Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1901-05-01

The recent sale of the McCabe Mining company's holdings in Big Bug district is of vastly more impor- tance than appears at first glance. The new company is a powerful one. Of the twenty eight members of the party who visited the property recent ly any one of four or five individual members of it could draw his check for the entire purchase price of the mine and have the check honored while all were men of wealth and men of influence in the business world.
 The sale of this property brings very forceibly to mind the fact which has often been remarked, that mining is yet in its infancy in this county and that far greater progress and de- velopment will be made in the next decade than during the past quarter of century in this industry.
 The McCabe mine was worked away back in the early sixties and yet dur ing all the intervening years of over a third of century, the deepest work ings are only 700 feet. Such a state ment, considering the richness of the ore found on the surface, scarcely seems plausible yet such are the facts.
 So far as known the first to work the property was the late John H. Marion, who, with his associates, took out large quantities of rich free gold ore from near the surface and worked it in an arastra. They continued this until they were driven of by the h. dians and the mines were abandoned but as late as 1894, when Judge E.. W. Wells purchased an interest in the property this old arastra was still on the ground. Ore was taken from it in places that went as high as ST. 900 to the ton, and that worked in the arastra averaged from S100 to S20O per ton.
 After the property was abandoned by Marion and his partners the prop erty laid idle number of years until in the early eighties it was located by Frank McCabe from whom it derives its name. The new locator worked the mine only for the free gold that could be found in it, making no effort to develop it systematically and work ed the ore he obtained by the same crude process of arastraing that had characterized the earlier workings. He kept this up for about dozen years, frequently finding rich chutes of high grade gold ore and during all this time made a good living in this way from the property. It was the frequent discoveries of these rich chutes of ore that attracted the atten- ton of Judge E. W. Wells to the property. Having had more or less experience in mining and having hay ing devoted considerable study to it theoretically as well as practically he reasoned that a mine that had such wealth near the surface must also have riches in its depths.
 The vein is true Assure vein and can be plainly traced for a distance of four or five miles. The formation is what is what is technically called andesite, the more familiar name be- ing diorite. The walls are we'll de fined, the distance between them to the present depth of development varying from three or four feet to ten feet and all being mineralized. The rich ore, however, is found in regular chutes and by keeping between the walls these chutes are sure to be en- countered either in sinking or drift ing. Acting upon these theories in the early nineties Judge E. W. Wells, of Prescott, and J. H. Packard, Col orado mining man, purchased one half interest in the mine, the other half being purchased by W. c. Par sons and Hugh McCrum, each taking a quarter interest. Shortly after this MT. Packard died when Judge Wells purchased the interest owned by him, giving him the ownership of one half of the property.
 These purchasers inaugurated mod ern methods in the development of the property, by the purchase of a steam hoist, the building of ten stamp mill and the introduction of air compressor drills, and today it stands among the best equipped mines in the territory. Their development of the property was not rapid but conserva- l tive as they made the mine pay for