Mohave County miner., 1910-11-05
Gold Mining in Arizona.

beds. The placers at Gila City, 24
 miles east of Yuma, were worked as
 early as 1858. The noted Western
 scout, Pauline Weaver, found placer
 beds in 1862 near La Paz, on the Colo
 rado river, now a deserted city, with long streets of ruined adobe houses,
 where once lived several thousand peo- pie and where more than l,0O0,OOJS in gold dust was handled within the space of two years. Then Weaver headed a party of exploration into the Indian ridden center of Arizona, marching al- most straight for what now is known as Rich hill, above Wickenburg, where the richest placer gold deposit of the Southwest was accidentally dis covered on the very top of a cupped mountain. To this day there are washings around Rich hill and along the valley of the Hassampa, with its tributaries. Nearly all the creek beds around Prescott yielded gold in the early days and still are being made to produce by means of modern dredging equipment. Placer ground of value is being worked along the Colorado, in northwestern Mohave county. The placer beds of Greaterville in eastern Pima county have supported many generations of Mexicans. Cement placer beds at Quiiotoa, in Pima coun- ty, and near Quartzite, in northern Yuma county, may be profitably work ed by means of the new Quinner dry washing machine, which has proved successful under similar conditions in Sonora.
 Emphatically, there is no limitation to the gold-producing area of Arizona, for ''gold is where you find it." The writer has seen gold in decomposed granite, in shale and vanadinite, in 50 per cent copper carbonate and in many another shape that would have been denied by Old Comstock miners. It is often found in what miners are pleased to call California quartz" but invariably goes base with any con- siderable depth. Most of the Arizona gold comes from every section of the territory. The locality of greatest production varies from year to year. Just now it appears to be in Mohave county, where the Gold Road and Tom Reed mines are proving wonderful bonanzas. But gold, after all, is the poor mans mineral, for it requires least of all mining and reduction to separate from baser elements. So, all over the Southwest are little gold mills, many of them idle, but efficient in their day in the production of sud den wealth.
 Arizona's first great gold mine was the VulJure, northwest of Phoenix, a great dike in the desert hills, produc- ing millions at a maximum depth of a few hundred feet. The Harqua Hala bonanza enriched several sets of men, one company accidentally breaking through the footwall into great body of 4OS rock after it had been deter mined to abandon the property. The Fortuna, below Yuma, in much the same sort of parched country, was a phenominal producer till only a few years ago. Similar mines appear to have been found in the King of Ari- zona and North Star property, north east of Yuma.
 The Commonwealth at Pearce, east of Tombstone, at one time produced a million a year. Mixed up among the copper mines of Cochise county are promising gold lodges, in the Hua- chuca, Chiricahua and every other | mountain range of that section.
 One of the principal holdings of the Development Company of America is the Congress gold mine at Congress in southwestern Yavapai county. It has | two beautifully defined pyritic veins, opened up by the deepest workings in the territory, nearly a mile down in the deepest of the half dozen great | shafts. It also has the best of milling | facilities, in 80 stamps, in the units Near by is the Octave, much the same | sort of mine, but idle at present, though equipped with fine mill and with an electric power plant at Wick enburg. In the same section, around i the pioneer gold discovery at Rich hill, are scores of gold mines, though gen. erally worked on a small scale, with occasional shipments of ore or concen- trates. There are gold mines very