Arizona weekly citizen., 1883-09-29
THE GREAT IRON AND COAL
 FIELDS.

been accustomed Tor generations. The
 passenger cars are running almost
 empty. and the freight wagons appear a
 sarcasm to the enterprlsing Yankees
 who built the road. The people come
 to the stations to look at the pOnderous
 locomotives and wonder, but never 3D.
 pear to realize the practical use to be
 made of the road. Even the rush of the
 foreigners from the United States. SO
 lively two years ago. seems to have
 died away. To the casual observer the
 railroad IS failure. But looking more
 closely, there Is observable gradual
 change in all the towns along the line
 of the road. In Gnaymas, Hermoslllo
 and Magdalena, the principal places | passed through, old houses are being
 repaired, new ones b1iiding up. rents are increasing, regular hotels have been established, and slow, but sure l change IS taking place in the habits of l the people the mselves and the general trade and business of the country IS | undergoing a transformation from the days of the pack mules to the present iron rall facilities.
 Foreigners saunter through the streets, and seem us common as the natives,
 who no longer turn to look at them as ! subjects of remark. So quiet, but uI e mistakable progress is being introduced. | The fact IS that the country Is now ripe
 for development The railroad has | placed 1t in communication with the rest of the world, and its lmmense' rt- sources are now opened to any under l taking, that skill, industry or daring adventure may take hold of and carry
 out, with the certainty of success. Hitherto the mining of gold and sil-
 Yer has expressed the attention of | foreign capital. and 1t k also true that
 the most of the companies engaged ID such undertakings have miscarried.
 One reason for ir is, the nature of the ! mining business, in which every one
 who works a mine thinks be has a good l one, while the fact ls that out of many mines, one may turn out paying con cern. California, Nevada, Colorado and l Arizona have not been less dissastrou- ID mining undertakings than Sonora: | but another reason for the failures in mining in this State by foreign corpora tons Is the ignorance Ot the agents sent out 10 take charge Cf the property, or l dishonesty Tn the management, by which the superiu;endents line their l pockets with the money given them tO work the mines which are pronounced failures when in fact they may never have been worked.
 \ new departure 10 utilize the pro ducts of Sonora, through the facilities l offered by the railroad, Is the undertHk ing of the "C1mpaIiIa ExplOtadors de TerrenOs Carbonlferus de Sonora" This
 company has brought under its control all the coal interests accessible for ex- l portRiiUn in the State of Sonora. SO at
 to work the mlnes ana bring to market l the products of the anthracite cOal
 measures Of the State.
 This coal has been known to exist for | the last fifteen years, but the lack oi ! communication with the external world
 made it practically useless for exporta
 tion. IL was m speaking of these coal
 measures that General Rosecrans, many years ago, as 1t appeared in the columns | of your paper, stated that they would | produce as great caange in the com
 mercial and industrial world as had
 been operated by the discovery of gold | in California.
 These fields spread from the town of Buena Vista, on the Yaqui river, to 8
 place called Batuc, hundred miles to ] the north, on he same river. and from there west to the city of Hermosillo 1 The coal croppiDgs appear along the banks of the rivers and gulches, oI show on the sides of denuded hills.
 There IS a small strata about eight miles from Hermosillo and one mile ! from the railroad; there are veins fifteen feet thick on the banks oi the Yaqui river, which, after the Ygqui Indians at he mouth of the river are pacified, may be brought to Guaymas in barges for twenty-five cents a ton. But for the present the most accessible beds are those found at San Marcial, twenty-two
 miles of easy grade from the railroad. They are three, five and seven feet thick
 of the finest anthracite coal to be found
 in the world. The immense territory covered by concessions acquired by the
 above mentioned company IS not a con
 tIDuOus strata. It Is intersected by
 mountains of every variety of rock. and
 many, fl not all of them, carry some
 valuable metal, like gold, silver, lead, copper and iron, many of the gold
 and silver mines having been worked for centuries. The coal Is generally found
 n the valleys along the rivers, and at
 the base of the mountains or on the
 rolling hills next Co them. As singu-
 lar coincidence of thIs freak of nature.
 ID the town of San Marclal, the well
 known silver mines worked there for a century, are located less than one thou
 sand wards from a three feet vein of fine
 anthracite coal. The quality of the coal has repeatedly been examined by
 chemists and declared to be the very
 best coal; but no better proof of Its
 quality can be given than that the machinery of me of the mines in the country IS now being driven by steam generated by coals extracted from the coal beds ID their vicinity.
 One of the many analyses made of the coal gives the following results by the MetallUrgical works of San Francisco, Cal: