A Modern-Day Gold Rush

"We are born to wander and cursed to stay and dig." - William Bolitho Stream-worn gold nugget, actual size, panned in the Bradsha Mountains. Courtesy Arizona Sonora Desert Museum Ray Manley Studios

34 / Arizona Highways

In the desert near Oatman and Octave, throughout the Bradshaw Mountains, in Mohave County, and along the Santa Cruz River, hard-bitten gold-hunters and keen-witted chemists are wrestling the earth's valuables from tons of resisting ore.

Like some Rip Van Winkle of metallurgy, Arizona's gold-mining country is yawning awake to a new age. Shaking off the outmoded techniques and faded dreams that kept them dormant, the gold mines have been invigorated by high metal prices and are flexing renewed muscles of profitability.

With the price of gold fluttering around $500 an ounce, ground that once wasn't worth dirtying boots with has taken on a new glint. Discarded dumps are being picked over and gold fields old and new are hearing the ring and crunch of pick and shovel and the occasional roar of dynamite. Big on heart, these operations are small in production when compared with Arizona's massive copper mines. The vast majority of the 101,000 ounces of gold produced in the Grand Canyon state last year was a profitable byproduct of the mining of Arizona's main metal copper. But the big mines have also taken notice of the peaking price of yellow metal and are processing ores that formerly were unprofitable.

Outside the gaping copper pits, the best gold country in Arizona is concentrated in the central and southern parts of the state, say industry professionals such as John Jett, director of the state Department of Mineral Resources."

"There's no doubt there's gold in Santa Cruz, Cochise, and Pima Counties. The Bradshaws and the Oatman area probably have some good chances ... you can never tell. We don't know if the gold fields are all played out or not; they have never been fully explored or developed."

That uncertainty that will-o'-thewisp of wealth somewhere in the rough, cactus-strewn hills is what keeps the small independents going from one back-breaking day to the next. They dig, they blast, they pan, and they sluice, sometimes selling what they find but often just keeping it as a memento.

"A great number of these small people just hang onto their gold, or have it made into jewelry," observes Jett. "It never really enters the market."

The small gold-mining outfits vary widely, according to Jett. "There are many operations that maybe work one or two days a month. Many are working on and off, going up and down.

"To the best of my knowledge, there are no gold mines continuously operat-ing and feeding a profit into the market."

The nearest thing to a full-fledged gold operation that Jett knows of is a renewed version of the old Congress Mine in the desert-dry Date Creek Mountains, a few miles north of the once bustling mining town of Congress.

Operating out of an old ghost camp there, the Congress Consolidated Gold Mining Co. has turned to modern chemistry to extract smidgens of gold from the tailings (discarded ore) of predecessors.

"What we're doing is taking the tailings of the original silver mine, crushing it and applying an acidic cyanide solution to it," explained an employee of D. W. Jaquays Co. of Phoenix, which

owns Congress Consolidated. "That way we leach out the gold and other heavy metals." The result is smelted, reduced to bullion and sold.

The Jaquays Co. has breathed new life into the Congress camp, stuffing it with heavy equipment and 10or 12man crews to operate it. It's been a going concern for two or three years now and promises to get more productive as gold prices reach gasping levels.

"Everybody's doing it," adds the Jaquays employee. "It's a cheap process now."

Tech Systems International of Dallas, Texas, apparently agrees and is doing a similar thing in the played-out mining town of Ruby near the mountain wilderness of the Mexican border. Ruby, snuggled in the Atascosas Mountains northwest of Nogales, grew rich from the gold and silver, and later the lead and zinc, of the nearby Montana Mine. (See "Back Road to Ruby," AHM, Jan. 1980.) These days the waste dumps and tailings of the Montana are being moved by bulldozers onto sheets of plastic.

The ore is then being treated with a cyanide solution that drips out of a sprinkler system, producing a valuable sludge that can be refined into gold and silver.

Four Tech Systems employees work the old mine site continuously, giving back Ruby the first mining life it has known in nearly 40 years.

Another man with new ideas about old mines is John O. Bruer, a softspoken chuckling Texan who lives in Dallas when he's not gallivanting across the country on business. Bruer says he's going to revitalize two old shafts 12 miles south of Prescott off the Senator Highway two great ladies of the bygone metal age called Senator and Cash.

