DEVELOPMENT. 229 



isted in Western Texas up to a few years ago. In former years the want of 

 water, added to the danger of Indians, prevented the settling of Western 

 Texas; and even travelers hurried through parts of the country, as the Sierra 

 de los Dolores, ("the Mountains of Misery," now Quitman and surrounding 

 mountains), with its Puerta de los Lamentaciones ("Gate of Lamentations"), 

 and nobody stopped long enough to examine the mountains for their mineral 

 resources ; or if perchance some one did stop, he did so at the peril of his life, 

 as is proved by the numerous graves which are found in the mountains. 



Up to ten or twelve years ago military detachments were kept at stage sta- 

 tions on the road to Fort Davis and El Paso to protect these stations from 

 the Indians. Under such circumstances travelers were not inclined to lay 

 over at the station houses, which were uninviting, and to make geological ex- 

 aminations of the hills and mountains, or try to ascertain their ore-bearing 

 character. 



The daring pioneers who prospected and who began the development of 

 other mineral districts of the United States had not sufficient inducement to 

 undergo like hardships and risk their time and life in Texas, for this State 

 had no mining law granting to prospectors any right to discoveries they may 

 have made. The Mexicans living along the Rio Grande were farmers; very 

 indolent, too poor to buy arms, too timid to make exploration trips to the 

 mountains without arms. 



In 1883 the Legislature of the State passed a mining law, but its contents 

 and ruling were not very tempting. Very few persons in Texas knew, and 

 nobody outside the State suspected, that there was really a mining law at all. 

 It was quite natural that no mineral resources were expected in a State which 

 did not deem it worth while to pass sensible mining laws. 



The railroads made traveling through Trans-Pecos Texas easier and dan- 

 gerless. They brought mountain ranges which were hardly accessible in 

 former times in easier reach; and in 1889 the Legislature of the State passed 

 a new mining law. The terms, however, under which this law grants min- 

 ing rights to prospectors are not as inviting as those of the mining laws in 

 force in the mineral districts in other States of the United States or Mexico. 

 There are very few actual prospectors who are able or willing to pay the 

 locating and recording fees, and in addition to their work make a payment 

 annually of $50 in cash on each claim, some of which they may not wish to 

 patent, thus entailing a loss of both work and money. This feature of the 

 law encourages capitalists to locate and secure mineral lands for specula- 

 tion, and discourages, or it may even be said excludes, the actual prospector. 

 This law does not prevent persons from erecting corner monuments of fictitious 

 mineral claims wherever they think good indications might be found, which 

 will at least serve to prevent other honest prospectors from locating on them. 



