the lost Dutchman mine and the Tayopa mine have been found !

[gollum]

Packerbacker,

The LDM has been officially found about 300 times since Jacob Waltz died on October 25th, 1891, but as yet, nobody who claimed to have found it, has managed to match the ore that was in a box under Waltz's bed when he died. There are still a few pieces of the original ore floating around, and anyone who ckaims that they have found the Lost Dutchman Mine, would have to have their ore match the assays from the known Dutchman Ore samples.

Once the LDM has REALLY been found, it will be VERY easy to prove it is the actual LDM.

Best,

Mike

 

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[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Packer ------------5th----------------- hehehe but photographs will play an important part in the proof. I am sure that you would like to see photos posted in here of he various phases etc. no?

Tropical Tramp

 

[gollum]

Photos would be nice, but a copy of the assay that matches the known LDM Ore would suffice.

Best,

Mike

 

[packerbacker]

Yep, pics would be great but the scene can be rigged. Remember when we told the world we landed on the moon??

 

[Springfield]

Yep, pics would be great but the scene can be rigged. Remember when we told the world we landed on the moon??

Why, I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. I saw the moon landing on the tee-vee!! Whaddaya mean rigged??

 

[Oroblanco]

...as yet, nobody who claimed to have found it, has managed to match the ore that was in a box under Waltz's bed when he died.

There is a single exception to this, the ore found in the pack of Walt Gassler on his trip to the mine, and shown to Tom Kollenborn who said it looked "exactly" like the ore found under Waltz's death bed. So ONE person apparently DID find the mine, but died soon afterwards.
Oroblanco

 

[gollum]

Possibly, but that ore was never assayed. Granted, stringer gold in rose quartz would be rare for the Supers, but like Bigfoot, they want a corpse, and an autopsy report, in the form of an assay!

Best,

Mike

 

[Oroblanco]

stringer gold in rose quartz would be rare for the Supers,

I am pretty sure that the gold ore found under Waltz's bed was gold in white quartz, as was the sample found in Gassler's pack; this is one of the few remaining bits, from the matchbox made from the ore.

rose quartz with gold is the type of ore reportedly brought out and sold by Wagoner, from the same general area but clearly a different vein; could not find an image of gold in rose quartz but here is rose quartz:

The ore of Breyfogle's ledge was also gold in rose quartz, very pretty stuff.
Oroblanco

PS That reminds me, there is yet another type of gold ore reportedly in the Superstitions too - that described by Apache Jack and the old Pima (can't recall name) which was said to be "black as night" with gold "sparkling like stars" in it - however this ore seems to be the same which was mined by Jim Bark and Sims Ely at a profit, but not in the same league for value per ton. I have been saying there are probably two good veins in the Superstitions, both hidden (one more carefully hidden than the other) but forgot that black ore. The site is close to the Salt river for this ore, probably very much played out or possibly even under water today.

 

[gollum]

I'll double check it, but I could swear that it was rose quartz.

Best,

Mike

 

[Oroblanco]

Hi Mike,
If you have a copy of Helen Corbin's book Curse of the Dutchmans Gold, the cover has a good shot of the ore, and you can see the quartz is white. The rose quartz-gold matches the ore brought out by Wagoner, which is also very rich ($13000 per ton if memory serves) and thought to be either in Le Barge canyon or immediately adjacent. described by those who saw and handled it as "rose quartz studded with gold".

I got to see a piece of Breyfogle's ore, which was gold in rose quartz and very pretty - a rancher had it and would not part with it for any price. If Wagoner's ledge could be found again, the ore would likely be pretty enough to make jewelry from the ore, just cut and polish it. Wagoner only packed out what could be carried on his back until he got enough to satisfy his needs, so should be quite a lot of ore remaining from what he told his friend the stage driver. Wagoner even left a map, it is online somewhere (I may have even posted it here somewhere in another thread) but apparently there is some key feature that is not correct on this map either.