"There's so much history in those mines, it's hard to believe," drawls Bruer, a man whose knowledge of Arizona mining lore is exceeded only by his love of the rough, wooded land he's developing.

"We've been testing on and off for the last five or six years, but we increased the amount in the last 18 or 24 months because the metal markets were goin' crazy. We've been doing a lot of testing now, getting in the type of equipment that will be most efficient."

A nugget's throw away from the Senator and Cash, a friend of Bruer's named Angie Anapol is doing similar things with the old Davis-Dunkirk mine. Together, Bruer and Anapol, who lives in Beverly Hills, control some 500 acres of mineral and surface rights.

"We're going after the big five: gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc," says Bruer. "It sure is economically feasible. We've done extensive engineering on it, and it was mined back in the 50s."

If the Texan's plans bear fruit, the three mines will share an on-site smelter geared to process 250 tons a day.

"Sometime this year we'll start ore production," Bruer advises. "It's not a big deal, but there's some very high grade ore still left up there, and we think we're gonna do all right."

Does that mean Bruer and Anapol expect to get rich off this venture?

"Naw, Angie and I have already been there rich, I mean. This is not gonna be a poor-boy deal."

Elsewhere, small-scale gold mining proceeds on a now-and-then, off-andon basis. Northwestern Arizona, which produced nearly $40 million in $35-anounce gold between 1900 and 1934, is attracting some preliminary poking. There, Arizona's Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology is researching the possibility of reclaiming precious metals from old glory-hole dumps in Mohave County.

State researchers have been looking at the Black Mountains, an historically gold-rich area along the Colorado River, northwest of Kingman, and wondering whether old tailings there can be leached profitably. The Mountain Rose Mining Co. of Wikieup has also been exploring tailings of the old McGuffie Mine, in the Rawhide Mountains of southern Mohave County.

Two areas just south of Prescott have become popular for small-time gold seekers. The first is a stretch of about six miles of Lynx Creek from the Prescott National Forest boundary on the north, through Lynx Lake and down to the townsite of Walker. This strip has been withdrawn from mineral entry, and that means anyone with a yen can pan, dredge or sluice on a small scale, and no one can stake a claim.

Another mineral area is along Wolf Creek just south of the Lynx strip. However, this area contains many mineral claims and those who plan any golden activity there need permission of the current valid claimant.

Stop at the Bradshaw Ranger Station for more information if you plan to go to either area. They're on state Highway 69 about 11/2 miles east of Prescott.

In the Bradshaw Mountains between Phoenix and Prescott, some developmental work has been going on in the Tuscumbia and Button mines, but details on actual production are sketchy.

Perhaps the soul of Arizona's old mining days is being reconstructed most accurately in the Weaver Mountains, east of Congress. Around the ghost hamlets of Octave, Stanton, and Weaver, you can find a rough-andtumble jumble of camps, claims, and cusses and discover some gold bits yourself . . . if your luck is running strong.

The actual or spiritual sons and daughters of Arizona's pioneers are still here, panning, working placer claims (surface deposits of gravel and soil which contains gold), and even digging shafts with patience and sweat.

Occasionally the rush for gold leads miners to reach for guns as well.

Just three years ago in Octave, the employees of C. O. Carlson packed pistols and shotguns and threatened to have it out with the Hallelujah Boys, a neighboring religious group of 50 or so men and women.Octave Mine, inactive but still containing minor gold deposits, was the crux of their feud. Both sides claimed a piece of the mine and both accused the other of theft, threats, vandalism, and other low-down behavior.

Carlson and his wife claimed legal rights to the 117-year-old mine and hired three guards to protect their point of view. Five hundred yards away, the Hallelujah Boys also had dibs on a piece of the paydirt and toted pistols in a twoway show of force. At that time the Preacherman and his followers were living in a weathered cluster of old mine buildings and operating a placer claim, about a mile below the Octave site. There they collected gold-bearing gravel and soil, processed it through a homemade gold sluice, and dreamed of finding enough wealth to create a prosperous religious community.

