TRAFFIC FLOW IN 1937

THE Arizona Highway Department maintains 3508 miles of roads of various traffic densities ranging from 7000 vehicle density to as low as 50 per 24hour period. Consequently, to properly appropriate moneys for maintenance, betterment and reconstruction of these roads, it is essential for the Highway Department to have at all times accurate data as to the amount of traffic flowing over the various sections of the highway system.

The second Wednesday of each month, under the supervision of the various maintenance foremen, manual counts of traffic are recorded at 73 strategic points located over the entire highway system. In addition to this, the Highway Department has in constant operation seven electric recorders counting traffic every hour of the day and every day of the year. These electric counters are located at strategic points on different routes and at different altitudes. From these electric counters ratios are developed each month to raise the manual 12hour counts to an average 24-hour density. At the end of each year all of these counts are worked into final figures representing the average 24-hour traffic for the entire year over the various routes and sections of the highway system.

Very often it is hard to glance at figures and grasp their relative significance, whereas, if properly depicted, the importance of each is at once apparent. For this reason a flow map is made each year showing the average 24-hour traffic over the State Highway system. It would be impossible, and it is not intended for a flow map to represent all details relative to traffic. For instance, the local traffic near several of the cities could not be shown on this map due to the large portion of the map it would cover.

During the year 1937, of all traffic observed on the Highway system, 31% was cars bearing out-of-state license plates. This out-of-state traffic is indicated on the flow map by a solid black line varying in width according to the amount of this type of traffic observed at the different points where traffic was recorded. The local traffic is represented by the shaded portion on either side of the solid black line. A legend at the lower left corner indicates this, and a scale is shown by which the various widths on the traffic lines may be measured in terms of average cars per 24 hours for the year.

The 1937 increase of traffic over the year 1936 was approximately eleven per cent. The most noted instances were on Route 70 east of Phoenix, all of Route 66, Route 466 to Boulder Dam, Route 89 and 64 north of Flagstaff, local traffic near Phoenix, Globe, Yuma and Tucson, and on routes south and east of Tucson.

The traffic represented for U. S. Route 60 north from Globe appears to be relatively small. However, since the traffic shown on the map represents the average 24-hour flow for the full year 1937, and owing to the fact that it was late in the summer when construction was sufficiently completed to encourage through traffic, it is expected that during the year 1938 this route will show a considerable increase.

The greatest volume of foreign traffic is definitely in an easterly and westerly direction, with the exception of the Grand Canyon and Boulder Dam traffic. The Highway Planning Survey has found a considerable portion of this traffic to originate in California, and to represent visitors touring in a circuit through Nevada into Utah, thence south to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, thence via Route 89 and 64 to 66, thence via Ashfork and Kingman to Boulder Dam, or in the reverse of this circuit.

ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT TRAFFIC FLOW STATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Highways of Arizona perform a Herculean task in fulfilling the mandates of modern travel. Here at a glance is the story of traffic flow over the state highway system in 1937.

When War Swept the Desert

This was the scalp bounty. Various adventurers and renegades were hired to hunt the Apaches as one would hunt wolves. Emory stated that in 1846 the Mexican bounty for each scalp was one hundred dollars. Forty years later the Americans, incidentally, were doing things in a bigger and better fashion. In 1886 the commissioners of Grant county, New Mexico, were offering the Christian citizens of their jurisdiction the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars! In the nature of the case, such tactics fanned hatred on both sides to a heat beyond which it was not possible to go.

During the Civil War the troops, whose function had been to prevent or at least to punish Indian raids, were withdrawn almost completely from Arizona and New Mexico. The tribesmen seized their opportunity. Cochise, a Chiricahua chieftain formerly a friend to the Americans, turned under a justifiable provocation, it would seem into one of the bloodiest of enemies. The Encyclopedia Americana estimates that during the Civil War one thousand whites per-ished in Arizona alone, and that all except a few hundred in Tucson were driven from the territory. But at length, in 1872, General Howard induced the great warrior to abandon the warpath and to settle with his people upon a reservation. It was the beginning of the end. In the same year, the first ranch in Arizona was established! American business did not wait. During the next few years land-hungry settlers, lured by cheap pasturage, came surging into the country like a wave.

