GOLD DISCOVERIES. 21 
rom want of water and the loss of their stock, might well 
orm a subject for one of Mayne Reid’s novels. This passing 
o and fro of a mining population naturally led to the re- 
pening of the Santa Rita mines, situated as they are close 
o the line of travel. Much valuable machinery was put up 
ere at an immense expense, together with the most im- 
roved method for obtaining the blast. All around the 
eighbouring mountain sides other rich discoveries were 
“nade. In 1861, the Hanover Mines, six miles to the north, 
vere discovered, and furnaces were there erected. The ore 
ecurs ramifying through decomposing felspar, sometimes 
rom 50 to 60 feet thick, and gave on analysis 72°64 of 
xide, or 58 per cent. of metallic copper. A little to the 
jouth-west, the San José mines were also discovered, and, 
n the same year, the gold mines of Pinos Altos. The region 
n which all these mines lie is more than 6,000 feet above 
he sea level. I will give the discovery of the latter place, 
md the desolation which followed, in the words of General 
Jarlton, who visited it before we arrived in the dis- 
rict. : 
“Tn May, 1860, a Colonel Snively and a party of Cali- 
ornian miners came to this region, and discovered gold near 
he present site of the town of Pinos Altos, in what is known 
as Rich Gulch. In June of that year people commenced 
Soming to work in ‘placers.’ In December, 1860, there 
oy ere, say, 1,500 here from Chihuahua, Sonora, Texas, and 
rom California. They at the same time ‘averaged to the 
and’ some ten or fifteen dollars per day. Other gulches 
vere discovered during the fall and summer of 1860. In 
D ecember, 1860, the first quartz mine was discovered by 
Mr. Thomas Mastin with a party of prospectors. This vein 
s called the Pacific; it runs through the hill, or mountain 