The Octave conflict boiled up dangerously in late 1977 when two of Carlson's guards were accused of threatening a couple of Hallelujah Boys with deadly weapons. The guards pled guilty a year later, and after that things simmered down. Not long ago the Preacherman bought the old Williams Ranch, 171/2 miles northeast of Wickenburg, and, in mid-1978, the Hallelujah Boys moved out of the neighborhood.

"It's calmed down quite a bit since then," says Yavapai County Sheriff's Deputy Jody LaRue, who with Deputies Richard Mayer and Stan Wieden-haupt tries to keep peace in the hills. LaRue says today's claim disputes are more likely to be fought in the courts than in the brush, and he hasn't had much reason lately to put down insurrections. "Personally, I don't feel that there's a threat of violence in Octave at this time," he adds. "They've decided apparently to let Superior Court handle it."

Nevertheless, LaRue felt compelled to warn this writer to watch out for "a whole mess of 'No Trespassing' signs between Highway 89 and Red Hills."

"They're not legitimate signs," the deputy said. "But there's an old man down there that will excommunicate you at the point of a gun. He's claiming ownership of the entire lower desert."

And does the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office plan to ask him to be more neighborly? Answers LaRue: "We're working on it."

Paradoxically, all this fussing and fighting occurs over an amount of gold that is insignificant when compared to the output of Arizona's copper mines. Gold and silver both are reclaimed by the big mining companies as valuable incidentals in the recovery of their main product.

For those who want to acquire gold the way a copper mine does, an industry professional gives the following recipe, in simplified form: Take a quantity of copper ore-say, 50 tons or thereabouts-then extract the copper and smelt it down to 750-pound anodes, or ingots of impure copper.

Take an anode and put it in an electrolytic bath with a cathode at the other end of the tank. Pass an electric current through the bath and watch the copper particles travel from the anode to the cathode while alloys of silver, gold, and bits of other metals fall on the bottom of the tank in a substance called "silverslime."

Now leach the remaining copper out of the silver slime and wash out the acid. Filter and dry the slime, then heat it in a crucible or reverbatory furnace to drive off the selenium and tellurium with which the gold and silver are alloyed.

Now you have a metal which contains gold and silver in somewhat pure form. The way to get the metal commercially pure is to make an anode out of it and run it through electrolysis a couple of more times to separate the gold and silver. Eventually, you'll end up with a cathode of commercially saleable gold, which is 99.9 percent pure.

If you're mining a good site, you can probably extract half an ounce of gold from every ton of copper ore.

Now the mining is done, the gold ore stripped of its valuable commodity and discarded, the yellow metal processed and refined to near perfect purity, and the resulting bullion sold to dealers around the country.

Once the gold is gone from Arizona, Heaven alone knows its final destination. It could end up as a glittering ring on a young bride's finger, as a goldplated necklace girdling the throat of a disco dancer, or maybe even as glistening plate at a couple's 50th anniversary.

Whatever the form, it will be eagerly sought after, bought dearly, and prized as an heirloom, until sold again and again to subsequent generations. In a very real sense, gold never dies. It doesn't tarnish, holds its value over the centuries, and fascinates men and women alike with its alluring luster.

Americans, especially, seem transfixed by gold, maybe because we were unable to have it in bullion form until President Nixon made such ownership legal in 1974. Now we seek it in droves, avidly crowding neighborhood coin shops and raising them to a trading fever that stockbrokers would envy.

RA DE LOS PAPAGOS.

Today, Arizona's position as one of the top gold producing states in America is due to the copper mines. Minuscule amounts of gold are commonly found in copper ore. However, when hundreds of thousands of tons are moved on a daily basis it begins to add up. After the copper is extracted, the remaining "sludge" is shipped off to any one of a number of metal specialty companies around the country which are equipped to extract the gold. Alan Benoit

Electrolytic gold refining.

In the process of electrolytic gold refining, sponge gold, photo 1, adheres to cathodes, thin sheets of pure gold. In photo 2, the cathodes are melted and the liquid gold poured into bars weighing 400 ounces each. Then, in photo 3, each gold bar is weighed, double-checked for 9999.9 purity, registered and finally stamped. At present prices, the gold bars in photo 4 are valued at over $2 million. Ray Manley Studios

The number of businesses selling gold has grown along with the interest in buying it. In Phoenix, gold dealers include A & F Coins & Stamps, Metro Coin Shops, North American Coin and Currency Ltd., and the Valley Bank's gold department. In Scottsdale, Capitol Coin Co. also deals in gold.