The weight of the Apaches' dreaded influence can thus be estimated from the sensitive manner in which the white man's activities responded to their activities. In the year that Cochise signed the treaty with General Howard, proclaiming, "Hereafter the white man and the Indian shall drink of the same water, eat of the same bread and be at peace," in that very year, Mr. H. C. Hooker opened the famous Bonito Ranch, since before that time ranching in its ordinary sense had been impossible. And likewise until that time, prospecting, which is by its nature a solo performance, had remained the utmost in hazardous occupations. But within the year after General Crook had corraled the other dangerous bands upon the San Carlos reservation, (1874) Arizona hills were fairly swarming with prospectors. And almost immediately came announcement of the discoveries of the great bonanzas at Silver King, Globe and many a lesser mine. And until the beginning of the seventies, farming had scarcely existed along the Gila (the river of the Apaches) and its tributaries. It was not until the white man knew that the enemy was imprisoned on reservations, or could shortly anticipate such imprisonment, that he could till the soil and expect to reap its harvest. Farming, ranching, mining, all waited upon the Apache.

A striking coincidence worth mentioning is that just at this juncture Colts put on the market their first metallic-cartridge revolver The deadly 1873 model soon superseded the slow cumbersome revolvers which had to be loaded from the muzzle with a ramrod, and added to the pioneer both an immense effectiveness in firing and a corresponding increase of confidence in combat. It was a single action, forty-five caliber weapon with a seven and a half inch barrel, and, in time, it became the favorite firearm of the west.

Thus with the Apaches herded on reservations, and with an unparalleled new weapon in hand, Arizona marched forward. In 1874 her population was but eleven thousand; in 1876 it was thirty thousand, and in 1880 it was forty thousand.

The reader must be cautioned, however, against believing that the development of the Southwest proceeded thenceforth in an ever ascending curve with never a relapse or reverse. Indeed the hardest figthing of all occurred after some escapes from the reservations. Victorio, the finest military genius of the Apache nation, escaped thrice from San Carlos, fled into Old Mexico and there with his warriors terrorized large mining camps. Chief Chato, another fugitive, with a small band which crept north across the border when it was patrolled by American troops aided by Apache scouts, murdered twenty-five persons in one week in Grant county, New Mexico, riding-so it is stated on good authority-one hundred miles a day. And finally, Geronimo treacherous, murderous, vicious in all ways, but a tremendous foeman! In him Apache character revealed the last, deepest level of its extraordinary endurance and fortitude. For millions of Americans who never saw the Southwest he remains the personification of the Indian warrior. The history of those decades of strife is a dreary mass of carnage brightened only by a few personalities like General Crook's who was both a great soldier and a great man. Yet on the opposing side there pass in review the great and tragic figures, Mangas Coloradoas, Victorio, Cochise, Geronimo. Upon their like, the world will not look again. Of the final struggle, thus writes one who participated in it: "The Geronimo campaign of 1885-1886, against the Apache Indians of the Southwest was in some respects one of the most remarkable in recorded history.. In this campaign thirty-five men and eight halfgrown or older boys, encumbered with the care and sustenance of one hundred and one women, with no base of supplies and no means of waging war or of obtaining food or transportation other than what they could take from their enemies, maintained themselves for eighteen months in a country two hundred by four hundred miles in extent, against five thousand troops, regulars and irregulars, five hundred Indians auxiliaries of these troops, and an unknown number of civilians. "During that time they killed seventyfive citizens of Arizona and New Mexico of whom we have official record; twelve friendly White Mountain Apaches near Fort Apache, two commissioned officers and eight soldiers of our regular army, and an unknown number, probably a hundred or more, Mexicans and others not of record. "Their losses in killed were six men, two large boys, two women and one child, not one of whom was killed by regular troops." (Introduction to The Truth About Geronimo by Lt. Britton Davis. Yale Univ. Press, 1929.) Thus Geronimo! Today on a monument beside the highway not far from Lordsburg, N. M., a bronze tablet facing westward toward the Chiricahua mountains of his nativity, announces that near there in Skeleton Canyon (Peloncillo range) on September 3, 1886, Geronimo surrendered. A realistic detail just at the final curtain of the tragedy-unpublished so far as the writer is aware is contained in a recent letter from an army officer whose father participated in the last campaign. It seems that with the subtle mockery which somehow insinuates itself into all things heroic, Geronimo impaired his fighting strength at the end by a social disease. He notified General Miles that he would come in if an officer were sent for him. "He had to get to a doctor," concludes the letter tersely. "What bullets couldn't do, the bugs did." The bronze tablet continues eloquently, "Near here Geronimo surrendered, thus ending Indian wars in America forever." And a few leagues farther west in the same range is a strange formation of giant magnitude, a stupendous head, lying face upward upon the summit of a mountain, visible through New Mexico. Arizona and Old Mexico for a hundred miles. We call it Cochise's Head-a memorial of "old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago." It lies tranquil now, forever, looking up into the azure. And all Apaches have been prisoners of war for fifty years. Civilization had penetrated Apacheria with crossbow and arquebus in 1540; in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had assaulted with matchlock and sabre, until at length despairing, it had settled down to a live-and-let-live compromise with a savagery which continued to answer back with lance and stone-headed arrow. When the nineteenth century had run half its course, there came a stronger race whose wealth was as countless as the sands of the sea, with horses, men and supplies that only such wealth could amass. At last the scale weighed heavier on their side, and savagery was overwhelmed. Civilization invaded Apacheria, conquered and settled down to stay. But until the bitter end, be it said, the Apache kept his reputation for savagery unsullied.

