706 TRANS-PECOS TEXAS. 



falls on public land, subject to the mining law of the United States and the 

 regulations of the respective State or Territory. The same thing takes place 

 in Mexico under the old Spanish mining law. In Western Texas, however, 

 even admitting the surveys of the alternate sections were correct (which, as 

 every expert and honest surveyor knows and admits, is not the case), the dis- 

 covery, shafts, or part of the claim may fall on public land. The prospector 

 begins work; he is successful, and as soon as he touches the adjoining rail- 

 way or private sections he will have to meet injunctions and lawsuits, or will 

 have to submit to such terms as railways and private parties dictate; or vice 

 versa, let him start on railway land, and after tunnelling and shafting on 

 such, let him refuse to comply with the dictates of the railway company or 

 private party when he reaches public land with his work, then he will be* 

 compelled to sink new shafts, to drive new tunnels; in short, to do such an 

 amount of otherwise unnecessary dead work that he will probably prefer to 

 give up a good mine rather than submit to the exacting terms offered by 

 railway companies or private land holders, or to risk a new shafting and tun- 

 nelling for development. 



Numerous other questions which necessarily must lead to complications 

 will arise if the mining is carried on on the land of different owners, under 

 different contracts and terms, perhaps in contradiction to each other. They 

 are in fact too numerous to be mentioned here, but they are equally fatal to 

 the development of mineral resources on public, railway, and private lands. 

 The alternate sections are not only inimical, if not fatal, to the development 

 of the mineral resources, but also to the development and utilization of the 

 rich soils of the large flats between the mountain ranges. 



It would therefore be, mildly stated, premature to express a closer opinion 

 than the supposition that the mountains of these counties are at least partly 

 ore bearing, and ought to be classified mineral districts, since I found numer- 

 ous float pieces of copper and lead ores, which under the blowpipe show also 

 precious metal, and which, judging from the general features of the country, 

 must have been washed down from these mountains, which probably are built 

 up of the same rocks, at the same time, and under the same conditions as the 

 more western ranges, the ore bearing of which is confirmed by numerous 

 analyses of specimens. 



Since my last report was written no great progress has been made in the 

 development of mines. In the Chinatti Mountains, the Shafter Silver Mills 

 had not increased the number of stamps (ten) up to December, 1890, owing, 

 no doubt, to lawsuits with the first discoverers and locators more than to the 

 want of well paying ores. 



A number of new prospects were located, and though the presence of work- 

 able ores in sufficient quantities in. the southern part of the Chinatti Moun- 



