Arizona citizen., 1875-09-25


 l timber Is scattered all through the mountains of that county, and the tops of the highest peaks and ridges are covered with larger pine trees. He says the valleys are covered with such timber, and some others, as mentioned ill the first of this para graph, ample for all practical purposes for many years. South of the Gila, in Pima county, the principal noun tains abound in good pine timber in the canyons and near the summits. This is particularly true of the Santa Ritas, Chiricahua and Graham moun- tains, and also i'll several others to some extent. But it must be under stood that 10 pine grows south of the G1la, out of the mountains, or in any thing like as accessible places as in the Apache, Mogollon and Prescott noun tains. Along our southern border, there is much live oak like yours in Sacramento and other valleys. For miles and miles beautiful oak parks extend, and are in every case accom- panied by grass and water, without any underbrush. Those of yourread- CTS who are familiar with the location of the timber in the Wasatch moun- tains of Utah, will understand how our pine is situated, as a rule, south of the Cila river north of it there are millions of acres of such timber ac- cessible with teams On in all, l doubt if any of the territories, save Washington, is so abundantly or any thing nearly so conveniently tim bered as in Arizona.
 MINERAL pnoDUcr1dks.
 Gold, silver, copper, lead, Iifon, coal and other minerals abound; indeed, 1t Is less difficult to tell where they are known to exist than where they are unknown. 4 brief history of the extraordinary difficulties which have been and are yet encountered in min ing in Arizona would be interesting, but not of practical value enough to be given herein Enough has been discovered to warrant the statement that mining will be the leading in dustry and most profitable one: i'll no other political division of the Union has so much nearly pure silver and copper been found i'll so many places and such distances apart. In Moha- ye county, in several mines, native silver has been extracted; the same i'll the Bradshaw Range near Prescott; same in Pinal mountains, thirty-tive miles notheast of Florence, and there by the hundred pounds: also in the south western part of Pinal county, abort forty-tive miles west of Tucson. Tine legend about Indians using silver bullets Is now believed by the mod crate thinking people. h your own city, 1 see 1t stated that one chunk of thirty-four pounds of native silver is oil exhibition, recently taken from the Athens mine, and since that time larger quantities have been extracted. At one point a ledge of six inches in thickness was almost pure silver, all sides of the ore showing silver as white as coined dollar. The Silver King mine near by the Athens, has also yielded many chunks of native silver and the body of the ore, assayers assure me will run into thousands per ton if properly handled in working. In 1872, W. Richard & Go. shipped five tons of ore from the Silver Queen mine in the Pinal Mountains to San Francisco, two tons of which was sold there for $200 per ton and the other three at $145 each. This Is a large vein, and as yet its owners have been unable to erect proper reduction woks. With 8 railway to the seaboard or to San Francisco, such ore would be i'm mensely valuable to miDer and pur- chaser, and the owners are waiting for this facility. As I have shown in a former letter, freight from the in terior of Arizona to your city now rates at from $12O to $16O per ton.
 The Old Mine is an old one in fact, but quite recently relocated, and is now being reopened by Tucson people. It lies just within Arizona and about due south of Tucson. One hundred pounds of ore recently smelted in rude furnace built of adobes yielded $200. This mine has true vein. The ore comes out of it in great mas ses just like stones from quarry. Thus 1t will be seen, without enter ing into weary details, that pur e sill yer is found throughout belt of country beginning near our northern boundary and running via the moun- tains about Prescott, north and south west of Florence to the Sonora line;