Year: 1871

Under date of November 9, at

 Florence, Captain T. B. Kerr, writes

 to Governor Stafford, from whose letter

 we are permitted to publish the fol-

 lowing:

 We have in short prospecting tour of less than three weeks, located

 some eighteen or twenty splendid look

 ing silver lodes, and formed three min

 ing Dlstrlcts-all favorably situated ill regard to wood and water.

 Cur first success was the discovery

 of the Holsted District, some fifteen

 miles up the Gila road from Florence.

 None of the locations here are over four miles from the river, with a good natural road running half way from the river to the mines. Our first location here was the Kerr Loda-an immense ledge which crops out boldly in some places forty feet from the surface and can be traced for miles on each side of our location through @ limestone and slate formation. This lead have no hesitation Ill pronounc- ing a true Assure vein, and shows metal Ill large quantities Ill places along the ledge. Ihe ore, as far as could judge without having the means of properly testing 1t, is a chloride and grey sulphuret rock, with small per centage of copper and antimony, and perhaps a little arsenic; none of the last mentioned base metals, however, are in sufficient quantities to initiate against the melting of the ore. The other lodges taken up in this District are pretty much of the same character of the Kerr, varying some ill size and richness, but all good prospects.

 From Holsted District we went to the picket post, when fortune again favored us and we were lucky in hnd- ing ledge that 1 think will give all the boys interested stake for life, if they are careful and do not throw 1t away. This is the Silver Queen Ledge; sample of the rock you have no doubt seen, as some of 1t has been tested in Tucson, and we have heard went over $6,00O; another piece of the same rock, assayed in Salt River, went between ;57,000 and $S,000, as I have been informed by MT. Mercer, Who has just come from there to join the Pinal prospectors. Whether these assays are correct or not, l am unable to say, but am inclined to believe them much too high; although 1t would not surprise me any if we were to find tons of rock right on the sur face that will go into the thousands.

 The formation here is exactly that of White Pine, Nevada, .. c., black spar and porous limestone, while the ledge itself resembles very much the far famed Eberhardt ledge; both ledges are situated ill saddle formed by two mountains, and the cases are just the same in both. I would feign make my comparison still clearer and say they are of equal richness, but 1 suppose I must wait, as the Eberhardt Company had to do, and prove its richness by sinking on it. We have made some five other locations in this | District, all showing fair prospects, but none so rich as the Silver Queen.

 Our third and last discovery, the Nevada District, embraces within its bounds a tract along Mineral creek, where I have no dcubt we will find placer diggings, as the country looks most favorable. There are some fifty nches of water in the creek, amply sufficient for a dozen mill sites. In his District our rock is all smelting 'ock as far as we have yet discovered t is argentiferous galena and grey and yellow carbonate ore, the same char Lcter as the Emma rock, Little Cot Utah Territory. Some pieces that we made a rough assay of,

 estimated went over $500. This nded our prospecting for one trip.