(Continued from page 13) being the first legal prisoner in the cells he had blasted. It must have been a sad awakening for Margarito Barela, finding himself in his own jail, the one he had made bullet and escape proof. A deplorable situation for "the world's greatest builder of strong jails," and one suffering from a fierce hang over. "Ah, caramba! Such a feeling. Dios! Such treatment!" probably wailed Margarito. Records do not say what happened to the builder of the Clifton jail after his release, but perhaps his bravado, like Biblical sins, has extended to the third and fourth generations, and even tomorrow you may meet a new Margarito Barela.

Clifton Jail

Land of the Blue-Green Water

(Continued from page 11) The falls has deposited a series of extraordinary travertine curtains down the face of the bluffs. The curtains are readily identified in the accompanying illustration. After passing the falls, the creek joins the silt-laden, forbidding waters of the Colorado river that flows into Lake Mead, confined by Boulder Dam.

Little is known of the tribal customs of the Supais, so secluded do they live. No white man has yet learned the secret of their ritual, nor has he located the sacred grounds whence go the Supai dead.

Even the livestock bears the stamp of isolation. It is said that long ago a pair of horses were allowed to run wild in one of the adjacent canyons. Successive generations from this original pair, without the introduction of new blood, abetted by scant forage and lack of water, has resulted, according to reports, in a breed of miniature horses. The existence of such pigmy animals is being investigated.

Should you by chance journey to Havasupai Canyon, don't be surprised if, when you reach the agency, you're approached by a distinguished Indian wearing a stovepipe hat and a long-tailed coat with a couple of medals pinned to his chest. He won't tell you that he's George Washington or Napoleon. That's Big Jim Gwetva, the sub-chief. Big Jim's the Supai greeter a sort of one-man Chamber of Commerce. He put the "lug" on a president and was decorated by a king.

When "Teddy" Roosevelt visitedthe Grand Canyon about 1912 to hunt mountain lions, Big Jim came out of the canyon to welcome the Big Chief. The President took a shine to Big Jim, and Big Jim took a shine too he took a shine to the President's top-hat and long-tailed coat. When the president left, Jim was richer by one topper and one long-tailed coat. They're still his most prized possessions. He stores them away in a gun-nysack until he comes to town. Then he dusts them off on the outskirts of the village, slips on the coat, clamps down the topper and in he rides.

