136 NEW TEACKS IN NOETH AMEEICA. 



wasliers, or " placer miners," worked liere witli great profit, 

 and have given their name to this district' also. 



The former is called the Kew Placers, the latter the Old. 

 The one is about thii-ty-five and the other twenty-seven miles 

 distant from Santa Fe. It was only natural, when the rici 

 surface pickings had heen exhausted, and placer mining had 

 become less remunerative from the necessity of being obliged 

 to dig down deeper for the gold, that the miners should 



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earch. in tlie rocks above for the yeins from which the 

 golden debris came. This is, in short, the origin of quartz 



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mmmg. 



The only two Americans living on the San Pedro grant or 

 New Placers were, at the time of our visit, a Mr. Hutcliinso:n 

 and a Mr. Cooley, who received us most hospitably at the 

 little village — the Heal de San Francisco — and, during oui j 

 sojourn there, gave us every facility for seeing as much a§ 

 possible of the country and its riches. Within a radius of j 

 ten miles we visited several old mines in -which the earlj ^ 

 Spaniards had expended enormous labour. Most of th 

 mines had been stopped up by the Indians to prevent thei 

 subsequent discovery after the peons had succeeded : 

 driving their masters from the country. The greater number 

 were of auriferous quartz; one, reputed to be very rich; 

 led through a very thick vein of am^iferous copper ore; 

 tlii'ce mines in the Zandia Moimtain, two of which had 

 been much worked, were of argentiferous galena; another, 

 which had been most skilfully stoj)ped, was only latelj 



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discovered, and appeared to ramify very extensively thi'ougli 



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a horizontal vein of decomposed auriferous quartz. We also 

 visited some neiv mines opened by our hosts. They were 

 working them in a very small way, being obliged to cart the 

 ore some distance, either to a rude horse arastra two miles 



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