It is funny you know, the Dutchman said his mine is "...where no miner will ever find it, because it is in an area no miner would look" and the whole of the Superstitions is a most un-promising looking area. There is black sands to be found in a few places, and gold can be panned out in one creek or possibly two (have to get up there and try the other one some time) and when you compare this to some of the really mineralized areas it is almost astonishing that Waltz or Wagoner or anyone could have found gold there. I've been poking about in the Dos Cabezas mountains recently and it is highly mineralized, with quartz veins shooting through the rock almost everywhere you look; following one dry creek up I was not able to take a step without stepping on veins of quartz. At this point in life I would be willing to prospect in areas like the Superstitions where it is really NOT promising, but compared to some mineralized areas the Superstitions are almost barren of precious minerals at a passing glance-type inspection. So it is even more strange that this same quite non-mineralized area has been searched over by more treasure hunters and prospectors than any other comparable sized area in the US. I am willing to bet there are folks in there today as I write this, looking for lost mines and buried treasures. I guess that old saying is very true - "gold is where you find it".
Oroblanco

 

[Springfield]

...It is funny you know, the Dutchman said his mine is "...where no miner will ever find it, because it is in an area no miner would look"

Waltz's quote is essentially the same verbatim quote from 'Adams' describing the location of the 'Lost Adams Diggings'. Yes, that is funny, isn't it? See a coincidence or a pattern?

 

[Oroblanco]

Can you find the quote from Adams? I am unfamilar with any similar statement from him. Adams "diggings" were a placer deposit, like the nugget he showed to people, while Waltz's mine was lode (hardrock) the ore still having the host quartz attached. Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

 

[Springfield]

GOLD

The Adams Gold Diggings

A TRUE STORY OF THE RICHEST GOLD
MINE IN ALL HISTORY


FOUND IN NEW MEXICO AND AGAIN
LOST

The Mines of Solomon, Klondike and the California
don't compare in richness to these Adams Diggins’.

If you will read this story, It will tell, how YOU, may
become a millionaire. Read It.

PRICE 50 CENTS.
By W. H. Byerts
© 1919​

Page 31: "... The officer in charge of Fort Wingate told Mr. Shaw that the Indians often showed him specimens of ore that had come out of this malpai mountain to the south, stating that there was the largest vein of gold in that mountain that Indians or anyone else had ever found. But in those days stories and traditions of rich gold finds were very common and the public paid but little attention to them. Adams often told Mr. Shaw that no miner nor prospector would ever find this gold field, because whenever prospectors or miners find the malpai beds, or mountains, they turn back, as ore bodies and ore veins are seldom found in a malpai mountain..."

I'm amazed I found this quote. I think there are more, but I don't have time to skim through the dozen or two published accounts of this legend I have.

The point is that the diggings alledgedly were located in an unmineralized spot, thus the difficulty in finding them. This would be nonsense for a placer deposit, but note that this version of the story ID's the diggings as a lode deposit. Hmmmm...

 

[djui5]

well that is interesting isn't it?

Oro, you are correct about there being more than one "mine" up there.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Gentlemen, I have a question which no-one will be able to answer naturally. How were these working's values explained? I see $13,000 a ton, but was that from the pure hi-grade or is it across the area needed to work, say 5-6 ft?

Many seem to forget that you have to excavate to recover a veinlet, say 6 -10 ' wide. The excess width must be subtracted from the actual vein width Values and so lowers the values of the vein accordingly, many times too much to be worked economically..

A 6" vein in a working width of 5 -6 ' ,for a small one man production, equals approx. 10

A normal working width of 10 ' for a crew of men =20

$13,000 / 10 = $1300 still a fantastic value.

$13,000 / 20 = $650 still a Dun good mine.

Just a thought, many of our present day mines equal this.

p,s, I am including a map of Tayopa, it has been posted before but this is for those that haven't seen it.