King Albert of Belgium, when he arrived in the park, recognized Jim as a "head man" and pinned some medals on Jim's coat, and there they hang today.

The village of Havasupai is located six miles up Havasupai Canyon from the Colorado river, at a point where the canyon's floor is a quarter of a mile wide. Most of the tribe lives in or near the village. They use the pool at the base of a nearby falls for bathing. They also follow the old custom of resorting to sweat pits for purification purposes.

An Indian sweat pit is the equivalent of a modern Turkish bath. Its operation is primitive, but it produces highly satisfactory results. It is very similar to the storage caves commonly seen on middle-western farms. A roaring bonfire is built outside the pit, and a pile of stones is heated to white-heat. These hot stones are carried into the pit and piled in the center in a heap. The Indians scheduled for purification divest themselves of clothing and enter the pit. They sit in a circle around the stones. The entrance is sealed and buckets of water are poured over the hot stones, producing a dense steam. If it's a hangover or whatever the reason is that makes him Big Jim Gwetva, the Supai sub-chief, put the "lug" on a President. Jim is the Supai's greeter a sort of one-man Chamber of Commerce.

Torpid, the Indian comes out of the pit feeling swell. Then he tops it off with a stretch in the natural rays of sunshine -sans clothes, of course. What a spot for a nudist!

One of the most impressive sights that greets the traveler who ventures into the canyon, is two towering pillars of stone. To the uninformed, they are only spectacular and interesting rock formations. But they're more than that. They're Wigglee and Wiggl-I, Supai deities that stand guard over the entrance of the canyon. They were put there by Supai gods to warn the Indians not to leave their sanctuary below the rim.

According to a Supai legend, Wigglee and Wiggl-I are the corpus delicti of a chief and his spouse that had itchy feet many centuries ago and decided to go places. The wife felt she was too shut in and put pressure on the chief to scale the walls and escape to the outer world. Everything went well until they were discovered and turned into pillars of stone by the god whose edict was violated. And there they stand today as a warning to all Supai not to stray from the home grounds because the grass in the other pasture may look greener. The tribe still heeds the warning-perhaps fig-uratively if not literally.

Some of the younger families come up to the rim and do dry farming. The Watahomagie brothers have considerable cattle holdings and maintains a sizable string of cow ponies up on the plateau. They are expert rodeo performers and lend color to rodeos held in the park. One of the most colorful events of the rodeos is the Squaw Kace in which Indian women participate. For the past several years this event has been won by "supai Mary," some eighty-odd years old, riding a Supai cow pony.

Two routes to the canyon are available. One is from Seligman, Arizona to the head of Hualpai trail and down that way. But if you're in Grand Canyon village and have an urge to visit the supais, here's how to go about it: First, telephone the agent to find out if you'll have a place to sleep and something to eat. There are limited guest accommodations at the agency. Should he happen to have a cook at the time you happen along, the agent will probably put you up. If the agent gives you the come-along signal, then you order an Indian guide and a horse to meet you at the head of the trail.

If everything works according to schedule, you should find your guide and horse waiting for you at Hilltop. When you see the mount, you may want to walk down and carry the horse. But don't waste sympathy. They're tough little rascals and can take it. Then eleven miles in intimate contact with the saddle -so intimate that the last five miles or so feel like riding a steam boiler under full pressure. In spite of your ideas to the contrary, you will eventually arrive on the floor of the canyon, where the hardships of the trip are promptly forgotten. It is one of the most picturesque sections of a region noted for its color and configuration.

With a good dinner tucked away and a night's rest, you'll be ready to explore this intriguing canyon. You'll want to climb the cliffs over which the falls roar. It's tough going, but worth it, and you'll have the satisfaction that comes with doing the unusual.

HOW IT STARTED Arizona...?

Of a century ago, Patrick Hamilton penned to Arizona a tribute which time has in no way dimmed nor made less deserving.

