Arizona republican., 1897-09-29
4 Eystely Surrounds the Great 7 Reported Gold Finds ..,,,..-
THE HIDDEN PLACER FIELDS
A Republican Representative !. Unable to Locate Them.
There Is No Doubt Great Richness
 Tn the .Yaqui Country Wher5ad Perhaps the Wealth ofi Montse-sss :
 zuma Was Obtained. s5,.,eesg ,;.sa'v f5aa,

verge of a boom in its mineral dis trictsg It seems to have; justl daiwned upon the world that there is gold in Fl the Yaqui country. Way back to the days of the Montezufna this. countTy.A began to. unload: it's wealth.. 1t has kept it up ever since. Every one ad- mits that the Indians are in poses sion of rich mines. Their. strange lsuperstitio,pfss, us, iiccsalssgtte caste will not allow them to, reveal their. secrets, They would rather. die than do this. If you discover them it is no fault of theirs, and the Mexican government says they must yield to the mandate of its mineral laws. But there are other mines and greater opporturities h for experienced mining men withotiI r disturbing the gold of the Indian mines. All that vast country from the Mfnas PIietas to the backbone of the Sierra Madre mountains is prac-sis tically unprdspected. I found but If three mines in operation, and they are silver producers. Gold and cop per seems to have been neglected ei- tirely. F i-4. lis-i.o szi ils'-f=t'e msiiis2
 The placer grounds examined aaresl notof sufficient richness to cause sanyt9s rush to Sonora. There is gold in jala. most all the tributaries of the Yaqui,
 but it will pay only by the experis.iil ture of money for hydraulic woFki1gss There may be spots where panning t will yield good pay, but did not fndasi them. There are probably 100 -menaa in the Yaqui up to Shis time who have gone in expecting to find rich placer
 grounds and what success they -WillGr meet with the future will JelIly ; +,esa5.
 II naY 4.t f **e*-s yl-l 1lr,.;!tse La, Colorado is a more favorable {, point for Yaqui news than Guagmas. T, It is 2 big mining camp and na,turaI-
 ly more interest is found in mining.
 It was !. here that the party organized. by Gen: Gen: J. w. Fox at Monterey outz.., fitted d. joined them, the, first Epff 1 September for. a. trip, to the Yaqui to ,e : investigate the placer :, grounds from.
 which s142 ,o00-was neporlaed taken cut
 in a very short time .y We: travelled across the country, to Soyopa, a to,wn.,.
 on II the Yaauit river about -1oe milesas due east from La Colorado. IA.
 bench forming small strip of thsts west bank of the .Yaqm a mile down. the river from the town contained.a
 some old placer diggingsa which I af-.,..
 terWard learned were worked by Messrs, Baker and Wolf, who took y out S26,O0O during their operations,
 there, They worked the ground byh ! sluicifing, iifln1fg and tthe .Yaqui , furnished
 them hem all the water necessary. Al young man 1a named Wilson from Mi,
 naS Pr1etas was working some ground neslr soyopa, but his. dirt was not pay, l. ing more than S2 a, day. He was att i tfacted to the YaQui by the reports sent out
 IT ax. &s. t-hms nE-iE J We crossed the rivea. at soyopa.
 There are a few flat bctsomed bat eaus used by the Mexicans to trans port passengers and freight and the.
 burros and horses have to swim. From the river we went northeast
 fo1'ty-six miles to Bacanora, a place famous in Mexico for a special quality or mescal produced there It is on tributary of the YaQui, but there were no placer grounds of av va,pe m that vicinity. Twenty miles nortb- east over a. rough trail we came to
 Sahuaripa, a district supposed to con tam rich placer ground. A Mexican LOOK us out to canyon which he. cialred was very ricn and we spent 1our days prospecting it. We got col
 ors' and few small nuggets. but tbe
 ground furnished po-r Remuneration TOT the labor and time required to
 work 1t. On the sides Of the cs.nvn,
 were small excavations one above an-
 other following veins Of pay di,r
 washed from ledges which had long
 ago been robbed of their gold by tha erosion of wind and water. Thare
 was water in small tanks. but this
 would soon become exhausted if the ground were rich enough to pay work Ing. We returned to Sahuaripa after examining other placers, and found two young Americans there who were headed for the Rio Arcs which they think has their fortunes stored away i in it's banks. They too came out on the strength of the reports sent out of big strikes. One was T. H. Lionel 1 Roper, who had wandered from Eng land in search of gold and his com panion was Adolph Smith of Law
 renee, Kan, who was recently ems al fcontinued on Seventh r3Page)