180 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



it with a line have failed, as the circuitous windings of the mine continue below 

 the water. At the water level the mineral in sight is a fine grained galena carry- 

 ing gray copper, the vein being four feet in width. This mine is in litigation at 

 present, and is locked and guarded. The sentry subjected our party to a rigorous 

 cross-examination, but finally consented to open the trap door and allow us to 

 descend the ladders into the mysterious depths, from whence we secured several 

 beautiful specimens of quartz crystals. 



Chalchuitl, the Indian name for turquoise, is a bluish green stone found in 

 thin veins and pockets, like nuggets, encrusted with a whitish lime formation. 

 The Indians regard it as a sacred stone, and prize it accordingly. They valued 

 it above silver or gold, and endured untold hardships to obtain it. History does 

 not state when they began to mine for it, but judging from the enormous amount 

 of work that has been done, the crude methods employed, and other circumstances, 

 it must have been prior to the discovery of the continent by Europeans. 



The turquoise mines, on Turquoise mountain, are three miles north of Cer. 

 rillos, and should be examined by every visitor to the Territory. The mountain 

 is literally honey combed with shafts and tunnels and smoke-begrimed caves. 

 There are two immense open cuts, the largest of which is 300 feet in width and 

 at the present time about 100 feet in depth, although in re-opening the principal 

 shaft it was discovered that the depth was fully 200 feet at the time work was 

 abandoned. This immense excavation is in solid rock, the sides sloping irregu- 

 larly to the center like the crater of a volceno. 



About the first of the year 1880, or two hundred years after the Spaniards 

 abandoned them, a New York company undertook to re-open the mines. A shaft 

 was commenced in the debris in the bottom of the excavation I have described, 

 and sunk to a depth of 100 feet, striking almost exactly upon the mouth of the 

 original shaft, which they found in a state of good preservation, with the pole 

 ladders still intact. These ladders are from twelve to fourteen feet in length and 

 about eight inches in diameter, and are notched on opposite sides at intervals of 

 twelve inches for steps. They reach from one landing to another, and furnish 

 the only means of entrance and exit. The ore and debris, as well as the water 

 of the mines, was carried up these ladders in leathern pouches on the backs of the 

 Pueblo Indians, whom the Spaniards upon acquiring the country reduced to the 

 most abject slavery. 



Stone tools were used exclusively in mining, excepting a peculiar kind of 

 copper wedges. The theory is that the ledge was heated by building fires against 

 it, and that then the water was thrown upon it, and that the seams thus opened 

 were forced apart by the wedges and the rocks broken up into convenient sizes 

 for handling. These rude tools are found scattered among the debris, and no 

 evidence of any others exist. 



Large quantities of gold and silver were obtained in the same manner in other 

 mines. The ore was smelted in rude furnaces constructed of stone and cemented 

 with mud. 



From some cause, not easily explained, threre were no supports to the tun- 