"There is no region on the globe," wrote Mr. Hamilton, "not even excepting the Italian peninsula, that can show such grand effects of light and shade, such gorgeousness of coloring, or such magnificent sun-bathed landscapes. When the God of Day sinks to rest behind some rugged mountain, lighting up the western heavens with a blaze of gold, and pink, and crimson, and orange, and wrapping the jagged peaks of the bare and forbidding mountains in a soft and dreamy haze of purple and violet; when the banks of clouds around the western horizon look like masses of burnished gold set in a sea of silver, then is presented a picture to which neither pen nor pencil can do justice. And when the last ray has disappeared, and the western sky is yet blushing with the mellow radiance of the last glorious caress, the stars begin to peep out from the clear blue canopy, and in a short time the vault of heaven's dome is lit up by the brilliant beams from the countless creations that gem the firmament."

When, in 1854, congress made its choice of name for a new territory from among Pimeria, Gadsonia and Arizona, it perpetuated a designation no less colorful than any encomium that might be paid to the state itself; for the richness of the background of the name Arizona is heightened by beautiful legend and even by language confusion.

On the face of it, "Arizona" appears to be rooted in the Spanish arida, dry, and zona, area.

Indian sources of derivation, however, indicate otherwise.

"Arizona" may be Pima arizon for either "little creek" or "maiden country" (there is a tale of a virgin queen who once ruled the entire Pima nation.)And then again, "Arizona" may be a corruption of what looks like the Aztec Arisuma, for "silver lining."

SPRING--Swings a Magic Brush

(Continued from page 9) Indians have utilized centuries of knowledge in the use of wild flowers, plants and herbs. According to Dr. H. L. Shantz, formerly of the University of Arizona, the Pimas of today utilize about twentytwo varieties of plants, using the flowers, stems and leaves, bulbs, seeds, fruits, nuts and berries. Mesquite beans and the fruit of giant saguaro cactus are most important. The saguaro cactus flower, one of the most beautiful of the cactus blossoms, is the official state flower. The saguaro furnishes quantities of food for Pima and Papago. At the time the fruits are ripe, they are gathered and made into dried sweetmeats, jams, or jellies. All fruits of cacti which are at all edible are utilized. The seed pods of the devil's-claw are gathered to furnish the black patterns of baskets. This plant is semi-cultivated for this purpose.

The many forms of the great barrel cactus, which sports a brilliant red blossom, can be seen almost anywhere in the lower desert country. The flat-stemmed forms, which boast the big name Opuntia engelmannii and have huge clusters of yellow flowers are known commonly as the "prickly pear" cactus. We eat the deep magenta fruits, which are usually in the shape of pears and often attain that size. One warning. Be sure all the needle like fuzz, which is in realty small spines, is safely removed before attempting to eat the fruit, which is thickly seeded. Mexican names are used commonly throughout the southwest. The name "cholla," pronounced "choy-ah," applies to most cylindrical opuntias, "nopal" and "tuna" applies to many of the flat stemmed forms. The giant cereus is known as a saguaro, and the barrel cactus is called "bisnaga" or "visnaga."