Gold can be purchased from these dealers mainly in two forms-bars and bullion coins. Gold bars typically come in sizes as small as a quarter-ounce and as large as 400 ounces. If you take bullion away after buying it, you may have to have it assayed when you sell it again, and that means assayer's fees and loss of a small portion of your gold to the test.

Some sophisticated investors buy their gold overseas and never see it, preferring instead to keep it tucked away in a Swiss bank vault. But few can be so coldly businesslike about something so beautiful.

By far, the most popular way to own gold has been the Krugerrand, put out by the Republic of South Africa. Con-taining a profile of South African pioneer Paulus Kruger on one side and an image of a springbok on the other, the Krugerrand has been sold by the millions in the United States. It contains one troy ounce of gold (the metal is measured by the troy ounce, slightly lighter than the familiar avoirdupois ounce) and has a slightly brownish tint which is due to the copper mixed in with the gold.

South Africa also has begun putting out the two-Rand gold coin, containing one-quarter ounce of gold and selling for about one-fourth the price.

Other gold coins include the Austrian 100-Corona piece and the Austrian Ducat, the Mexican 50-Peso piece, the Canadian Maple Leaf coin, and the British Sovereign.

A one-ounce gold coin contains minting charges, so don't be surprised that it costs more than an ounce of simple gold bullion. Besides, when you sell it, it will bring in more than an ounce of bullion would when sold at the same time.

And no matter what form it's taken in, gold will cost you commission, once when you buy it and again when you sell it back. Commissions run from one to six percent, depending on the dealer.

Even with cash in hand, you may not be able to buy gold easily. Very likely you'll find yourself in a line of other gold bug victims, and on very busy days, an hour or more may separate you from your favorite metal.

Conditions are considerably calmer now, though, than they were during the surge of metal madness that struck America earlier this year. At North American Coin and Currency in Phoenix, for example, dozens of buyers and sellers crowded the company's lobby one day in mid-January and spilled out into the adjacent hallway of the First National Bank building. The lights on the office call-director flashed impatiently while a harried receptionist put everyone on "hold" and prayed for her lunch hour to come. Frozen-faced guards watched everyone with suspicion, and an exhausted broker sagged under the weight of a bag of silver coins. "This is madness," he sighed.

Here's hoping your gold buy, if you make one, is less traumatic.

Where to keep your gold once it's bought? A safe place, of course. Some dealers have storage facilities and will charge a fee for such service. Another logical place is a bank safe deposit box.

It's a good idea not to keep gold at home. A burglar or thief can strike as quickly as a springtime allergy, and many home insurance policies will not reimburse for stolen gold beyond a certain limitation.

Of course, if you have a wall safe hidden by an Old Masters print, you might have more justification for keeping gold in residence. But your gold will still be a little bit like a picnic lunch in a meadow full of ants. From the wrinkles of the earth to the palm of your hand, gold travels a path laden with dreams and emotions. A precious metal that sometimes brings out baser nature, gold retains the exalted position it has occupied since the time of the pharaohs.

Although Arizona's part in the story of gold is relatively recent, its contribution has been rich. And as the metal's high price and popularity show little sign of diminishing, Arizona's lonely hills and valleys may truly hold a golden future.

BLACK POWDER AND BICKFORD FUSE. Before the invention of dynamite this was the hardrock miner's mainstay. The powder was carefully tamped in the hole, using wood or a copper rod. A length of Bickford fuse was then inserted, and the hole was capped with clay or other material. The fuse was ignited with candle stubs called “snuffs,” many of which were kept burning, as it was considered bad form to be caught half way through the ignition process and have a spitting fuse blow out the fire source. The other most commonly used fire source was called the spitter. It consisted of a length of Bickford fuse notched down to the powder at regular intervals. This allowed a count to be made under the pressure of “firin’ the hole.” It also had the advantage of burning the miner's fingers when it had burned down, which served as a strong reminder to get the hell out of the tunnel.