Tropical Tramp

 

[Oroblanco]

Greetings,
Springfield that is a quite different version from the oldest versions; in fact this sounds like q quite different deal altogether, based on Indians bringing in gold to trade and the trader going off to hunt for it - not the placer diggings reported by Adams and his sole surviving partner when they were met by a Cavalry patrol. According to this version, Adams and Davidson were picked up near the Black river in AZ, and showed a huge gold nugget the size of a goose egg to the soldiers and others later, which was clearly a placer gold nugget. The location was supposed to be four days travel from Fort Wingate in NM, (which has actually moved - the current location is not where old Fort Wingate was) but beyond that the directions are fuzzy - in large part because Adams himself was "fuzzy" and never managed to re-locate the zig-zag canyon with the little waterfall. (I have personally searched for this lost mine, and believe it could be located again with enough time and a methodical approach.) A good indicator as to where the mine was located is that Adams himself started most of his searches for the mine from the little town of Silver City NM, traveling NW - though the original route was from the Pima villages on the Salt river, traveling NE for a number of days. Gold does occur in places where it should not be, however it is very discouraging and frustrating work to prospect for gold in areas that are not promising, like the Superstitions. A great deal of LUCK is involved, in my opinion. Interesting though that the Indian's ore samples were coming from the malpais mountains to the south of Fort Wingate.....

How were these working's values explained?
HOLA Tropical Tramp! Breyfogle's ore sample assay result was from a grab sample, probably the richest ore showing on the surface - it is almost certainly the same ore and same mine known today as the Amargosa mine in CA - experts who have examined the ore from the Amargosa and Brefogle have said it is identical - and as we all know, gold ore is a bit like fingerprints, no two ores are alike. Also, Breyfogle himself once visited the Amargosa mine while out searching for his lost ledge, looked things over and left - and quit searching for the lost ledge forever - I think he instantly recognized it had been found and claimed. Who says those lost, legendary mines never get FOUND? As you have correctly pointed out, with a commercial mine, the ore body also has to take into account the country rock hosting the ore shoots; for a mining company this is very important, for a one or two-man operation it is not quite so important; if the ore is rich enough, a small operation can afford to work out the stringers without taking out a lot of country rock - "drifting" and following the ore. With today's modern metal detectors, it is possible to do this with greater chance of success than the "old timers" who had to trust to instinct and luck when following an ore vein. Many an old-timer miner found a fortune and then sank the fortune back into the ground trying to mine ore that was not worth mining.

Oroblanco

 

[Springfield]

Oro, now you're getting the picture about these well-known 'lost' stories. Who do you believe?

Regarding the Byerts account, it was handed down to him from C.A. Shaw, who hunted extensively for the site in the 1880's with Adams himself. As Jack Purcell has observed, "... Unfortunately for the searchers of the early 20th century, the most widely circulated versions came through C.A. Shaw. A quick reading of Byerts, Johnston and Allen will demonstrate the confusion and disparity of information generated in the Shaw information line.

Although Shaw reputedly spent a great deal of time with Adams, the stories that emerge through his line have little similarity with one another, or with other surviving proximity 10 lines. The researcher can only conclude that Adams told Shaw many different versions of the story, which Shaw believed and repeated, or that Shaw was prone to untruth in the retelling to trusted associates. Allen spent a great deal of time searching with Shaw, and Byerts claims to have grubstaked him. Even so, the versions recorded by Byerts and Allen have little in common with one another..."

Incidentally, speaking of Silver City, one could still find an old weathered carving on Twin Sisters that said "ADAMS 1880" as recently as twenty years ago. The carving has since been destroyed.

Want more confusion? Read The First Hundred Years of Nino Cochise, by Ciye 'Nino' Cochise and A. Kinney Griffith. It's the story of the 'Lost Apaches' who stayed in Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Very interesting history. Not at all a lost mine book, Nino never mentions Adams, but he talks a lot about the Apache's gold mine named Sno-Ta-Hae. And his American friends named John Brewer and A.M. Tenney. Sound familiar?