The different types of cactus have a rather definite blossoming period for each locality or elevation. In the vicinity of Tucson, the species of Echinocereus begin to blossom early in the spring. In this group are the common-named hedgehog, porcupine or pickle cactus. The flowers are large and showy in most species, in shades of orange, red and purple, which are practically all gone by the middle of May. But the chollas have come into bloom in the meantime. From the middle of May to about the first of July the prickly pears, saguaros, barrel cacti, and some of the Coryphanthanae (small tuberculate cacti characterized by a groove down the upper side of each mature tubercle and straight spines) are in bloom. The blossoms are brilliant yellow, usually occurring on the top of the plant. The night blooming cereus flowers about the middle of June; then the pincushions and barrels blossom until fall. The periods of blossoming overlap so that some of the cactus flowers may be found practically all the time from March until October. The time of blossoming of any species will be later as the elevation increases. For instance, plants of the saguaro will have ripening fruit at the foot of the mountain at the same time that others are blossoming at the upper limits of its distribution. One of the cholla family which is easily distinguishable by its shape, a large, bushy cactus, grows the various branches from a central trunk much like a stag's horns, hence the common name, "staghorn" cholla. Some varieties are almost spineless, while others are heavily spined. A small pearlike fruit grows on the branches. Another cholla, often noticed in deep brush because of its thin stems and deep red fruit, is called the "rat-tail" cactus. There are few spines. Another cholla, commonly called the "banana" cactus, (but look out for the spines) is the largest of the chollas, the trees often reaching heightsof more than 12 feet. Branches of the cholla, with the fruit, form bunches resembling bunched bananas. A member of the prickly pear group, that has named itself because of its close resemblance to the tail of a beaver, is the "beaver tail" 'cactus, or Opuntia santa-rita, which has smooth, frequently spineless, green or somewhat purple pads, which are velvety and partially covered with fine hairs.With the latest national monument 'named after it, no wonder the Organ Pipe cactus of the Ajo region adopted that name. The technical monicker is Lemairocereus thurberi. Growing to heights of more than 20 feet, this cactus resembles the pipes of an organ, in that they graduate in size. The specie is found only in a few places in southwestern Arizona and in northern Sonora, Mexico. The night blooming cereus, Peniocereus greggii, draws much attention during the 'mid-summer months, when the various private plants are watched with increas-ing interest for the pure white blossoms to spring forth after the darkness comes. Conspicuous red fruits contrast sharply with the gray green stems. Cacti seem to have a habit of naming themselves. Another which helped in this practice is the Lophocereus schottii or “senita,” meaning old man, because of the beard-like effect created by long, slender, bristle-like spines, which almost “drape” in-to a spiny gray beard. But lest you grow tired of the spiny world, attention is called to the results winter, summer and spring rains bring to the desert. Perhaps most noticeable in the spring, particularly after a good rain, is the desert poppy which turns the valleys and flatlands into a flowing field of gold. At the same time lupines, mints, phacelias and wild hyacinth tint the land-scape with blue. You will also find the creosote bush, rayless goldenrod, the yellow-green palo verde and the blue palo verde, Lycium, and hackberry, also the desert buckwheats, Eriogonum, whose delicate stems, often almost invisible, range from yellowish green to deep brown and often present silver and rose and pure white to decorate the landscape. Desert marigold and pink beds of filaree, in western Arizona particularly, and wherever there is a sandy surface soil, the sand verbena (an Abronia) covers the rolling hills and dunes. The desert sand lily and the prickly poppy add color, as do the nigger toes, and blue bells, of the lily family. Red scarlet buglers, or Beard-tongues, and the rose colored and purple colored penstemon add more splashes of brilliant life to the desert landscape. Another colorful desert plant, the desert hackberry, is often noticed, with brilliant orange and red berries. Squawberry, or tomatillo (“little tomato,”) is a member of the nightshade family. The squawberry flowers are white to lavender, with darker dots, depending on the species. A common tree which makes a pretty springtime sight is the desert willow, which blossoms with colors rang-ing white to rose.

Cactus Flowers

If you care to follow to the higher altitudes of northern and eastern Arizona, as the late spring comes on, you will find a large variety of lilies just coming into their full share of blossom, according to Professor J. J. Thornber of the University of Arizona botany department. Among these are the Mariposa lilies, relatives of the tulips, some white, others white with lavender, and another one at high altitudes in deep canyons, deep violet-lavender; there are also the rare and interesting Bronze or Mission Bells (Frittilaria), several kinds of Solomon's Seals, the true and the false; Twisted Stalk (Streptanthus) and rough fruited Disporum. Occasionally one finds a patch of the spotted orange Mountain Lily, a true lily and one of our finest wild flowers; and on limestone ledges the amber Asphodel lily grows in abundance. There are numerous kinds of wild onions, some very attractive, various blue-eyes and their big brother, the western Blue Flag, a true iris with lavender-blue flowers. At very high altitudes in bogs, are patches of the so-called Skunk Cabbage or False Hellebore, also called Corn Lily, since its leaves resemble those of the corn plant and its flower clusters suggest corn tassels. Growing here and there in moist soils and dense shade, or in springs or on the edges of bogs, are a dozen or more kinds of orchids, including Calypso, Coral Root, Rattlesnake Plantain, Adder's Mouth, Helle-borine, Bog Orchid, and the rare and highly prized Moccasin Flower or western yellow Lady's Slipper. Desert plants are among the most highly specialized of any types of vegetation on the earth, the reason being that they have had to push farthest from the moisture of their original environment to an unfavorable region where heat and uncertainty of water supply have shut out all but those especially adjusted to meet these extreme environmental conditions.

