THE LOST MINES OF MEXICO.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 39, 14 May 1907, Page 6

THE LOST MINES OF MEXICO.

The murder of two American prospectors in the Sierra Madre Mountains, State of Sonora, Mexico, by a band of Yaqui Indians has prevented, perhaps, the reopening of a mine once successfully worked by a prehistoric race. Some time recently the pair, who gave their names as Murphy and Thomas, came into the little town of Talanquera, driving two worn-out pack burros. In response to the friendly inquiries of the half-dozen Americans who live in the town, and have •barge of a mine near by, they said they had spent several months prospecting in the cordillera to the westward, and had come out to renew their stock of ammunition and other supplies. Asked what luck they had had, they returned evasive answers, j They made friends with an assayer, and Thomas asked him to assay Stttne samph*. The assayer consented, and Thomas produced several J chunks of ore. The assay showed ' thut the samples ran more than £O,OOO of gold to the ton. That j night, in the prospector’s room in , the foada they told the assayer this tale :

Ten weeks previously they were in the cordillara. One day Murphy, while hunting a strayed burro, discovered by accident what looked like ft bit of masonry. This he found was a wall of buried bricks.

Murphy and Thomas, together laid the wall bare and broke a hole through it. It seemed to cover an old tunnel-mouth. After the bad air had cleared sufficiently they explored the place to the end, about 150 ft. It had a solid rock-hanging wall, and was nowhere badly caved. At the end of the tunnel they found a vein 2ft. wide of the richest gold ora they had ever seen. They thought at first that it was an old Spanish working, but it had none of the earmarks of such. They found in the dust near the entrance half a dozen jade images, each about Sin. high, with Mongol-Tartar faces and queues hanging down their backs This led them to think that it antedated the Spanish conquest, but being prospectors and not archaeologists. they did not bother about the images. They showed one to the assayer. He said he had seen others like it in the hands of the mountain Indians, who called them tokens of a god who had lived there in time past, but who had long ago gone back to his home over-seas. Neither the prospectors nor the assayer gave much heed to the jade images ; they thought more of the gold ore. The upshot of it all was that Murphy and Thomas agreed to let the assayer into the secret. Two days later the three started for the mine. The Yaquis ambushed the party when they were halfway on their journey, and Murphv and Thomas were killed. The assayer escaped, but he doesn’t \ know where the mine is, and hasn’t ' been able to find it. Neither has anybody else. It is only one more lost Mexican mine. It is a curious fact that in Sonora and Chihuahua nine-tenths of the mines that are in operation are properties ortginally discovered by the Spaniards or their predecessors, worked by them for a time, abandoned for one cause or another, and then rediscovered by Americans or Mexi-

How such mines were originally discovered and lost is interesting. The Spanish conquest in the 16th ?entury was primarily actuated by thirst for gold. The close of the first :entury after the conquest saw Mexico a vast mining camp. In some of the great workings toil|#d thousands of Indian slaves. In I more remote places there were but a (single Spaniard and a few slaves, but 4ie was tl leir master. Still further in the wilderness ot mountains the indomitable Spaniard, alone or with a few companions, searchud for gold or silver bearing ores. The mining industry assumed such proportions in the States of Sonora aud Chihuahua that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries nearly 2,000.000,000 dollars' worth of bullion was sent to Spain. Then the Indians rebelled here and there against their cruel masters. Sometime* they killed them underground : sometimes as they slept ; sometimes ns they fled. Every Spaniard dead meant an abandoned mine and tiecdom from slavery. The Indians in most cases carefully filled •r covered up the shafts or tunnels , where they had dug for their depart- j ed masters and left them for time to •b'ace or conceal. There are mines which were worked; long before the Spanish conquest, but ! by what race they were originally ! discovered no one knows. The finding j of such images of jade as Murphy and | Thomas are said to have discovered is beyond question. In fact, a consid-: erable collection of them, and some j in gold and copper as well, may be j seen in the National Museum in the, city of Mexico. There is the Tarasca mine, for example, in Sonora, which was in operation when the Spaniards first came and which the natives said they had worked from time immemorial. It has

= lawsuit* with Um In those days. Finally the King of Spain heard of It and seized the mine for the Grown. Years later the manager of the mine had to flee to save his life. Before he departed he concealed the shafts and tunnel openings. It has been sought for sinee many times in vain; but that it existed and produced millions is beyond doubt, for its history is in tht Royal archives at Madrid. The Taiopa mins is another which awaits rediscovery. It is supposed to be located in the Sahuaripa district, in the State of Sonora. It is said to be an old Spanish working, and of extraordinary richness. The secret of its location is guarded by the Y'aqui Indians, who are being systematically exterminated by the Mexican Government. They are said to keep up their supply of arms and ammunition by exchanging bags of enormously rich ore for what they need.

They hgve often been followed into the mountains, but have always succeeded in eluding their pursuers. Bribery has been tried, but without success. The Indians are deeply superstitious regarding this mine, and believe instant death awaits whoever among them shall be guilty of leading a white person to it. There are the Reins, Mercedes, the Casa Blanca, the Trapera ; but the list of lost mines would be endless.