BOOMERS: After the Civil War another type of miner appeared in the Western mines. He called himself a boomer, and distained the comforts of home and family, preferring instead to ride from camp to camp in “sidedoor Pullmans,” befriended by the “shack” or brakeman of the trains that served the camps. Enroute to the job, he camped in hobo jungles, eating stew cooked over coal “borrowed” from the kindly trainmen.

COUSIN JACK: A hardrock miner from Cornwall, in the south of England. The collapse of the copper and tin industry in Cornwall led to the closing of many of the Cornish mines. The miners were willing immigrants to the American West, where, for years, they were the most experienced hardrock miners available. The term Cousin Jack is said to have come from the fact that, whenever there was an opening at the mine, the loyal and family-oriented Cornishman would offer to send for his Cousin Jack.DOUBLE JACK AND STEEL: This consisted of an eight-pound sledge hammer and various lengths of drill steel, changed as the hole was drilled deeper.

DRILLING: In the days before 1875, the holes for rounds were drilled by hand. A two-man team used a double jack, consisting of an eight-pound sledge and a length of drill steel. One man would swing the hammer while the other turned the steel in the hole. When he extended his finger the hammer would stop and the length of steel changed for a longer piece. The two would then change positions. It was hot, hard work, with the hammerman's concentration absolutely critical, as heswung at a spot the size of a quarter, illuminated only by the light of a flickering candle. A miss meant the loss of fingers or the destruction of a hand and the end of work for a man with a large family, totally dependent on him for support. It was no place for a man with the “Monday maze,” the term for a bad hangover.

DYNAMITE: Black powder was dangerous and inefficient, and there was a constant quest for a better and safer explosive. In 1846, Sobrero invented nitroglycerine, but this proved to be hard to handle and exploded easily. In 1867, Alfred Nobel discovered that a mixture of fuller's earth and nitro was easily handled and not given to setting itself off. It could be packaged in sticks on waxed paper and was easily handled in the mine. It was more efficient than black powder, and the detonation could be more closely controlled, reducing misfires and hand-fired rounds.

FACE: The site of the work. Here the crew assembled to begin the day's work. The face was the foremost part of the drift or stope that was following the ore body, separating the country rock from the ore.

JENNIE: Cornish woman. Also called Cousin Jennie.

MACHINE DRILL: The tremendous expense of the hundreds of teams of double-jack drillers necessary to operate a large mine led to the invention of the machine drill. Names such as Burleigh, Rand, Ingersoll, Leyner, and Climax were as familiar to the miner as his family name. These still required a twoman crew, consisting of a machine man and a chuck tender but there was only one crew per face per shift. The early machines were heavy and had no water supply to control the dust or cool the drill. The result was miners breathed the dust and were stricken with “miner’s consumption” or silicosis.

MINE CAPTAIN:

CAPTAIN: Called cap’m by the Cornish miners, who were in the majority in the early days of mining in the West. This was the term used to designate the mine superintendent, a man who inevitably had to come up through the ranks before the halcyon days of schools of mining.

MINER:

MEMBER: Member of the face crew that drilled the holes for the round and shot it when ready.

MUCKER:

Member of the crew that shoveled up the muck from the iron turnsheet, after the miners detonated the shot. These workers were usually Irishmen, who had fled the famine in Ireland and sought survival in the American West. Since they were unskilled in mining they were assigned this job.

ROUND:

The series of holes that were drilled and loaded and detonated to bring down the ore and advance the drift or stope. The holes were drilled in the following sequence, by hand, using double-jack teams or, after 1874, by machine drills:

CUTHOLE:

This was a series of three holes that converged into a triangle, drilled in the center of the face.

RELIEVER HOLES:

These were drilled about halfway between the cuthole and the existing edge of the tunnel. The number of reliever holes depended on the size of the tunnel.

LIFTER HOLES:

These were drilled at the very bottom of the drift or stope, on a level with the tunnel floor.

SHIFTER:

The shift boss on each shift. In smaller mines these men were the bosses underground. Larger mines usually had level bosses to supervise large crews of double-jack teams needed before the invention of machine drilling.

