XXVI. TURQUOISE MINES 



TT'UQUOISE is a precious or semiprecious stone of striking 

 and greatly varied tints of bluish green. Like the other 

 green stones, more particularly jade and emerald, it had a 

 special fascination for the aborigines and was arduously sought and 

 mined in every region in which it was known to exist. Mineralog- 

 ically it is described as a waxy-appearing sky-blue or apple-green, 

 subtranslucent or opaque hydrous aluminum phosphate colored by 

 a copper phosphate. It is found massive included in metamorphic 

 and eruptive rocks, but in a pure state only in thinly distributed and 

 limited bodies, so that the mining is a difficult and most tedious 

 process, corresponding in difficulties encountered and in the methods 

 required somewhat closely to the mining of native copper. The 

 inclosing rock had to be uncovered and broken up by means of 

 heavy sledges of stone, aided on occasion no doubt by applied heat. 

 Although in general use among the tribes of a vast region which 

 includes our own Southwest and all of Middle 

 Los ceiiiius Miucs America down to Panama, its occurrence in place is 

 unknown except in the Pueblo region, where it was 

 mined at a number of points: At Los Cerrillos, near Santa Fe, 

 N, Mex. ; on Turtpioise Mountain, Cochise County, Ariz. ; and on 

 Crescent Peak, southern Nevada. These mines were operated by the 

 natives long before the arrival of the Spanish, as is indicated by the 

 extensive pittings and the many rude stone mining tools found asso- 

 ciated with them (fig. 140). The Los Cerrillos mines, which seem to 

 have been the most important, were operated also by the Spaniards, 

 and in more recent years in a desultory way are worked by the pres- 

 ent inhabitants of the region. Blake, who examined the site about 

 1885, says: 



On reacliiii,!,' the locality I was struck with astonishmont nt tho extent of 

 the excavation. It is an immense pit with precipitous sides of angular rock, 

 projecting in crags, which sustain a growth of pines and shrubs in the fissures. 

 On one side the rocks tower into a precipice and overhang so as to form a cave ; 

 at another place the side is low and formed of the broken rocks which were 

 removed. From the top of the clitf the excavation appears to lie 200 feet in 

 depth and 300 or more in width. The bottom is funnel-shaped and formed by 

 the sloping banks of the debris of fragments on the sides. On this debris, at 

 the bottom of the pit, pine trees over 100 years old are now growing, and 

 the bank of refuse rock is similarly covered with trees. This great excavation 



3SG57°— 19— liuU. GO. jit i 19 271 



