Author: Fayette Alexander Jones
Publisher:
Published: 2015-07-02
Total Pages: 56
ISBN-13: 9781330473436
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Excerpt from Epitome of the Economic Geology of New Mexico In presenting this Epitome of the Economic Geology of New Mexico, it is to be hoped that what is herein offered may be conducive to a more intelligent understanding and appreciation of the dormant mineralogical resources of a commonwealth of which, comparatively speaking, but little is known. Historically, New Mexico is the oldest and most widely known of any section in the United States; commercially, its importance is yet but meagerly comprehended. Although New Mexico is the cradle of the mining industry in the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Slope regions, peculiar political conditions have materially retarded its development. The fact, however should not be overlooked that the initial impulse received in the development of the Great West was due to the discovery of gold in Santa Fe County at the base of the Ortiz Mountains, in the year 1828. This discovery was made twenty years before the great gold excitement at Coloma in California and thirty years before the find on Cherry Creek in Colorado. The discovery of placer gold in New Mexico marks the beginning of modern American methods that have so effectually revolutionized every phase in the art of mining and in the science of metallurgy. The evolution of the old wooden bowl, known as the "batea," used in these early diggings, is symbolized in the modern gold pan. Crude designs of the first "rockers" and sluice boxes for washing the auriferous gravels in trans-Mississippi fields, virtually had their inception in this primary gold camp, in Santa Fe County. Among the first stamp mills constructed in the United States may be mentioned the one at Dolores for milling the ores from the celebrated Ortiz mine in Santa Fe County; one at the gold camp of Pinos Altos in Grant County; and one at the Aztec mine at the head of Ute Creek on Baldy Mountain, in Colfax County. The first experiments in ore concentration in the West were conducted by J. Amberg, a German metallurgist at Pinos Altos, in the early sixties of the past century. It should also be noted that the first gold lode or vein discovered and worked west of the Mississippi was made in the year 1833, on the famous Sierra del Oro, constituting what is now known as the Ortiz mine. In the Los Cerrillos district, a few miles west of the Ortiz Mountains, exist what appear to be prehistoric workings on a metalliferous vein of lead and silver, known as Mina del Tierra. This antique working is of unusual interest with incline and nearly vertical shafts connecting and totalling, perhaps, over two hundred feet of work, including drifts and slopes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