SHOT SEQUENCE:

The sequence of the shot was as follows: The cuthole was detonated first, blowing out sharp edged pieces of rock. Next the reliever holes went, breaking rock into the cavity left by the cutholes. Then the edgers exploded, breaking more rock into the cavity left by the cutholes. Then the edgers exploded, breaking more rock into the empty space left by the reliever holes. This expanded the tunnel dimensions to the required size. (Only as big as absolutely necessary for the work to progress.) Lastly, the lifters were detonated, defining the tunnel floor and lifting the muck onto the turnsheet, a piece of iron laid on the tunnel floor to speed up the mucking process.

STEAM ENGINES:

These did all of the heavy chores in the mine, from hoisting to compressing air to pumping water from the mine in huge Cornish pumps, often having cylinders of more than 100 inches diameter and weighing more than 100 tons. They could pump 2.5 million gallons of water a day.

TIMBER FOREMAN:

The second in command of the mine, behind the cap'm. He was responsible for the entire physical plant, from the headframe (often called the gallows frame) to the sump. In a well-run mine, he was involved in all meetings concerned with development work. He had to know rock and ore to do his job profitably.

Compiled by Dave Kendall, Pima Regional Library Service, for the Sonoran Heritage Program, a National Endowment for the Humanities Learning Library Program of the Tucson Public Library.

Yours Sincerely

Comments and questions from around the state, the nation, and the world.

From time-to-time there will be a batch of letters dropped on the editor's desk that are unusually interesting and require nothing more than a genuine Thank You from the staff for sharing your thoughts and knowledge with us. - the Editor Editor, I thoroughly enjoyed the article on Sharlot Hall in the April, 1980 issue. She was definitely a self-educated woman who accomplished a great deal in her lifetime. A true pioneer in the woman's liberation movement. However, she fails to mention that her brother, Edward Hall, also came with them in the same covered wagon from Vernon, Kansas. Sharlot and Edward had made a pact, while they were young, never to marry as long as they lived. Edward, a self-taught mining engineer, was sent to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico during the days of the Pancho Villa revolution. There he fell in love and married. Sharlot was so embittered by his marriage that she never again mentioned her brother Edward in her writings. You see, Edward married my grandmother, Petra Acosta Hall, and settled down in Tucson.

Editor, William James Hall Martinez Pacific Beach, CA Editor, I find your April issue, highlighting Prescott, particularly interesting. Your editorial mentioning the first permanent territorial capital in the year 1864 coincides with facts in the "Memoirs" of my Dad's foster mother, Mrs. Edward A. (Lois) Boblett, who, with her husband, spent some time in Arizona before continuing west to Seattle in 1869. I fell heir to her "Memoirs" some time ago and, quoting from this, duringa stay of the Bobletts in Prescott, in the year 1864, she writes, "We set up our camp and in the morning a oneeyed man came to our camp. His name was Holiday, and he said 'Say, there are nine of us that want a place to board. Can't you board us? Ed said, 'Why, there is a hotel here. Can't you board there?' 'Yes,' he said, 'but we are members of the legislature and we are from the north and the southern delegates are all there and a fight is on for the capital, and we want to board where we can talk things over by ourselves.' Ed told them we could board them if we could get anything to cook. 'Oh,' he said, 'there is plenty here to cook and we can eat off tin plates under a pine tree.' We went to work and set our wagon boxes down on the ground and put a ridge pole up between them made a dining room. We fixed a place outside to cook and the next day we started a boarding house in a tent under a big pine tree with nine of the first legislators that ever met in Arizona They won their fight and the capital remained in Prescott." A celebration was held in the dining room of the hotel for 'the whole of them' cooked by the Bobletts, with a supper.

Editor, A. Margaret Kerr Port Angeles, WA Editor, When "Prescott Country" came, I felt as though a sumptuous feast had been laid before me. I savored every article that I read in that issue as I would every bite of a seven course meal. Indeed, reading about Prescott was almost as enjoyable an experience as visiting Prescott, which in my opinion - is the most comfortable and enjoyable city in Arizona Indeed, the whole region from Yarnell through Peeples Valley to Prescott proper and beyond to Granite Dells has the ambience of serenity, peacefulness, and life-at-its-own-pace seldom found anywhere.

