Raw lead straight out of the earth

[lts70]

Anyone have success mining for raw lead. A friend told me it was the most abundant heavy metal found directly on the surface of the earth. Just thought it would be cool to find some. Or even hear from those that have.

[a.squibload]

A friend who pans for gold said he finds lead in the streams around here,
also sometimes finds old bullets. He was gonna give me a can of it (he doesn't cast)
but now he works oilfield again and is never here.

[SciFiJim]

You would be looking for galena. I think that most of the mines are in the Missouri area.

[waksupi]

Very common in many mines. I know there is lots of lead in the silver mines of this area. The old lead mining district, was in an area composing the intersection of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

[44man]

It looks like dirt and the process to get the lead is very involved. It is rare to find actual lead, maybe like finding gold nuggets.

[uscra112]

Yeah, there were major lead mines on the Mississippi in what is now far northern Illinois. Look for the town of Galena, just a little southeast of Dubuque, IA. The Indians were mining lead there before the French and Spanish got there in the 1600s. Reducing lead sulfide can't be all that complicated if the Indians were doing it.

If you happen to be in the area, Galena is now a bit a tourist trap, but still worth a look, at least to us disciples of the history of the silver stream.

Used to be a big lead mine on the East Fork of the Wood River in Idaho, between Hailey and Ketchum. Locals say it was very active during WW2, then petered out and finally closed in the '60s. (?) The remnants are still to be seen. There's remains of other lead mines in that area, too. You can buy the land they sit on, but I doubt they'd let you mine it in these days of P.C. and EPA.

[MtGun44]

Smelting lead is a very nasty business, lots of toxic wastes, uses a bunch of energy.

Bill

[Southron Sanders]

Most Americans don't realize it, but the lead mines around Wytheville, Virginia supplied the lead for most of the bullets used by Washington's Continental Army to win the American Revolution.

The Wytheville mines also supplied lead for the Confederacy. I was in Wytheville a few years ago, but from what I could learn by asking around, all the lead mines are now closed down and have been closed down for a long time now.

[flounderman]

I'm from a lead mining region of wisconsin. there were mines everywhere. a choler epidemic wiped out a lot of the people and the rest fled. I have been in the mines, seen veins of lead, and picked up lead in the limestone bottomed ditches after a rain. it settles in the cracks. I tried to melt it a time or two with no success. there was a smelter in the neighborhood around the civil war. I guess they fired it with wood. raw led is brittle and you can break it into a bunch of crystals with a hammer. I don't know what it takes to turn it into smelted lead.

[arjacobson]

Most Americans don't realize it, but the lead mines around Wytheville, Virginia supplied the lead for most of the bullets used by Washington's Continental Army to win the American Revolution.

The Wytheville mines also supplied lead for the Confederacy. I was in Wytheville a few years ago, but from what I could learn by asking around, all the lead mines are now closed down and have been closed down for a long time now.

I have toured the mine from Potosi wisconsin. They said it was the main mine that supplied the lead for the union army.. We had a great time and learned quite a bit..

[MT Gianni]

Lead is everywhere. A few years back the EPA proposed that the clean up standard for lead was to be set a 5 ppb or parts per billion. There was nowhere that did not have lead already at that standard.

[MtGun44]

I don't know about lead but a lot of metal ores are sulphides, and a common method to
smelt them was to roast them with limestone and form, I think, calcium sulphide and the
raw metal. It has been a long time since I studied this so I may have it wrong, but IIRC
you could crush limestone and lead sulphide and heat them way up and probably get
lead out. How pure? No idea, I expect it depends on the ore.

Bill

[waksupi]

In some materials I have from the old midwest mines, there were deposits of lead found in large cube formations, some weighing over 1000#.

[MtGun44]

I believe this would galena crystals which can be cubes, but galena is lead suphide, and
needs to be smelted to reduce the sulphide to the metal. It would be pretty amazing to find
a 1000 lb cube of galena - it looks pretty neat, definitely looks metallic.

