22 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
justifying the conclusion that the presence of ores is possible and prob¬ 
able in Texas; we have also direct proof by the few mines worked in 
the State. The Shatter mine in the Chinatti mountains (the old Sierra 
Pilares) on Cibolo creek, shipped already three years ago every month 
between 30,000 and 40,000 ounces of silver, milling only with ten 
stamps. The same mine produces, besides the free milling ores, con¬ 
siderable quantities of silver-bearing galena, which is not free milling, 
but nevertheless valuable. 
The Hazel mine, at the foot of the Sierra Diabolo, in El Paso county, 
also well developed at present, had shipped up to June, 1891, about 
$78,000 worth of silver-bearing copper ore, and shows in sight about 
$20,000,000 worth of ore. 
The Bonanza and Alice Ray mines (hardly more than half-way de¬ 
veloped prospects), both on the same lead, bring in sight a vein of sil¬ 
ver-bearing lead and zinc sulphides for a distance of 300 feet in length, 
about 500 feet high (or deep), and from two inches to two feet wide. 
Other small prospects brought excellent ores. Analyses made of 
specimens, which I had frequently picked up from the dumps, show 
from three upwards to three hundred ounces of silver to the ton, some 
of them with gold besides. Others show gold from traces up to three 
ounces, copper to fifty per cent, lead to sixty per cent, zinc to thirty 
and even fifty-four per cent, alone or with precious metals, not to men¬ 
tion the excellent iron ores (magnetic ore, hematite, goethite, etc.), 
the traces of tin, etc., and the ores containing uranium, molybdenum, 
etc., and specimens not yet examined sufficiently to give an opinion 
about them. 
Most of the outcrops and prospects I mentioned are from a few 
hundred yards to ten or twelve miles distant from the railroad, and 
roads partly exist or could easily be built from the ore deposits to the 
railroad, which conditions compare very favorably with those in Ari¬ 
zona, Colorado and Mexico. Then why are the mineral resources of 
West Texas not better developed? 
Before everything, they are not much better known than Texas is 
in general. In the opinion of Northern and Eastern capital, Texas is 
a waste prairie, full of the longhorned Texas steers and cowboys, both 
a holy terror. This prairie, or parts of it, so reason Northern and 
Eastern parties, may become one day valuable for agricultural pur¬ 
poses, and till then rented out to the cattle raisers at from two to five 
cents an acre, which, at the investment from 50 cents to say even $2 
per acre, pays a good interest on the money invested, and so they in¬ 
vested in prairie land and they did well. West Texas, however, was 
and is looked upon by its own Legislature and by the State adminis¬ 
tration as a valueless desert, an incumbrance rather than a benefit to 
the State. In politics its vote is not heavy enough to interest poli¬ 
ticians in its existence, still less in its welfare, and so the drawbacks 