Editor, Jerome J. Thailing Hawaiian Gardens, CA Editor, With the news media recounting the gloom, horror, and devastation brought by the rains in the Southwest, the March issue of Arizona Highways arrived like the flip of a gold coin, to show us the beauty and blessings of flooding in Arizona.

Jennie Dameron Abingdon, VA Editor, Arizona is ubiquitously bathed in a Ponce de Leon-utopian environment that stretches from Mexico to infinity. Your magazine depicts the authenticity of the great state of Arizona lying under the heavenly veil of serenity and tranquility. In the words of General MacArthur, "I shall return."

Editor, Willard E. Crawford (former hobo philosopher) Oroville, CA Editor, I was naturally pleased to see two double-page color spreads of our dramatic and enchanting New Mexico landscape in the May issue of Arizona Highways (Mountains of the Four Directions, pp. 28-29, 30-31). I'd like to point out that it's the Sangre de Cristo range, not anglicized to "Christo," as it appeared in your caption. The Sangres in New Mexico and Colorado constitute the most extensive mountain range in the American Rockies.

Editor, Richard Polese, Editor El Palacio Quarterly Museum of New Mexico Santa Fe Editor, I have been receiving Arizona Highways via subscription for over three years now... (and it) has special meaning to me while incarcerated in the Ohio Penal System. I have found it to be extremely helpful in reducing some of the loneliness and a factor in my honest decision to endeavor to live a completely legal life-style upon my release. Your publication reminds me of the beauty of nature I forfeited by my illegal actions. There is nothing that can make that sacrifice worthwhile. Even here, in a totally male institution, your publication rates on an equal basis, by demand, with Playboy, Penthouse and other adult entertainment magazines. I really feel you project a superior value system.

Name omitted by request From 1860 through 1965, Arizona produced 13,321,000 ounces of placer and lode gold, ranking eighth among America's goldproducing states. Nearly 80 percent of Arizona's lode gold, and much of its placer gold, has come from a northeast-trending belt of mountains about 65 miles wide, bordering the southwest margin of the Colorado Plateau - The Gold Hunter's Field Book.

Jerry Jacka

Bookshelf by Mary Lu Moore

Inquiries about any of these titles should be directed to the book publisher not ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Book prices listed do not include postage.

In this era of soaring gold and silver prices, prospectors are renewing and increasing their efforts to strike it rich. The mystique of precious metals has always fascinated people, luring them, drawing them like a magnet. Even the literature reflects their preoccupation with minerals.

Minerology of Arizona by John W. Anthony, Sidney A. Williams, and Richard A. Bideaux. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ. $9.75 softcover; $22.50, cloth.

Nearly 70 beautiful color photographs of minerals from Ajoite to Yedlinite, plus the description, location, and pertinent information on more than 600 Arizona mineral species make this book must reading for everyone from amateur rockhounds to sophisticated geologists.

In addition, the authors have included 50 line drawings of crystals, geological details on the formation of minerals in Arizona, the location of uranium and vanadium deposits, "mine fire" minerals of the United Verde Mine, and Arizona Meteorites.

Black and white maps of Arizona mining districts plus a detailed bibliography conclude the book.

How and Where To Pan Gold. By Wayne Winters. Nugget Publishing Co., Box 146, Tombstone, AZ 85638. 72 р. $3.00, softcover.

First published in 1961, this best seller has been updated and republished a number of times, including in 1980. Winters, an experienced prospector himself, outlines procedures and equipment useful for searching for gold. There are maps of the United States, Sonora, Mexico, and British Columbia, Canada, which show approximate locations of gold-bearing regions. Explained are the do's, don't's, how's and where's of staking claims, and processing likely chunks of rock. Helpful to novices and do-it-yourselfers are the black and white photographs and detailed diagrams of rockers and sluice-boxes. A sprinkling of anecdotes and tips enlivens this little handbook.

MINERALOGY OF ARIZONA

Mr. Winters' 1972 publication, Forgotten Mines and Treasures, also being reprinted, and also $3.00, is a gathering of late 19th and early 20th century newspaper articles dealing with gold mining, mostly in Arizona, which the author accumulated while editor of the Tombstone Epitaph.

