I 



) 



f 



3 



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CHAPTER XIT. 



£ 



THE PLACER 1M:0U:XTAINS. 



ppanish Grants. — Placer Gold Mining. — The Ncvr Placers. — The Minos de- 

 serted, and many of them stopped up. — Scarcity of AVater a great Draw- 

 back, — A fine Pine Forest. — New Mexico Mihing Company. — The Old 

 Placers. — Iron and Limestone aLundant. — Copper, Silver, and Lead Ores. 

 — Anthracite Goal. — Great Cost of Transportation to the Mines. — When a 

 Railway reaches this region, extensive Iron "Works will probably be 

 established here. 



Distance: — ^Los Yegas to Santa Fe, 70 miles. 



r 



'jffE i^reater Dart of the Placer Mountains is covered I)v two 



< 



Spanisli grants. 



San 



m 



hose extensiye landslips whieh^ as early as the year 1776, 

 iVere worked as placer diggings by the Spanish miners and 



now belongs to 



three 



or 



four 



heir slaves. This grant 



^ericans, who, althongh possessed of so valuable a property, 

 ave no capital at their disposal to turn their wealth to 



The 



square- 



recount. The other grant is owned by a company 

 Acw Mexico Mining Company," and is ten miles 

 klpon this property, as in the former case, one mountain 

 specially, kno^Ti as " Gold Mountain," has, during the lapse 

 'of time, been worn dowi; by the action of the elements and by 

 he attrition of rocks detached from the summit, so that an 

 inclined plane, or " talus " of debris, has been formed at its 

 basOj in which large quantities of gold, the products of the 

 idisintegrdted quartz veins which traverse the mountain itself, 

 have collected. Dm'ing the Spanish occupation the gold 



n 