I just read up on smelting lead, and you first roast it at moderate temps to drive off the sulphide
as sulphur dioxide (nasty poisonous gas, will combine with water to become sulphurous acid) and
leave lead oxide. Limestone is used to combine with any rock impurities as slag. The lead is then
reduced at higher temperatures, I think they charcoal added into the mix to combine
with the oxygen and leave as carbon dioxide, leaving relatively pure molten lead. Modern systems
used cabon monoxide gas added instead of charcoal. You need the heat and something to
rip the oxygen off of the lead oxide and leave the metallic lead behind.

Bill

[Shooter6br]

Near me is New Galena Pa. Mine is now under Lake Galena.( Peace Valley Park) Mined in 1885 i beleive.

[quilbilly]

I often wondered about extracting lead from the galena ore. A few years back we were visiting a ghost town NE of Ely, Nevada where I found a whole hillside of the ore. Lead seems to be associated with silver strikes regularly

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

Interesting. There are huge lead deposits south of St Louis along the river. Last I heard, the EPA was putting pressure on them to not sell to individuals or in small quantities.

Rich

[Harter66]

Quill,

You are correct,based on my history knowledge. Virginia City is the place that coined "the streets are paved in gold" . It seems they didn't know what to do w/all the blue mud so they paved the streets . It took several assays before the silver was confirmed and recovered from the wortless lead they believed they were paving with.

[GLL]

I have a 15 pound crystal of the mineral Galena (lead sulfide) sitting on my desk. Here are a few cubic cleavage fragments from the lab.

Native lead crystals do occur in nature but are VERY rare and worth much more as collectibles than as bullet making material ! I have never seen examples except in museums.

Jerry

http://www.fototime.com/FE3898D29F46D96/orig.jpg

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
I have several Galina chunk crystals from when I was working on my geology minor so I could teach Earth Science. We have a town called Galina here in Ut. IFIRC.
With lead mines.:Fire::Fire:

[MtGun44]

Is that lead smelter south of St. Louis still in business? I wonder if I could drive over and
buy a ton or so?

Bill

[felix]

Yes, Bill, it's called DoeRun operations in Herculaneum, on I-55, just north of CrystalCity/Festus where the glass operations are. Lots of calcium carbonate around there plus other rocky compounds. The ore is mined southwest of that home office. DoeRun does allow customer pickup on very large amounts, but I have been told by some others that some "falls off the truck" in a beer-to-beer fashion. ... felix

DoeRun lead that I have is very blue in 55Kelvin light. That will be your indicator of the industrial pure stuff. I am not sure if lab grade lead is produced there in that area. Alton, 50 miles north on the river, is where most of it is shipped to by barge. Olin is there, and they prolly process it further into lab grade stuff. That would be my guess. ... felix

[MtGun44]

Felix,

Thanks for the info. I have heard that there was a lead smelter over on the east side
of Missouri, south of St. Louis.

I wonder how one may go about getting a "small amount", like 500 or 1000 lbs?

Bill

[Thumbcocker]

A co-worker is a rock hound and gave me a humk about the size of a muskmellon. It is in crystal form. I mentioned using it for boolits and he squalled something fierce so it just sits in my loading area.

[felix]

Bill, Lawrence, the shot and half-lino guys selling to the public, is across the river, slightly south of Alton which would be WoodRiver/EastSaintLouis. Prolly our vendor, RotoMetals, buys from Lawrence or DoeRun directly. Consider the transportation costs specifically. However, if traveling on vacation that won't count unless you are pulling a wagon of sorts. Call in advance to these guys and see if they are willing to "wholesale" for beer money. ... felix

Lawrence Brand Shot, Granite City, IL
www.manta.com/c/mthcy6w/lawrence-brand-shotCached
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
Lawrence Brand Shot in Granite City, IL is a private company categorized ... Lead Products (Mfrs) in Granite City, IL; Non-Ferrous Metal Except Cu & Al ...

... felix

[oldred]

There is a creek in Ky where I grew up that has a vein of lead about 1/8" thick sandwiched between two layers of a soft black rock. This seam is underwater but when the water was low we could carve out chucks of the stuff for fishing sinkers, it looked just like any other lead once the black crud was scraped off the top and bottom. I haven't thought about that for many years, I am sure a person could easily dig out a lot of lead from there.

[Boolseye]

Oh, so that's the Galena reference! I should have put it together. I drove through Galena about 6 years ago.