Arizona republican., 1921-04-11
ANCIENT DOCUMENTS
 MAY POINT WAY ID .OLD SPANISH MINES

Spanish manuscripts, written early in the sixteenth century and sup posedIy showing the existence of rich gold and silver mines in the imme- diate vicinity, were recently found by John Mayeroff, a Russian miner at Miami, while prospecting in the hills in the Globe Miami district. Mayer off will leave soon for Berkeley, Cal,
 where the manuscripts will be ex- amined by. Spanish professors of the University of California.
 Mayeroff. employed as a skip-man | at the Inspiration Consolidated Cop
 per company, found the manuscripts
 beneath a large rock, carefully folded
 within a buckslSin or goatskin con- tainer. They had evidently been writ 1 ten with the intention of handing down to civilization the riches which the Spanish colonistS had found on their arrival in Arizona. Indications
 are that the colonists were killed by
 hostile Indian bands.
 Mir. Mayeroff, who was formerly employed by the Alaska Gold com pany and who later was with the
 public health service for the treasury
 department in the territory of Alaska,
 came to Miami about three months
 ago and went to work for the In-
 spiration. Having done considerable
 prospecting in Alaska, he natura lly
 visited different points in the vicini-
 ty of Miami on change Sundays and . holidays. One Sunday while pros pecting in the mountains about five ! miles from Miami he stopped and ! rolled a stone away from it's position
 among the rocks near a mountain
 top. Something brown in the place just underneath where the rock haC
 been resting attracted his attention He turned and made an examination . He found number of papers whicf | had been wrapped in buckskin ol : goa tslxin. The buckskin or goatsl1ir
 was so damaeed with age that 1t fel to pieces with the slightest touch s The papers themselves had proved t e be more substantial than the buck . skin or goatsl1in in which they ha, c been wrapped. being in fact of a yer, S fine quality of material. A furthe t animation of the papers shove, e that they were written in Spanish - MT. Nayeroff is not a student O
 Spanish, but his wife who lives il - Miami. is good Spanish scholar e However. there were a few words f "a the manuscript which she translate ' which she was unable to make out p even with the aid of the older Spanis d dictionaries. And a large number c if the words could not, because of tn .e lapse of time be made out at al ,e though. everything considered tn n, manuscripts were in a remarkabl ar state of preservation.
 A free and easy translation of on
 of the manuscripts, which transla 11, tion. by the way, MT. Mayerhoff III anxious to have checked by some > the scholars at the University of Cal St ifornia, runs about as follows:
 so "October 15, 1852 Id srXVe the undersigned. testify in, al we left Spain in 15l7 and. havir ce travelled in various parts on this COT e. tinent for a long time, we encour
 tered only Indians and barbarian
 But al last we met a colony con
 posed of S7 French. Then we tra- H. eled 13 days westward and encoul nd tered fabulous wealth-more than V m. can carry. Only by bravery and va of or could we break through the lin 3x of savages. We are not trying