Desert Bloom

COPPER MINING In a Great Big Way

(Continued from page 7) Hence, would enjoy the dispatch with which the Phelps Dodge crew at Morenci are tangling with a mountain. An extensive system of roads was wrapped around the mountain, and three electrically driven shovels were moved in-one on top and two along side. The heavy rocky overburden is blasted and then the shovels move in and scoopety-scoop, scoopety scoop go the shovels as they load the trucks. A loaded truck will get the whistle and off it goes to a canyon side where it dumps the ore, and no sooner does that truck get the whistle than another truck comes in and scoopety-scoop goes the shovel and in about two scoops it gets the whistle. Everything is run smoothly and carefully. Despite the immensity of the undertaking, there have been practically no accidents. Two shifts work on the shovels and trucks. (And those trucks are really killer-dillers. A retiring job is about the equivalent to the purchase of a medium-sized pleasure car.) The fourth shovel will soon go to work, its assembling being started about a month ago. Six hundred and fifty men are employed by P. D. and any increase in employment will be taken care of by these now unemployed in the Clifton-Morenci district.Production on an experimental basis will begin this year. Extensive improvement to the milling and smelting equipment will have to be made before full production at Clay mine is reached in about five years.

The present concentrator has a capacity of 5,000 tons of ore daily. Approximately five times that capacity will have to be provided in a new mill to handle the increased production.

Over seven million dollars will be spent in improving the smelting facilities. The P. D. smelter at Clifton in 1929 produced 55,265,349 pounds of copper, principally from ore produced at the old Humboldt. The present smelting equipment includes eight seven-hearth roasters, one reverberating furnace equipped with three waste heat boilers, three 12foot converters and a Cotrell system. Thecorporation plans no resumption of work at the old Humboldt mine now. The ore body is mononite porphyry and the ore developed is estimated to carry 1.73 per cent copper. About 88 per cent of this is in sulphide form and the balance is acid-soluble copper in oxide carbonite and silicate form.

The Humboldt ore body has a maximum length of 2,000 feet, a maximum width of 600 feet and a vertical range of about 1,000 feet. Present ore reserves consist of 6,800,000 tons of developed ore and 1,329,000 tons of ore not fully developed.

If ever advisable this mine could be brought to furnish a yearly output of 1,500,000 tons of ore carrying 42,000,000 pounds of copper. The expense of mining the Humboldt makes it inadvisable to mine ore at present copper prices. The wealth of the Clay ore body was known for years. The problem of mining the ore at current copper prices was the deterrent factor. P. D.'s operations now are believed to be a solution to that problem-large scale production of a comparatively low grade ore at a price per pound that will make the mining profitable.

When you spend $11,290,000 for advance stripping and for necessary equipment before you pull ore, mining on that scale has to be carefully planned, expertly and efficiently consummated. That care in planning, that expertness and efficiency in consummation has been practiced diligently since 1813 when old Anson Phelp and Elisha Peek went into the business as metal merchants.

So another page is being written in the history of copper mining in the CliftonMorenci district, the oldest camps in the state. The district is located in Greenlee county. Clifton, the old smelter town, is in the valley of the San Francisco river, at the foot of the Coronado Trail. In seven miles you travel up 1,500 feet to Morenci, the mining town. The Phelps Dodge corporation owns the land on which is Morenci. Merchant concessions are granted by the P. D. to those who aspire to business there. The Clifton-Morenci district in the foot hills of Blue range has much of the picturesque, much of the romantically historical. Old Metcalf camp is a few miles up the river from Clifton but today what was once a booming town of 1,500 people is no more. Only a few bats, with whirring wings in the forgotten shafts, break the stillness of the day.