My numerous sources of 'Adam's Diggings' lore includes at least one unpublished version that came to me from an old prominant Silver City family whose patriarch also spent time with Adams and got an entirely different area to search than the many others. My point? Almost all of this lore is, by definition, disinformation either intentionally or innocently created. I suspect the same applies to the LDM and all the other well-known legends. For a serious seeker, this presents a terrible problem - which story, if any, is correct? The Adams Diggings possibilities range from the malpais region south of Grants, NM, to the headwaters of the San Francisco River (AZ/NM) to the San Carlos Reservation (AZ) to the Mogollon Mountains (NM) to the Sierra Madre in Mexico and several intriguing points in between. You said you looked for this lost mine ... where did you look and why?

Oh, one last thought to further muddy the waters. The KGC gurus claim that there never was a lost Adams Diggings, that it was all a cover story for another 'conspiratory event' in the same part of the country. Incidentally, these guys also have quite an interest in the LDM legends and have cast an interested eye to a location near Florence named Adamsville. Say what?

 

[Oroblanco]

Re: the lost Dutchman mine and the Tayopa mine have been found ! (long reply)

Greetings Springfield and everyone,
Springfield wrote:
Who do you believe?


Adams, as best the original source material can be extracted from the voluminous "chaff" which only serves to cloud the issue. There is a considerable amount of contradictory information in the numerous accounts of the lost Adams diggings, some of which is undoubtedly deliberate misinformation. Sorting out what to believe (and accept as valid information) and what to dismiss is a frustrating but absolutely necessary part of treasure hunting, as you know only too well.

You said you looked for this lost mine ... where did you look and why?

Normally I would prefer not to say where; however in this case the hunt was highly un-successful (but great fun and exercise) so I don't mind sharing the info. The area was around Hell's Hole-Hells Hole Peak-Maverick Hill (AZ) and Tillie Hall Canyon (NM) all of which is north of Twin Peaks (NM) which I was convinced was the "twin peaks" that looked like "haystacks" - as you might guess it turned out NOT to be the correct area. I never believed the site was as far north as so many are convinced it is. Can't exactly prove it though!

The KGC gurus claim that there never was a lost Adams Diggings, that it was all a cover story for another 'conspiratory event' in the same part of the country.

I have a difficult time accepting a great deal of the KGC lore as fact; there really was a KGC, they really did try to make trouble in the Civil War, but their "reach" and financial resources have been (just my opinion) great exaggerated.

I am a writer so am aware that it sells books/articles to publish the most fantastic, romantic tales, and to make it more attractive it is best to use the sources that are based on some real facts and events, however I try not to follow this lead in mis-leading treasure hunters. There truly are tremendous lost treasures and lost mines, and yes some of them do get found - however the finders always had to wade through a tremendous amount of BS to find the 'acorns of truth' that were buried in myth. I am sure you have heard of some of the most famous finds, such as the most fabulous (the Atocha, found by Mel Fisher after years of searching and research, produced more than $400 million so far and still producing silver, gold and emeralds!) or the California more recently - among lost mines that have been found we can list Tayopa, (the finder of this nearly mythical group of mines is a friend and fellow member of T-net - Real de Tayopa, Joseph Curry) the Breyfogle 'ledge' (known today as the Amargosa in CA) Goler's lost gold placer (found and mined by many, in the canyon now known by the same name in the El Paso mtns CA) and many more if one cared to research that end of the treasure-hunting 'game'. With a surprising number of "lost mines" and lost ledges, the actual ore or nuggets have been seen, handled, bought and sold, assayed, so are not the product of pure imagination or a trick to get drinks from attentive listeners in a saloon; we today have superb maps, compass and even GPS devices so we can not readily understand how easily a "strike" could have been LOST in the old days - when there were few roads, few people, poor and in-accurate maps (if they carried any maps at all) and hostile Indians and bandits possibly waiting around the next boulder. With the Adams diggings, we see the after-effect of an Indian attack and how Adams was incapable of locating the site, despite repeated efforts.

