Bisbee daily review., 1904-02-05
Famous Volcano
 WILL BECOME Syndicate Property
POPOCATAPETL PASSES INTO
 CAPITALISTS HANDS.
Who Will Combine Business With Pieacure in the Deai-immense Beds of Sulphur in the Crater-And Summer Restort Hotel to Be Erect. ed Nearby.

PoFocatepeu, the famous volcano
 ten miles southwest of the City of | Mexico, has been purchased by a syn
 dicate of New York andPennsylyania
 capitalists, who will combine business With pleasure, by mining the immense ! beds ct sulphur that are contained
 ln the crater and by building a sum- | neT resort half way up the side of the
 mountain. A modern hotel with ey-
 cry facility for enjoying life. from an
 adept mixer of cocktails and perfect golf links to a view that would sat isiy the soul of a poet, will purvey
 to the weary ones who travel to the
 place on cog wheel railroad from the former capital of the Aztecs. Captain Charles Holt. of New York Is now in Mexico making the final ar l engagements for the transfc4 nation of
 old Father Popo," as the natives af- fectionately call the mountain Cap tain Holt went south from this city
 with full powers to. deal with the own CT of tho volcano. Behind him are the powerful influences of the Stand arc Oil crowd and the Pennsylvania railrcali. William Rockefeller. cf New York, Samuel Green, of Pittsburg and his brother John P. Green, vice president of the Pennsylvania rail road. are the moving spirits behind the deal. Associated with them are a number of the foremost capitalists of the east.
 Mine of Great Treasure.
 Popoca,epeti is a mine of inexhaust- ible treasure and possibilities before the syndicate that has -salaen its fu- aure in hand are boundless. Sulphur, which sells for $40 a ton in the open market and which has constantly ris- en in price during the past few years, is to be found in vast quantities in the crater of the volcano. For nearly a | hundred years the deposits have been mined by means cf peons, who climb | down into the crater, cut away the nearly pure sulphur and carry it in l baskets to the refinery located about a mile and a half down the side Of the mountain. This work has been done by General Caspar s. Ochoa, who owns the whole mountain, but recent l ly, owing to the higher price of labor | and the great cost of this primitive ! manner of mining, he has discontin- ueG the work. Then he found that | he had a mountain on his hands, and proceeded to let the world know that he wanted to sell it.
 How He Got the Volcano.
 The manner in which he came into possession of the volcano is almost l romantic. When he was a young | man he met Alexander von Humboldt, then in the zenith Of his fame as traveller and explorer Humboldt had | just completed an ascent of the noun tain, and in the course of conversati he said to young Ochoa, who knew the country well: If you could own that mountain wou would make a fortune, for there are inexhaustible deposits of sulphur there which are all easy of access. By means of a gravity road you could bring the sulphur rock down to the. valley and refine it there"
 Ochoa never forgot the hint that the famous scientist gave him, and when after the revolution, he had friends in high office, he preached the question Of a concession The gov ernment agreed that If he could prove that there was sulphpr in the noun tain and could mine it, it would be given to him. This was easily done, for even before his day Ignacio Reyes. of Amecameca had mined the sulphur deposits of the mountains, but with out any concession. Later Juan Mu- gica Osirio had put sulphur ovens at Tiamacas and had made some money. Ochoa bought out the rights of both these men for song, and then start ed to build a wagon road to the sum- init of the mountain.
 Under this active management the output of sulphur from the volcano increased from 1000 arrobas, or about 175, 900 pounds, to over 1000, 900 pounds a year His method of min ing it has been primitive.
 Syndicate Has Novel PIan-
 The American syndicate has a plan in view which has been pronounceds by engineers as perfectly feasible. Al though the surface of the sulphur beds is cool, a short distance below the sur face the sulphur is still in molteni condition
 Taking advantage of this fact. the American syndicate plans to bore hole in the side of the mountain 600 or 700 feet below the edge of theI crater It is the hope of the en- gineers to tap the molten sulphur at a point where it will flow through the shaft into reservoirs that are to bel built. Gravity will bring the sulphur down the inclined floor of the shaft, and the reservoirs will be within easyl