr. Black went with me to the diggings.  Green and blue carbonates of copper were found in rolled lumps in the clay soil, much like that kind of lead ore which is called, from its abraded form, gravel ore.  Taking specimens of each kind of ore, I went back to the town to dinner, and then drove on two or three miles to General Dodge’s.  The General received me with great urbanity.  I was introduced to his son Augustus, a young gentleman of striking and agreeable manners.  Mrs. Dodge had prepared in a few moments a cup of coffee, which formed a very acceptable appendage to my late dinner.  We then continued our way, passing through Dodgeville to Porter’s Grove, where we stopped for the night, and were made very comfortable at Morrison’s.