Arizona weekly citizen., 1893-06-24
LOST MINES.

LOST MINES.
Some forty-five years ago. or soon
after the close of the Mexican war two
or three Americans and an equal num-
Der of Mexicaps discovered a rich N ne
about fifty miles north of FL Paso (then
called Franklin) on the eastern slope OF
the Mount Franklin or Organ range OF
mountains. They sunk a shaft and
were taking out rich ore, when the
Mescalero Apaches discovered their
whereabouts, and at once beseiged them.
The fight lasted three or four days,
when the Americans seeing that stealthy
fight was necessary, and that they
would have to abandon the several
mules belonging to the party, killed the
mules and pitched them into the shaft,
and to prevent the Indians from using
the flesh for food, buried the mules
deeply by filling the shaft above them
with earth and stone. In the final at
tempt to escape the whole party met
death except two of the Mexicans. Now
party of Mexican prospectors, looking
for the "lost mine" have inst discovered
an old and partially flied SHAFT IN deep
gorge about three miles north of Sole
dad canyon, and are engaged In cleaning
it out, believing that they have hit upon
the object of their search.-El Paso
Times.
Pigs may fly but they are very un-
likely birds. The writer once lived in
the land of lost mines. With his com
panIons he discovered many only to lose
them again with the wish that they had
never been found. Some have been re-
discovered by others who followed later
on like quest.
In early days dangers and distance
were landmarks one to the other. The
farther away from even the shadow of
civilization report located lost mine,
and the greater the danger attendant
upon reaching il, the more fancy played
about its hidden millions aud the
greater desire to ''call them your very
own" sent many a good man to destruc-
ton.
Old mines are fakes OF the very worst
kind and lost mines are blank sight
worse. The discovery of an old shaft is
the finding of hard work and bitter dis
appointment, both in one chunk. The
hill country OF northern Mexico abounds
in old shafts filled with the accumu-
lated debris of centuries. The keys, by
witch prospective wealth is to be I'M
licked, is, of course, always to be found
at the bottom and to reach it the tolls of
contract labor in the prison pens of
Georgia and Tennessee Is boy play in
comparison.
The mountains in early times were
never free from marauding Apaches and
the means for excavation we're both
primitive and limited. No man unused
to such class of work can rea lie the
labor there is in cleaning out fifty feet
of debris from an abandoned shaft. every
pound of which 10 the absence of
windlass, had to be pulled up by hand,
or with a rope running through the
crotch of forked stake set at angles
over the pit mouth, and worked by a
COW pony under the saddle. The deeper
the shaft the greater the anticipation of
unlimited wealth.
In the eyes of "lost mine" fiend
every difficulty can be worked away and
every imprObability explained. The
poverty of surface indications are easily
excused in the presence of an old shaft
and the worthlessness of the ore dump
was and is yet accredited to the samp-
ling abilities of the Jesuit miDerolo-
gists.
lost mine hunters are no different to- |
day than they were 20 years ago. 1t |
may be easier to sink new shaft and |
open up new ore bodies, but fool faith |
drives men to clean out old shafts sunk |
1ttentimes where the veriest tyro in |
would not have rut them,
and on ledge matter that would not pay
% work if found in the ore yards of
Swansea or in the fields near Heidel-
burg. In the experience of the writer,
and his experience is no different from
nat of hundreds of others, lost mines
hould forever remain lost and if acct
lentally found the plague flag should
oe hoisted and the place dreaded as the
mallpex; for men gifted with the COM
non sense in the ordinary affairs of life,
make small use of the gift in the pres
nee OF an old mine abandoned years
gone for its utter worthlessness.