Springfield I get the impression that you have a bit of 'burnout' or at least frustration from having to deal with all the BS that helps to keep lost mines (and lost treasures) LOST; if this is the case I hope you can find the patience to overcome the frustrating job of filtering fact from fiction, and find the treasure that you seek.
your friend,
Roy A. Decker ~ Oroblanco

 

[Springfield]

"...Springfield I get the impression that you have a bit of 'burnout' or at least frustration from having to deal with all the BS that helps to keep lost mines (and lost treasures) LOST..." No, Oro, on the contrary - my postings here are meant only to be food for thought for avid seekers. As a younger man I too was enthralled by the stories. With experience I have learned that the truth behind the legends is seldom what we think.

Re Adams, the Apache Creek/Pine Cienega area you searched was(is) a highly-regarded possible location by many. That's the venue that led to a murder conviction and jail term for Gene Ballinger stemming from the death of one of his TH partners back in the 70's. I attended the trial. Everything fits the Adams picture except one thing - no gold.

Re Mel Fisher, there is quite a mysterious connection between the loot recovered and SW New Mexico. It all centers around a mountain known traditionally as Santo Nino de Atocha (not on current maps). The saint for whom the mountain was named is still prominant in the local churches. Interestingly, the Fisher organization is quite familiar with the area. The treasure ship's name, Nuestra Senora de Atocha, seems like a wild coincidence. Or not.

Re lost mines, I'd say a great number of them aren't lost at all but were relocated by others, worked until the recoverable ore played out and then abandoned. In the first place, most mineral locations that were worked by jackass prospectors were indeed 'rich', with hand-cobbled ore that ran fantastic values - normal for surface discoveries with visible gold in the outcropping. Later, a lot of guys looking for the Lost Whatever have probably sat eating their lunch on the dump of the LW and decided, "This can't be the place, it's just another old played-out mine".

It's the quest that's fun, but we should realize that the benefit will be getting into terra obscura, learning interesting history and stretching our legs and brains. Unless we're fortunate and have been provided truly propriatory information, we shouldn't set our hopes of recovery too high.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Gentlemen: ORO and Springfield have it correctly. I had to run though 5 pages of listings of stories on Tayopa, always looking for a common thread, when I found one, I had to chew on it for months before accepting, discarding, or possibly putting it on the back burner.

The materiel that appeared promising was physically investigated. Many times months at a time, were spent in the then trackless Barranca country by myself proving or disproving it. But always, even in the remotest areas, the locals had an expression which renewed my faith and lured me on and on. "Halle Tayopa" - "I have found Tayopa" to indicate good fortune. Needless to say, that expression gave me hope when the many leads played out. But, like many other legends, Tayopa was here, there, over that mt, beyond that area, at the head waters of this or that river, always just beyond.

Eventually I ended up with a small package of fairly solid data which led me to theTayopa Complex.

Actually the finding was a sort of anticlimax, the searhing was more fun believe it or not, besides I now have a Jaguar by the Tail, it reminds me of the White Elephant tactic in India. WHAT NOW?.

I found that most authors each had a very small part of the truth in their stories which they manipulate to make an interesting adventurous story. After all, how many readers would I have for example if I merely said "after unraveling the data I went to Tayopa" period.. We want adventure in our stories, especially lost mines and treasures, it is a beacon which enriches our lives and imaginations.

In Frank Dobies case, he was correct on his giant Grizzly Bear story and location, as it turned out that is where the trails from Yoquivo and Arischiachi cross on top of the mesa Campanero, directly in front of the entry into the Paramo Barranca. Incidentally the names of the two trails are transposed.

He is also correct in that this is where the gentleman with the cow horn blew it for the 3 echoes to indicate Tayopa. The physcal configurations of the Paramo into the Tayopa barranca give 3 different sound refection points.

The map that he published in his book is almost 99% correct, a fact which I discounted until after I had found Tayopa.

As for the rest of the story in his book yech. This is what I mean by sorting out the wheat and tossing the chaff to the animals, but remember, the chaff can be more nutritious so never completely discard it out of hand.

Tropical Tramp