The weekly Arizona miner., 1870-03-05
Quartz Mining.
Success of the Big Bug Experimen,


 Our readers must have noticed that, dur ing the past year, the columns of the MINER have not been burthened with quite as much "quartz talk n as of yore, and those of them who live in this part of the Territory. can have no difficulty in guessing the reason. Therefore, it were needless to explain had we no readers but home ones. But, the fact is, the MINER has readers in every State and Territory of the Union and those of them who live too far away from here to under stand the situation must have been at a loss, recently, to know the reason why it SO sud denly "let up" on its favorite hobby--mning We'll, addressing itself to them, the MINER has no hesitancy in saying that, until recent ly, all, or nearly all, efforts to work quartz, with profit, in this immediate vicinity, were discouraging palsying failures The failure of our quartz operators to get paying quan- titles of the royal metal out of the ores treated, or, rather maltreated, by them, be- gat fear in our mind, and have caused us to talk of our great and numerous rich quartz lodes in a very guarded manner. But, now, having passed the Rubieon; having achieved success in quartz mining-our greatest inter est-al timidity and fear have fled our bos- som, and we dare to say that many of our quartz lodes are real miRes. All know that the greatest want of the Territory is and has been--population, and all will, we think, admit that the MINER has not misrepresented f, *o trIu here. Indeed if we have sinned at all, it was by "hiding our light under bushel." True, we have told people at a distance that, in our opinion, Arizona was the richest min eral country yet discovered; that the num- Der of quartz veins containing gold, silver and copper, scattered throughout the Territory, was immense that some of them contained these metals in great abundance. We have, too descanted upon the glorious climate of the Northern section of the Territory, it's i'm mense forests, rich agricultural and grazing lands; beautiful rivers, creeks, etc. These latter inducements, we knew, existed, but we were not positive that the gold existed in our lodes to any great depth, or if it did that it could be taken out of them by the means and appliances at our disposal. It now rejoices us to be able to state that one mining com pany-the Big Bug, have effeetually settled that question. They have demonstrated, yes, proved beyond doubt-that quartz mining can be made to pay handsomely in these mountains, and to them is due the honor of making the first real substantial success that has been made in this part of the Territory Of course, the vulture Company, near Wick enburg, have been making money by working quartz, for several years past, but their mill and mine is nearly 100 miles southwest from Prescott
 The Big Bug mill consists of but ten stamps, yet it has ground out an immense amount of gold in the past two months The latest run of which we have any knowledge, paid better than any previous run. The stamps were run about ten days, and the amount of gold saved was about eight pounds, worth, |. least, 700. The mine, we are told, is looking finely. The Superintendent, Mr Mccarthy, thinks there is now a sufficient quantity of ore in sight to keep the mill con- stantly crushing for two years. But, we un- dsrstand, the owners intend to- erect more stamps soon, and ''get away" with this visible body of ore in less than year. We earn estly hope they will do so; there is enough rich quartz in the district to give employ ment to fifty such mills as the Big Bug for long time to come. About two miles north of the Big Bug mill, there is q large, rich and we'll defined lode known as the Independence, upon which work has recently been com menced anew by it's owners, L. O. Gray, T. W. Boggs and A. L. Moeller. It is their in- tention, we believe, to sink down on the lode q some fifty or sixty feet and have the ore taken therefrom crushed at the Big Bug mill, and should it yield as well as is anticipated, work will be kept up and pushed with greater yigor. JOHN N. BoGGs.-This ancient and honor