This murder was committed
by a part of Black Hawk's band, who had been driven from their villages
on the Mississippi below the rapids. They ascended the river to
Dubuque--from thence the party set out, and fell on the unsuspicious and
defenceless Menomonies.
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.
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