Mules, Mines, and Me in Mexico: 1895-1932. By Morris B. Parker, edited, with an Introduction and Notes by James M. Day. University of Arizona Press, Box 3398, Tucson, AZ 85722. 1979, 230 p. $7.95, softcover.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mining activities in Mexico were at their height. Mining engineers and other specialists from the United States worked in Mexico for extensive periods of time. Fortunately for us, Morris Parker was one of those engineers. His reminiscences of work and adventures are interspersed with facets of the good sense of humor which successfully carried him through many a tense moment in revolutionary Mexico. In addition to many thoughtful observations, one notes Parker's respect for Mexico and its peoples, with whom he had close contacts. He encountered some rather well known people in northern Mexico: James S. Douglas, Jr.; Pancho Villa; William Greene; Jesus Garcia; and Emilio Kosterlitzsky, to name a few.

James Day's introduction, copious notes, bibliography and index, and several area maps supplement the author's well written narrative and small but germane old photographs. While of particular interest to the field of mining history, this book is for all who enjoy good writing about adventures and hardships on the western frontier.

The Gold Hunter's Field Book, by Jay Ellis Ransom, Harper Colophon Books, Harper & Row Publishers, New York. $5.95, ppr.

This handy size field book, subtitled How and Where to Prospect for Colors, Nuggets, and Mineable Ores of Gold by Amateur and Serious Followers of Jason and the Golden Fleece, merits the attention of anyone seriously considering gold prospecting in any one of our states or Canada.

The book is written in three main parts. The first section is an introduction to gold hunting with details on gold sources, staking a claim, general mining methods, tips for prospectors, and selling the gold you find.

In part two, author Ransom covers the individual states, including Arizona, where you can find gold, plus a brief history of gold recovery.

The last section is devoted to where to find gold in Canada, with provinces listed in alphabetical order.

In total, a worthwhile investment.

35mm COLOR SLIDES

This issue: 35mm slides in 2" mounts, 1 to 15 slides, 50¢ each, 16 to 49 slides, 45¢ each, 50 or more, 3 for $1.25. Allow six weeks for delivery. Address: Slide Department, Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85009.

(Inside back cover) We don't know if the gold fields are all played out or not; they have never been fully explored or developed-John Jett, Director, Arizona Department of Mineral Resources. Jeff Kurtzeman (Back cover) Day's end in the grim Kofa Mountains, 50 miles northeast of Yuma. The range is named after the King of Arizona Mine. While the camp itself made few headlines the mine was phenomenally rich. The ore was close to the surface and, in 1896, ran as high as $2000 a ton. Jerry Sieve

REPORT ON THE PRECIOUS METALS. ARIZONA.

Gold localities appear to be very generally distributed over the Territory of Arizona, but Indian difficulties have greatly retarded explorations and the development of even the best known districts. The principal gold-mining centres are Wickenberg, Prescott, La Paz, Fort Mohave, and Gila City, upon the Gila river.

In the vicinity of the last-named place, and along the Colorado river, there are placer deposits of gold, which have been prospected and are known to be rich, but have never been profitably worked on account of the absence of water. Placers have also been worked upon Weaver's creeks, in the interior.

The vein-mining region is within a circuit of 30 miles of Presamong them may be named the 1, with a Eureka, the Eugenie, and Big Bu Jeroga, the four last upon what is knova reek. Vulture lode, 15 miles east of ew rritory, and is energetica who ered in 1863 by Henry Aich ct the lode by the proce thus in arrastras. The selected ro 20 a ton for two years. The company erected a 20-stamp steam mill, at a ,000 more in permanent improvements. and rises in a bold outcrop which gives a which is not yet half exhausted. A sha 130 feet. The ore is a porous white quar es. Some galalso found, and the i This galena wil more abundant. ose the gold, so as to ting necessary The has a capacity of 35 tons a day orks about 206 week. The production is nearly $1,000 per day, or $28,000 te per month, or over $300,000 a year. The cost of labor and s very great, partly on account of the Indian difficulties and distance from centres of supply. This mine was represe Exposition by specimen No. 213 of the California collection Where are many veins in the region of La Paz upon the Williams's Fork, and the copper ores of both for 1867 is estimated at