The Arizona sentinel., 1878-02-23

The Picacho Chimney Peak) mine is no
 new and untested discovery. The gold
 washed down from it formed the placers,
 which caused the great Colorado river ex-
 citement of 1861. Unlike other placers of
 this country, these produced only fine,
 flour gold; some of the gulches giving one
 to two ounces to the pan. MT. Redondo,
 the Contreras and other old residents of
 Yuma, give wonderful accounts of the
 richness of these placers. It was soon dis
 covered that these gold deposits all oc-
 cured below all immense reef or ledge of
 decomposed quartz having the appearance of red cement; no gold has ever been found
 above it. This ledge lies about six miles from the Colorado river, and the placers
 from it are too high up to be reached by
 ditches taken from the river. The gold
 was taken up entirely by ''drY-was hing"
 the dry gravel was agitated in pans, caus-
 ing the gold to settle to the bottom, the
 stones pushed off by hand and the dust
 famed out by the wind. The ledge was found to carry fine gold, in every part of it
 to the extent of $15 to $40 per ton; an
 average has since been proved to be about s25. Its greatest width fully developed
 has been shown to exceed sixty feet, though much greater with is claimed for It. After the placers we're exhausted, MeXicans packed ores to the river and tEere worked them for years by arrastras, until the ledge fell into the hands of J. s. Spann by location and purchase. Spann bought a five stamp battery from the old Buena Vista mine, and bought an engine which had been landed at Castle Dome for a smelling furnace under the auspices of the late Thomas Selby of San Francisco, and which had been thrown into the river by the caving in of the bank at high water.
 He had the machinery dug out at low water, but some ot the peices had settled into quicksand beyond resurrection. MT. Poindexter, now mining in Pima County, l was associated with Spann, but their joint 1 capital was exhausted before they could get their mill to work. Samuel Purdy Jr. | then organized company, in San Francis co, to buy and work t6e mine. They got things to running in good shape, but by | bad management and ignorance of en- ployees got lew thousand dollars in debt | became disgusted and allowed the whole to be sold under attachment to F. D. Welcome for David Neahr Some | work was then done to open the mine and it was submitted to the inspection of seve- ral distinguished mining engineers. The high opinion of these experts induced the present proprietor to haul quantity of rock to the rlver and to crush it in the lit tie old battery belonging to the property. The results have more than justified all expectations and amply prove that the  Picacho mine will pay handsome returns under ordinarily prudent business mana cement. The last cleanup gave 79 ounces of clean retorted gold bullion. All the bullion heretofore shipped has yielded value of $15 to S16 per ounce The rock worked has given an average return of about s2S per ton. The ore is friable and readily crushed. The mine comprises some 5000 feet along the ledge, besides twenty acres of placer ground which will pay to mill. The road is excellent and on ! continuous down grade to the mill Such excellent results have been obtained rom the little old rickety battery, that it is now proposed to erect new mill and work the property to greater advantage.