TURQUOISE: OCCURRENCE IN NEW MEXICO 399 



this long-past age in the shape of miners' tools of various kinds. Everything points to the 

 fact that these ancient mines had been carefully covered up before being left, in order, no 

 -doubt, to conceal their exact whereabouts from strangers and unauthorised persons. How 

 ■extensive must have been these ancient workings is shown by the one fact, among many 

 •others, that the heaps of barren rock thrown out from the mines cover an area of no less 

 than twenty acres. Here again are to be found numbers of large growing trees, proving the 

 great age of the heaps. 



The abandonment of the mines was due to a great national disaster which befell the 

 Indians in the year 1680. Owing to the undermining of the ground by the Indian miners 

 ■a large section of the mountainside suddenly fell in, killing a number of workers on the 

 spot. This accident was the immediate cause of the uprising of the Pueblos, which 

 resulted in the expulsion of the Spaniards from the country. 



At the beginning of the eighties of last century, after the opening up of the valley of 

 the Rio Grande by the construction of a railway, a company was formed to undertake 

 again the mining of turquoise, and at the same time the metallic ores of the region. It 

 was soon found that though turquoise of a fine blue colour does exist, yet the greater part 

 of the material is green or bluish-green in colour, and that to obtain a single stone suitable 

 for a gem, however small, it was necessary to work through many tons of rock. Throughout 

 the whole deposit the stone is poor in quality, and the company was soon obliged to give up 

 work ; nevertheless, between 1883 and 1886 stones to the value of 3000 dollars were found. 

 At the present time work on a small scale is carried on by a few poor white men and 

 Indians, who, by lighting fires on the rock, make it friable, thus rendering the work of 

 €xcavation less difficult. As a result of the adoption of this method the greater part of 

 the turquoise is destroyed. What little is saved is roughly worked into rounded or heart- 

 shaped ornaments pierced with a hole. These are sold at Santa Fe or to travellers at the 

 railway stations as objects of local interest. The price at present is very low, only 25 cents 

 (about Is.) being asked by Indian dealers for a mouthful of such stones. But few 

 of these stones find their way into the hands of the jewellers, for it is only seldom that the 

 Indian dealers have really good stones to offer, and, moreover, because of a fraud attempted 

 some time ago, confidence in them has been greatly shaken. These men placed on the 

 market turquoises of a specially fine dark-blue colour, which was found by Mr. G-. F. Kunz 

 to be due to a surface application of Berlin-blue. 



Another occurrence of turquoise in the same neighbourhood, from which the ancient 

 Mexicans obtained a rich yield, was rediscovered at the beginning of 1890, and is now 

 known as the " Castilian Turquoise Mine." It is situated seven miles from Los Cerillos, on the 

 road to Santa Fe, and one and a half miles from Bonanza. The mother-rock is the same as at 

 Mount Chalchihuitl, but the turquoise is of a better colour than that found at the latter 

 locality. Several thousand stones with an aggregate value of 100,000 dollars have already 

 been found, some being of a very fine blue colour, though not equal to Persian turquoise. 



Also in New Mexico, in the south-west corner of the State, are situated the newly- 

 discovered deposits of turquoise in the Burro Mountains, fifteen miles south of Silver City in 

 Grant County. They are now being worked by a company, and some good stones have 

 already been found. The existence of ancient mine barrows shows that this deposit, like 

 others in the region, had been worked at some period now long past. Here also the 

 tui'quoise occurs in the rock in the form of strings and veins. There was once found here 

 a plate of turquoise 8 inches across and ^ to :^ inch in thickness ; and it is said that the mines 

 have yielded as much as 10 kilograms of fine turquoise in a month. It occurs for the most 

 part in kidney-shaped masses encrusted with a thin layer of siliceous material. Turquoise 



