Arizona republican., 1902-11-23


 Union mine and Mormon Girl rustic and do something?" We'll I have just answered that query, and state besides that under the depressing conditions of the past two years about all we could do was to hold onto what we had, de- Velop old discoveries and make new ones. And how we came to make new discoveries here and there, and espe- cially those of Black mountain, and the peculiar character and capacity of the men who made them is a study of itself and deserves more space than we can give to it. beg leave to mention three men who are types of the superior class of prospectors here for the last three or four years.
 Mckay is a man in his fifties and has been a successful explorer since a young man in the noted regions of the United States and Mexico. Four years ago he came from Wickenburg here and after taking a preliminary survey of the district at large he took hold first at Gold Hill and later on near to Houck's station. Like Reed and Os- borne he has a nose for mineral val ues; he really can see deeper under ground and more things out of common sight than other men.
 Last summer Snyder Reed and brother came here, the former to get rid of malaria acquired in Cuba and in the Philippines as a quartermaster at tache. He is a man past 50 years of age and since his youth has been a mining expert in about all departments of mining and mineralogy in the noted treasure fields of the United States, Alaska and Mexico. His superior mem tai capacity he has improved right along by a close study of all the auth ors and text books in his science.
 MT. Reed found a piece of float pecu- liarly differing from the average and for four miles picked up such pieces until he came to their origin-that huge contact vein on the east side of Black mountain. This had been no- ticed before by other prospectors, but the immediate surface indications, consisting of huge white and appar- ently barren quartz boulders, were the reverse of attractive. But here that extraordinary and indefinable sense of a successful prospector served Mir Reed, and after a few days of nosing and sniffing about. the point he began his search. He found what he ex- pected, but it was so much more valu- able than expected that his conserva- tive conscience permitted him to con- fidently make that statement in his re- port to me beginning with the words, "If there are not there rich and en- during ore bodies. etc" He has tested in his own peculiar way the entire extent of that 4.000 feet with a field equipment of chemicals, and Mckay and Lewis have not been much less thorough in testing their part of that rich ground They are as confident as is MT. Reed of the volume and value of these claims.
 And now We introduce John Osborne. who has nearly attained to the twilight of fifty years. the brilliant radiations CT which attest to a busy life more bereflcent to mankind than to himself so far. He considers his discovery of the Ben HUr the crowning achieve ment of his life. During the sos he made good discoveries in this region which have passed into other hands. During the '90s he operated more CT less successfully in other parts of the territory. Two years ago he came here under stress of a few prior years of mishaps and death in his family and of consequent reverses. such as come on many a man of his honorable repute. but who had the faculty of doing more for himself. Johns methods of research are in general the same as those of Mckay and Reed; he has that same original faculty of perception. Just why. on what indications or sug- gestions. he nosed, sniffed and paved over that hill which is now the site of the Ben Hur he cannot tell himself, nor how he caught onto the scent or suggestion Of a gold nigger in that pile of ground and rock which scores of former prospectors had but just glanced at and then ignored as prob ably valueless. The manner of Johns discovery of the Ben Hur is too dra- matic to pass unnoticed.
 One afternoon as he climbed that hill he rather aimlessly stuck his pole pick into some yeilowish material and dis lodged therefrom something that was unexpected there and amazing in ceT- tain peculiarities. Then followed the singular spectacle Of a man in a de- lirium kicking wildly and feverlshly at every step upward until he reached that big dyke on the crest, which had never attracted any more attention than thousands of such dykes crownine most of the mountains of this region.