...ties of gold and silver; and for many years the hope agitated France with vague but confident expectations. Two pieces of silver ore, left at Kaskaskia by a traveller from Mexico, were exhibited to Cadillac as the produce of a mine in Illinois; and, elated by the seeming assurance of success, he hurried up the river, to be, in his turn, disappointed,—finding in Missouri abundance of the purest ore...