Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1905-02-15
A REMARKABLE
LETTER FROM A
Man Who is Totally
Devoid Of Sight.
Henry p. Ewing of MOhaVe Comfy,
Writes of the Wonderful Mining
Resources of a Portion of His
County.

C0unty.
Hon. Robert E. Morrison has receiv-
ed a most remarkable letter from Fl.
P. Ewing, of Mohave county. While
the letter contains valuable informa-
tion about mining in Mohave county,
the fact of its being remarkable arises
more from the fact that Mr.. Ewing is
totally blind and the letter was writ
ten on a type writer and is practically
free from errors and shows wonderful
skill for one bereft of sight.
1t is also remarkable OF account of
the cheerful spirit which pervades it,
taking into consideration the condi-
tion OF the man. Mr.. Ewing is not
only blind bat he lives alone far from
any neighbors and is engaged in de-
veloping a mining claim without any
assistance and has shaft down sixty
feet. He goes into the shaft and
breaks the rock, then hoists it alone.
His camp is located in a part of Mo
have county where water is scarce and
not very good at that. During the re-
cent stroms the water rose in the
creek and flooded the tent in which be
lives. He said that his bed was above
water level and his blankets dry and
adds:
81 concluded 1t was a good scheme
to turn a misfortune into blessing,
so built storage reservoirs in my
tent and damned up the water and
then bailed it up with can and stor-
ed it in water cans. Forty gallons was
the saving during the storm and if
teen of this nice enough to drink.
Mr.. Ewing has enclosed a portion of
ground around his tent and mine with
a guide wire which prevents his get
ting out of bounds or getting lost.
He has also erected guide wire for
distance of two or three miles to a
mining camp, and goes there by guild.
ing himself by this wire He says
that there were weeks at a time when
he was alone with no visitors and be-
ing unable to get awav he built this
wire so he could get to his neighbors.
What Mr.. Ewing writes of mining in
Mohave county will be found below:
1.-The San Francisco Mining district
is situated on the western or river
slope of the Blue Ridge or Colorado
river range of mountains. 1t is twen-
ty five to thirty miles west of King
man, and seventeen from the Needles,
California. 1t is approached frum The
Needles by a narrow guage railroad
and from Kingman by wagon road.
The latter crosses the range, and three
miles of it cost eight thousand dol
lars, and is no doubt the best noun
tain road in Mohave county. The
mineral belt is from four to six miles
wide and about twelve miles long.
The formation for the entire district
is a true porphyry intersected at in
tervals by dykes of a more recent
porphyry formation, often several
miles long, and in these dykes occur
the gold bearing veins The gangue
matter is quartz and tale spar, the
quartz often being very hard and re-
sembling jasper. Gold is the only
metal found except a very little iron.
The gold is therefore perfectly free,
but exceedingly fine so that amalga-
nation to high percentage is impos-
sible. There are exceptions of course.
But the ore is all admirably adapted
to the cyanide process, and that is be-
ing used with great success at the
Gold Road mill where one hundred
tons daily are treated and eighty thou
sand monthly shipped. This was the
first mine in the district to be devel-
oped and has turned out so wonderful
ly well that it has given mining men
confidence in permanency of the veins
and their values.
The result is that many more prop
critics are being developed and in
every one as depth is attained the
values have improved. This is partic-
ularIy noticeable in the Gold Road
which is now sinking for the 600 level.
At 400 feet their ore averaged just
twice as much in value as it did at
two hundred; and at 500 it became so
rich that they had to put in an ANAL
gamating process ahead of the cyanide
to take up the coarse gold which DIS
solved too slowly in the cyanide solu-
tion. All this time they have been