Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-04-04
JICARILLA PLACDRS
They Were Sold Last Week to the
American Placer Company
of New York.
WELLS ARE TO Be DRILLED
A Big Enterprise That Will Employ Many
Men-1mmense Riches Are In Sight
Primitive Methods to Be Succeeded
By Modern Machinery.

Last week the Jicarilla Placer Com
pany sold to the American Placer Com
pany 5000 acres of placer ground in the
Jicarilla mountains in Lincoln county.
The American Placer Company of New
York, which operates at Hillsboro, is
backed by New York, Cleveland and
Chicago capital, and is considered one
of the greatest placer mining concerns
in America. The company intends to go
to work in the Jicarillas Immediately.
2SO0-foot capacity oil we'll drill has
arrived, and men have been employed
to operate it.
A WATER SUPPLY.
1t was originally the intention of the
Jicarilla Placer Company to pipe water
to the placers from the Captain noun
tains, a distance of twenty-five miles,
but when negotiations We're opened with
the American Placer Company in De-
cember, 1899, through Col S. l. Bean,
their representative, who spent some
time last year in Santa Fe, an engineer
was sent to the Jicarillas to investigate
the possibilities of working the pIacers
by hydraulics, the pipe plan was aban-
doned for the reason that it was
thought that fifteen miners inches, the
amount of water necessary to run the
hydraulic machine, could easily be de-
ports We're sent to the American COM
pany, and the deal was formally closed,
with the proviso that contiguous claims
should be purchased by the Jicarilla
Placer Company and included in the
deal. This was done, end the deeds
passed to the American Placer Com
pany last week.
A HYDRAULIC MACHINE.
In addition to the drill, the company
has ordered hydraulic machine that
will cost $4,000. 1t is now in process of
construction, and will be delivered in
May. The weight of the machine with
out woodwork will be 1870 tons, and it
will have capacity of seventy-five Gu
bic yards an hour. In placer dirt that
only runs 80 cents to the cubic yard the
machine will turn out 100000 a year.
In that ground miners are at present
only making 50 to SO day with old
fashioned rockers. Three eight-hour
shifts Of five men each will be worked
Engineers and wood haulers will run
up the total number of men to be en-
ployed to forty. Should sufficient water
be developed more machines will be put
in. The machine will have an electric
light attachment. Boulders to the
weight of five tons will be handled by
derrick and thrown out of the way Of
the machine. The hydraulic apparatus
will be placed on a track 40 feet long,
and works a space of so feet WIDE or 40
feet on both sides of the track and
takes everything clean to bedrock. The
dirt is carried on a car and dumped into
a chute, where it passes through Sc
ries of grizzlies, the rock from the griz-
zlies being carried off on an endless
chain. Water is turned on as the dirt
is passing through half-inch mesh and
into an oscillating sluice box "a feet
long, and from this into other sluice
boxes, where the gold deposits, allowing
the tailings to pass on to the dump.
WORK FOR SEVERAL YEARS.
The 5000 acres of ground will keep the
company busy for several years to work
it, and their enterprise will be the
means of furnishing employment to a
large number of men and the expendi-
ture of thousands of dollars annually.
THE JICARILLA COMPANY
The Jicarilla Placer Company was Or
ganized by White Oaks people. The in
corporators were DR.. M. G.. Paden, Col
G. w. Prichard and Joseph A. Gumm.
Colonel Prichard has been interested in
the Jicarillas since 1879, when he with
others visited the placers and located
number of claims in Ancho gulch, which
is part of the property sold to the
American Placer Company. The first
locations were made by the Jicarilla
company in October, 1885, but in 1884,
four years previous, DR.. M. G. Paden
and Col. w. G. Prichard jointly made a
number of locations, which, as has been
stated. were increased to 5000 acres by
the Jicarilla company and now sold to
the American company.
Tpx;to tiopo opd proorap,s for corr,.