Show THE prospector AND HIS BURRO for thirty years said the prospector to his burro 1 I have been prospect prospecting ingin in this western country when I 1 first started out I 1 thought that this whole region was one vast virgin field as far as the mining industry was concerned but it was not long before f I 1 satisfied myself that mining had been conducted in our hills and canyons long before the present era and that gold and were sought for in this intermountain lliter mountain region a century or more before I 1 was born indeed evidences are to be found in the hills that a foreign race were still mining here as brief a time ago as fifty or sixty years the relentless hand of time however has almost obliterated all evidences of this almost prehistoric wo ll k and it is only once in a while that undoubted evidences of such occupation are to be found as erosion has usually destroyed old time surface workings dumps have been washed away or are covered with heavy timber shafts have been so completely filled that only slight depressions lead to even a faint suspicion of their former exi existence and tunnel openings have filled in to such an extent that a passerby passer by would not even conjecture thatah that at one time they were the avenues through which there once came the ransom of a king in the precious metals A few of these old mines I 1 have seen in my time or at least I 1 have seen what still remains of old and ancient workings but it is easier to find and develop a new mine than it is to discover and reopen one of the treasure vaults of the time of montezuma for these old mines were worked by mexican Alex ican peons geons under the direction of spanish task masters twenty years ago in southern utah in one of the outlying settlements I 1 met an old man who told me that in his youth while out in the hills hunting for cattle he saw a number of horsemen at a spring they were spaniards and mexican peons geons who soon departed up a canyon trail into the hills going on with his story the old man said 1 I followed them as closely as I 1 dared mit but after they had gone out of sight in a most inaccessible place my courage forsook me aai arid d I 1 re I 1 turned to the spring here I 1 found several heaps of quartz that was fairly alive with gold in its native state and close at hand there was a crude which had evidently been lately in use I 1 put a piece of the ore in my pocket and pulled out for home in a hurry as the place had an uncanny aspect to me and I 1 must admit that I 1 was a little scared this story of the old mans interested me very much and after a great deal of persuasion I 1 prevailed upon him to accompany me to the spring and after digging around its edge we turned up some weatherworn weather worn pieces of quartz in which free gold was visible also a few pieces of the woodwork wood work of the old and the worn stone that was used in the arrastia a bed for crushing purposes we then started up the mountain and followed a blind trail for a considerable distance into the hills then all at once we lost every trace of a path and for two days we hunted far and wide for the location of a lost mine at last in a dense growth of underbrush under brush we found what seemed to be a big mound on it a number of trees as thick as my thigh in diameter were growing in the center of this there was a depression which I 1 took to be where the shaft had once been the old man and I 1 began digging there and after sinking three of four feet we came onto a large flat stone which with considerable lab labor or we succeeded in in dislodging this flat stone covered the opening to the shaft and below everything was in a perfect state of preservation by means of ropes and an improvised windlass I 1 managed to get down into the shaft to a depth of feet near the top there was a small seam of quartz in a perfect fissure at fifty feet this had widened to th six inches and at feet the pay streak was eight inches in width from the bottom of the shaft drifts had been run on the vein for a distance of about a hundred feet each way but in the face of each the values had pinched out on this level I 1 found crude picks and one or two buckets made from cowhide also one or two pieces of drill steel and it was very evident that mining had been facilitated by the use of ordinary gunpowder as dynamite was an unknown explosive in those days the reason for the abandonment of the mine has always been a mystery to me for it evidently had been worked at a profit because of the inexpensive labor employed the owners might have started back to mexico with a lot of gold bullion and been murdered on the way by indians A dozen good reasons might be advanced for their non return for return they did not the covering up of the shaft opening was not at all singular as it was the custom in those days to cover shafts and bulkhead bulk head tunnel openings when a property was to be vacated for only a few months and tor for two reasons one of these was to protect such mines from discovery by strangers and the other was to protect the mine workings as it is well known that a closed mine will remain in almost perfect condition for many years while a mino mine that is open and exposed to the elements will very soon show signs of ruin and decay timbers will rot the walls will cave in and destruction will run riot everywhere at the time of my visit to this old mine and its rediscovery discovery re the distance to railroad transportation was too great to admit of its resurrection and profitable operation and so I 1 paid no further attention to it other than to add to my store of mining lore but now old long far ears I 1 believe that it could be worked ivoree d to advantage and the first time that I 1 am in that neck 0 woods I 1 will hunt it up again it is evident that the spaniards had exhausted the pay zone but there is every indication that it will come in again and still greater evidence that with greater depth the vein will wil 1 become both wider and stronger we may think that we are veterans when it comes to mining in these parts but I 1 now know that years prior to the invasion of this country by white men great wealth was taken from these canyons and mountain ranges by the greaser and his master the spaniard that before their time gold was mined here by the natives of the country and to go a little into prophecy I 1 believe that a thousand years from no now as great mines wil be found here by a strange people as are the wonderful bonanzas of the present day of which we are all so proud |