Arizona weekly citizen., 1895-07-27
FL TTR0 MINE.
One of the Marvellous Mineral Deposits in Northern
 Sonora.
A Counterpart to the Slave System Still in Vogue sn the Great Placer Deposits that lie
 Contiguous to the
 El g'tr0 Ground

ODOOfa Mnicn nave never been NoihcN
 within the memory of man and of which
 nothing Is known beyond the fact that they were once worked by peon labor
 under Spanish supervision ages back.
 Fl Tiro is one ot these. In any other
 country it would attract the attention Of
 capitalists. In California, or in Ariznna
 even, but in Sonora it may remain for
 many years yet unnoticed and forgotten
 a5 it has remained this last century at
 !eRst. Fl Tiro may truly be called 8
 great mIne. The old workings on it are
 extensive and can be traced almost with
 out a break for three quarters of mile.
 The yein varies from SIX to sixteen feet
 10 width, and this has been taken out ia an open cut winch is sometimes thirty
 and forty feet deep and sometimes
 sixty. As one stands at the fer end of
 1t and glances over the rift It has made
 m the ground like Assure left by an
 earthquake, R1d down below on the
 hillside lies pile of tail;ngs ten thou
 sand tons of which bear witness to the
 labor expended in winning the precious
 metal from the quartz, surprise is felt
 that such 9 mine, ss yet barely scratch
 ed should remain idle and almost un-
 known. Why this should be It is hard
 to say, and must remain one of those
 unanswered riddles common to the
 mining world. It Is not that the vein
 Is barren because 1t will be found on in- sDection to assay on an average fully
 fifteen dollars per ion, and it is not be-
 cause it is situated in an out of the way
 place because it is only forty miles from
 Santa Ana, the nearest railroad point
 Ia ths Sonora railroad. Possibly it is
 owing to the very fact that it is so favor
 ably situated that is has been overlook
 u. 1t is within a few hundred feet of a
 good wagon road at ths commencement
 of the we'll known Llanos Cienegs con-
 oession which has long been looked upon
 IS ihs most productive placer ground in
 Sonora and among the richest if not the
 richest deposit of alluvisl gold in the
 whole Of Mexico.
 For two hundred years has this field
 been worked; first by the Spsniards and
 their slave labor, and later on by differ
 ent MeXlcans proprietors, until finally it
 came into me possession of the Serns
 5amIly and Is today worked by them in q manper not so widely different after
 all from that in vogue couple of centu-
 res back, when the Indians were forced
 to ork in the mines under the lash or
 at the point of the musket.
 In many of the mining journals lately
 estimates have been given of the low cost of production Of gold in some of the great mines Of Cripple Creek in Color ado. IL IS granted that 8 number of these mines nave produced gold for as low B figure as seven ard eight dollars per ounce. In the Llancs Cienega concession a careful study of the ques- Gion will satisfy anyone that gold is there produced for a sum not more than 1.lf that given as the cost Tn the mines If Cripple Creek. The way it is done is
 his Being placer ground and in Sono- "a the method adopted for extracting the gold Is dry washing. The dry wash ar used is the same as commonly seen n the hands of MexicRns all through southern Arizona. The labor employed is Yaqui exclusively with Mexican fore nen. To each machine four or five Yaqui Indians are assigned, and their iaily lack is to put through the machine twenty six tops e day. At first this does canrsa co hr+ ;s taken into consideration that all the irt has to be screened and often much )f IL earned up out of deep holes on the shoulders of the laborers iE leathern buckets in will be seen at once that this no light task. Over each machine a Mexican foreman stands guard and at the end Of the day turns in the gold to tEe store in the village of Fl Tiro which ls the office of the owner of the mines. The average value of the gold won from the ground daily by each machine may 8 placed at seven dollars. The cost is IS follows: Five Yaqui Indians l8borers tt thirty-seven and half cents day and ore Mexican foreman at fifty cents a day. These wages it must b6 borne in mind which appear ridiculously low In 1 American money are psId in Mexican ,Oln which at the present rate of eX-
 hange brings the cost of labor for each machine, and each seven dollars worth f gold to not more than dollar and a quarter. Out or these paltry wages the aquis have to live and ciothe them selves. 1t IS not to be wondered at that they live in a state of squslor unknown 10 any of the Indian tribes of Ar.zonR. Practically too they are slaves, for if one ueslres to leave le IS informed that he is in debt to the tore some ten or fifteen dollars, and to custom if not to law, at all events to force, he ls compelled to stay md work his indebtedness of. While le Is doing that fresh debt piles on, 30 { will be seen he Is never out of debt | nd can never leave unless bis master | wishes to get rid of him. This is how he gold In Une Of the most productive | placer deposits of Mexico is gained, and | F thIs locality the Fl Tiro mIne is sit Dated. l. partly belongs to the owners | )f the placer ground and partly to Don | Ricardo Johnson of Hermosillo. Oging | 0 the s8se with which the gold has | jeen c0tained in the placere, and to its ow cost Cf production, DO attention has ,srn Did to the great quartz ledge | which would reed hoisti-g machinery | -ad expensive mills. And so it has re- aained idle. That it will remaIn so for | oDF seems hardly probable in ftcs of | Ds feet that gold Is constantly appre- | .iatiug in value, and mines of the yellow metal ara i0 ever increasing demand.
 Gong back to a description of it the | :. Fro vein may be described Rs sl- | most perpendicular ledge standing between two formations of granite and | ed porphy-y. The quartz is a milky 7hi;e, streajed with stGins of iron OK Ia and far down as the old works | Ztend is free milling. h "tachoe," r open cut, t has been taken out al- lost for three q1arters of a mile In lac=s thia cut is thirty and forty feet eep; in come sixty, and there are R few iaces a 'ong the vein where the work lgs go d swn 10 depth of eighty feet n these places of course the walls are uppoTted by pillars of vein matter ex- snding from the hanging to the foot