Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1908-05-06
QuARTzsrTE RICH IN GOLDEN
 HEDGES.
(By Joe Chisholm.)

Quartzite, there is no more ancient re. zion in the southwest. II is an anae. ehronism. Fifty years ago stragglers of the host of Argonauts who braved the desolate trip across plains, came southward and along the Colorado river slope of the Dome mountains begun to reap millions of placer gold that made the now forgotten city of La Paz a smaller San Francisco. Before them the rich slopes of the mountains that form the western boundary of what to. day is generally known among miners as the Quartzite district were worked for placer gold by the spaniards who came in the wake of Coronado, and they pre'empted the workings of the In. dians who for years before the white man had spenctrated this region, by means of crude batellas, made of baked clay or cottonwood had gleaned from the gulches yellow nuggets for purpose of ornament. Yet today, when the rich ore zones of Bisbce, Globe, Clifton. Morenci, Congress, Tombstone, and smaller towns have either been levcl. oped to their fullest extent or exhaust. ed, this region is just beginning to at. tract the attention of the mining in. vestor. .
 The comparative exhaustion of the rich placer beds is accountable for the | departure of the host of gold seekers, but why in the ensuing years, when the world has searched every nook and cranny of nature 's treasure chest for the yellow metal, the miner did not I think of the concealed lodges from which the millions in nuggets had been extracted by thousands of years of erosion is juzzling. Today few poor miners are about to reap the reward of several years of patien, waiting upon the great mineral belt that gave mp the | treasure that is now known as a hit of history. In the Dome mountains. marked as plainly as on a map, and running two thousand feet wide for four miles through the range from the Quartzite side of the foothills border. ing on the Colorado, is a white streak that carries gold values along its sur. face varying from s2.50 to $20 per ton. That is only tne general surface aver. age. On some lodges pockets are found that run into the thousands; but they are rare. The surface has been eroded of all high values to furnish the gulches rich with nuggets that were secured years ago, or leached to enT rich the treasure vaults that the own. CTS believe deep beneath their location monuments. Recently mining expert from Los Angeles complained with n disgruntlcd air because, having suffered the great discomforts of having pcne. tratcd this district. he was unable to bring one of the claim holders to his terms. His terms were reasonable, as mining investors terms go, but the old timer had been bitten once by a spccnl- ating operator, who after securing an option had never again been heard of That has been the reason, probably, of holding this district back SO long, from | the exploita1io. that has made cities and mining camps where men of the Caucasian race had not penetrated when this vicinity, or at least its ad
 iaccnt territory, was yielding gold in abundance. Several wildcattcrs have tried to use this country in the past and have So disguested the locators that they are unreasonably suspicious of all investigators, even thoug1 they go in every way legitimate. However, Quartzite is region of great richness and investors will soon make of it an
 industrial empire. That, to, despite the fact that some operators of the few who have stumbled into this last portion of the mining world to be re- discovered have tried to convince the outside mining capitalist that they con trol all the mineral ground here.
 IHf D'Nl bi hh0 'i7h'N' '0 the fact that, all the ore bearing ground
 having long ago been e'emptied
 there will be no rush of fortune seek CTS with its harvest of penniless mis' cry Co the usual unfortunate majority Railroads and stock selling promoters in latter days have made the boom days of newly discovered mining camps days of poverty and suffering for the bulk of the fortune seekers who have , listened to their wiles, but owing tC , the peculiar conditions existing in this , latest field, Quartaite, will become newer type of Fl Dorado-a rapidly
 developing ore region without
 "bOom.'
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