Arizona weekly citizen. [volume] (Tucson, Ariz) 1880-1901, 1891-04-18
WEEKLY CITIZEN.
MINING IN SOUTHERN PIMA

which, however, have scarce yet been
touched by the miners pick. Complaint
10 made that the ores are of too low
grade or that the owners lack means to
make paying proposition pay. Small
rich veins that can be worked by men of
limited means are not as common as
lodges Of lower grade and vast proper
tions. Such discoveries are less fire
quent now than they were 10 or 20 years
ago, when Arizona was comparatively
new. White men as late as 1875 were
few in the towns of Arizona, but they
were still fewer in the hills. Those who
ventured from the beaten paths of COM
merce and sought wealth in the noun
tain ranges of Southern Arizona, were of
the harder kind, tho typical frontiers
man who brayed dangers he knew not of,
and faced with the courage of his kind,
the omnipresent Apache, and that still
more terrible enemy-Thirst. Men died
on the desert and were forgotten in a
day. Men went in search of gold and
never returned. The silent hills and
arid plains of the far Southwest could a
tale unfold of the fate of many a luck
less wsnderer. The great mountain
ranges, ribbed and scanned with mineral
wealth, were tennantless to civilization.
The few who ventured therein have
passed away, or urged on by that strange
fatality of unrest, they ho i realities near
at home for the vague uncertainties of
unknown possibilities. Wealth and
fame near by were abandoned for prom
iced wealth and fame little further on.
The writer fifteen years ago had trarers-
ed not only Arizona but largely North
ern Mexico, and knows whereof be
speaks when he says that not one man
in hundred stood by his "irst discov-
cry" They rough-hewed the way for
the stranger who Toasted and fattened
upon what the restless explorer had left.
camp today in the hands of its original
discoveries, and that is the Hudson and
Bent Camp, on the southern slope of the
Bsboquivaris. The original discoveries,
sitter whom the camp was named, struck
the hills in 1876 and in 1S9l--the one
living and the other dead-they are still
there. Hudson died about a year since
and was buried in the camp-with bis
hopes and ambitions-but Bent lives
and still leads the procession.
The first locations were made in 1877
nearly year after they had broken the
iron groupings on the Homestake ledge.
Having practically the range to them
selves they determined to prospect it
thoroughly before monumenting their
''finds." This done, the work of develop
ment began in earnest, which off ard on,
has been continued ever since. In the
meantime a constant series of expert
ments has been kept up to determine if
possible the proper method by which
the abundant ores could be profitably
worked. The lodges are enormously large
and the ore of such character rs TO justi-
fy the widest fight of their ambitions.
But fortune does not always smile
upon the hardy miner. She makes
him wait and work. The rocks
may be frelghted with precious metals,
but he must crush them to powder be
fore they can be reached. Hudson and
Bent knew this, but they put their
shoulders to the wheel and made it
turn. They worked themselves when
their funds were low and employed out
side labor when their purses were suf-
fciently plethoric to meet their indebt-
edness.
The surface ore is redish quartz,
more ore less oxldized and spotted with
black sulphates of silver, carrying fair
per cent of gold. There is also yellow
ish colored stain which permeates the
rock and has the appearance of being
chloride of gold. This so called chloride
is so fine that if crushed and submitted
to the horn, it fails even With the great
est care, to show a trace of gold: but
submit the ore to the heat OF a forge,
and fine gold globules viii incrustate
the surface. AS depth is attained the
character Of tie ore bodies gradually
change to pyrites of iron and lead, carry
ing, as at the surface, both silver and
gold, with the latter predominating.
The lodges are enormously large and
30 compactly grouped that notwith-
standing the number of claims located
and more CT less worked, they cover but
comparatively small radius CT country,
and so situated are many of them
that they can be cut by tunnels at
great depth and thus worked out at a
minimum cost. Townsite grounds have
been taken up and the key to that entire
section of country is virtually in the
hands Of Bent and his two associates,
Messrs. Waterman and Sampson.
On these properties not less than S4O,-
OO0 have been expended in work upon
the claims and determining the best
process by which the ores could be
proftably worked. With that persever-
ance and ingenuity common to the
frontier miner, they chlorided, leached,
roasted and arrastraed the ore. They
submitted it TO the barrel process, both
roasted and raw. By the use of
phospho-sulphate of soda they attempt
ed to leach the gold and silver, together
but it was not until the adoption of the
Gilt Edged concentrators, now at work
on the mines, that entire success was
reached, and prosperity now broadly
smiles in the faces of the fortunate own
ers.
Not less than 1900 feet of work has
been done on the various claims, and