TONTO NATURAL BRIDGE

AT LEAST ONE APACHE INDIAN FAMILY still returns religiously each year to Tonto Natural Bridge to comfort the lonely spirits of their ancestors who departed this life without benefit of Apache burial.

Mike today is a very old man; even his daughter is no youngster. But still the story of what happened is vivid. The Apaches had for many years used as home the little valley where nature had carved a great natural bridge. No matter where the fortunes of hunting and war led them, each spring they would return faithfully to the peaceful retreat below the great Rim to raise their crops and worship their gods.

As the years went on, however, more and more white men moved into Apache territory, driving the Apaches from one retreat and stronghold after another, ruthlessly extending their domination over the land. And at last came the day when Mike's people met white soldiers in battle, far from their ancestral valley. Only a handful of Apaches escaped the decimation: Mike's mother, her very young son and a few old men.

Wearily the survivors made their way back to the valley of the natural bridge. There they sustained life as best they could, and year after year have the spirits of their honored dead stayed on in the last earthly home they had known. There is no place of rest in the hereafter for the spirit of the Apache who crosses into the next life without the traditional rites of tribal burial. And so Mike, his daughter and her offspring, as the only lineal descendants of those who died, return each year to offer what comfort they can to the restless souls at Tonto Natural Bridge, Arizona.

Despite the presence there today of a hotel, guest cabins, a swimming pool, automobile roads and handrails along the trails leading to viewpoints from which the wonderful bridge can be studied, it is easy to succumb to the charm and mystery of the place. Is that sound the murmur of the stream, the sighing of the breeze or the restless whispering of Apache spirits?

David Gowan, first white man known to have succumbed to the charm and wonder of the place, came upon it in 1877 when he slaked his thirst at the sparkling spring and rested from his wanderings as a prospector. The towering, colorful bridge sculpted by centuries of nature's careful craftsmanship intrigued him and eventually he laid white man's claim to the property.

For years he played hide-and-seek with the Apaches and finally his prospector's heart wearied of being bound to one locale. Yet his canny Scottsman's nature rebelled at the thought of relinquishing so interesting a property to strangers.

In the 1890's, after the last chapter of the Apache Wars had been written, an English newspaperman heard from Gowan the story of his interesting bridge. The resulting release came to the attention of Gowan's nephew, David Goodfellow, in Scotland. Goodfellow wrote his uncle, addressing the letter simply, "Davey Gowan, near Flagstaff, U.S.A." The U. S. Post Office came through, delivered the letter, and in 1898 Goodfellow and his family arrived to relieve Gowan of the burden of developing the property.

In 1948 THE GOODFELLOW FAMILY sold Tonto Natural Bridge, by then acknowledged a world-famous natural wonder, to W. J., George W. and Glen L. Randall, in whose ownership it remains today. It comes as a surprise to many that, like Meteor Crater, Tonto Natural Bridge is privately owned and not a national monument or park.

The bridge is 183 feet high. Its tunnel is 400 feet long and 150 feet wide. It is formed of travertine deposited over the ages from the waters of the spring. On top of the bridge is a five-acre fertile field once tilled by the Apaches and perhaps by their predecessors before them. Nearby caves are former Indian dwellings.

The hotel building, designed in what might be described as the Staunch American Utilitarian school of architecture, features large, high-ceilinged, gracious rooms, sparkling cleanliness and appetizing, homecooked food served ranch style. A limited number of accommodations are also offered in separate cabins.

The bridge and the lovely valley surrounding it have long been favorite subjects of painters and photographers. Groups and organizations frequently sojourn to Tonto Natural Bridge for relaxation and inspiration, while many a weary businessman has made a practice, Apache style, to return there regularly to restore his spirit.

MINING - from page 15

Early in this century we began refining copper from this leach solution using electricity electrolytic winning. This is simply plating the copper out of solution onto thin copper sheets cathodes. The solution has to be fairly rich to use electrolysis so in recent years a new wrinkle has been added - liquid ion exchange. This method simply uses a patented solution to collect the copper from the leach solutions and concentrate the copper content into another solution that goes into the electrolytic winning plant.

That takes care of the oxide ores. But most of the copper comes from sulfide ores. These, too, come in various different minerals chalcopyrite, chalcocite, bornite and others all of them being various combinations basically of copper, iron or sulfur. The trick is to separate the copper from all the rest of the stuff. They used to throw it in the furnace and the fire would do the trick.

We still do basically the same thing, but now the copper content of the ore has to be upgraded or concentrated before it is sent to the smelter. First the ore is crushed, usually three times, until it is of a fine gravel consistency. It is then ground to a fine powder in mills. These are like giant stone tumblers large steel cylin-ders or drums containing steel rods or balls that tumble around inside, grinding the ore to a powder. The ore is mixed with water and a few simple chemicals and comes out as a slurry into flotation cells.

Imagine a mix-master on a kitchen sink beating a watery chocolate cake batter and you've got a good idea of what a flotation cell does. One of the chemicals causes the "batter" to froth; the bubbles, rising through the slurry, collect the metallic particles because another of the chemicals has given them a thin oil coating making them reject the surrounding waste rock and seek air. The bubbles rise to the surface and over the edge of the cell. And there you have it the concentrate. The water is removed and it is sent to the smelter.

What's left over the powdered waste rock is sent out to the tailings thickener ponds where most of the water is recovered to be used over again and then on to the tailings dump.

Man has been smelting his copper for thousands of years and the basics of the process haven't changed much. Naturally, a lot of technology has been added especially in the last few decades. And now even more is being added as plants to remove the sulfur are being built.

But basically, the concentrate containing up to about onethird copper is fed into the big furnace at the smelter, it is heated to almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the copper, being heavier, settles to the bottom of the pond of molten material. The waste floats to the top and is poured off as slag. The copper is drawn off and is cooked in various stages in the converters and finally is poured into molds as copper about 99.5% pure. The molds usually are in the shape of an anode a thick, square sheet with ears on the top two corners for hanging by and are sent on to the electrolytic refinery where they are dipped into vats of a weak acid solution, the copper is dissolved and plated onto other sheets the cathodes as 99.9% pure copper. Now, mining people will argue with what has just been described saying that not enough attention has been paid to the actual process of mining. And milling and smelting people will argue with it saying it is too elementary and there is a lot more to it than this. It is a long, drawn-out, complicated process and what takes a few minutes to describe, takes a couple of weeks to accomplish.

But the thing is, there are some 23,000 people employed accomplishing this in Arizona's copper camps. And these are men and women working at the same properties their grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked.

It is a little nicer today, though. Modern highways have replaced the mule trails and it's at most a few hours drive to one of the state's major metropolitan areas with all their shopping centers, theaters, universities, and other amenities. And back home at the mine, things are getting a little nicer. The tailings dumps that nobody thought much of in years past are being spruced up literally. Not with spruce trees, perhaps, but with grass, shrubs, other trees of various kinds.

The object is to keep the fine tailings dust from blowing and washing away.

The acid plants on the smelters will make the smelter smoke smell a little less harsh; yet some people will actually miss that acrid smell.

New processes using solutions instead of fire will soon be refining some of the concentrates and perhaps the smelting capacity shortage that has developed in recent years will be relieved.

One thing is certain, though. Whatever new mines are discovered under Arizona's hills; whatever new methods are developed to mine these orebodies; whatever new processes are invented to refine the metal from this ore there will be people out there doing it. People who are proud of their Arizona heritage.

"The good old days" - pack train in arroyo below town.

"The Drags" - herding cattle through dry creek bed.