THE LURE OF GOLD

Southland Times, Issue 19456, 21 January 1925, Page 5

THE LURE OF GOLD

AMERICA’S GREATEST RUSH. BIG FIELD IN NEW MEXICO. ROMANCE AND H.ARDSHIP. (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) NEW YORK, January 19. (Received January 20, 11.5 p.m.) Telegrams from Hatch, in New Mexico, report that what old prospectors designate the greatest gold rush in the history of America has begun with the opening of great placer mining works, spreading over 35 square miles of the Mesa district. Thousands of people are coming by railway and in automobiles. The rush began when it was announced that several prospectors had panned out as much as 90,000 dollars worth of gold dust within a few weeks. Old Klondike miners declare that Mesa workings are bigger than the famous pay sands of Nome beach, Alaska. The prospectors are being subjected to terrible hardships, a snowstorm having swept over the diggings, where there is little shelter available and no fuel except mezquite bush, the area being a veritable desert. Many women, girls and mothers with babies in arms are among the thousands who crowd the Hatch field. Many prospectors are digging in ditches all night long, light being supplied by auto- t mobiles, the motors of which are used to generate electric current. Bitter cold, biting snows, failed to check the diggers who wash their pay dirt in iron hand pans, or Mexican rockers of an antiquated type. Adventurers attracted by the reports which spread during the night through the country are pouring into the south-west of New Mexico and the desert is pockmarked with innumerable shallow pits which must necessarily be dug under the law before a claim can be registered. Gold appears to be plentiful, varying from fine to coarse dust and nuggets valued up to ten dollars.