Show southeastern ARIZONA the northwestern continuation in arizona of the great mining region of mexico celear celebrated abed for centuries for its fabulously rich ores of silver and other metals is described by F C schrader of the united states geological survey in the surveys bulletin mineral deposits of the santa rita and patagonia M mountains arizona the district has an a area rea of 1400 square miles situated on the border of mexico in the middle of that portion of arizona known as the gadsden purchase authentic records show that silver mining was carried on here by the papago indians before the spanish conquest of mexico in the sixteenth century later the lodes were worked from time to time and their ores smelted smelter under the direction of the jesuit fathers and the spanish government and remnants of their old mine workings to which the charm or of romance clings point the way to wealth possibly not yet exhausted from 1853 the date of the gadsden purchase c to the present time mining has been carried on by americans nott not however without interruptions especially during the earlier part of this period in which raids raids by the bloodthirsty apaches or mexican outlaws figured prominently althou although gli the fanie fame of this district in the past was due almost exclusively to its rich silver ores or es since the american occupation valuable discoveries co of copper lead and other metals have been inadi made e of the many hundreds 0 of f old and new mines and prospects I 1 acts within the area but a small percentage are active at present it is the belief however lio wever of the geologists who examined this area that many of the properties now idle merit the serious attention of mining men bulletin describes individually nearly quartz mines and prospects and not the least interesting are the gravel deposits of greaterville Great erville which have yielded worth of placer gold and are estimated by mining engineers to still contain to lists and descriptions are given of the great number of minerals found in this district among which besides gold are copper silver lead and zinc as well as the rarer metals tungsten molybdenum and vanadium statistics of production for the period 1903 1912 show an aggregate of more than worth of copper silver lead and zinc the report also contains a general description of the topography climate vegetation settlements settlement and means of transportation in short information of value to anyone interested in the southeastern arizona mining region as well as to miners and geologists generally A copy of bulletin may be obtained free of charge on application to the director united state geological survey washington D C |