Old Bookaroo
Silver Member
- Dec 4, 2008
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Recently on another topic the issue was raised about the age of some lost mine and treasure stories. Are these recent creations or do they have older - if not less ephemeral - foundations?
I'd like to share excepts from a rare little book that may shed some light on this matter. If people are interested there are another nine specific tales. As time permits and interest demands I would be happy to transcibe and post these other yarns.
from The Miner’s Guide; A Ready Handbook for the Prospector and Miner, by Horace J. West (Los Angeles: Second Edition – 1925)
Preface to Appendix
The Author of the Miner’s Guide has for many years searched for precious metals, etc., and during this search for wealth, sometimes with pack animals as a means of transportation, sometimes with the luxury of a team and wagon to haul conveniences never dreamed of with pack animals and personal packs. He has traveled into most mining districts of the Pacific Coast and the desert districts in particular and during this thirty years of experience lived among the Indians and met miners and prospectors from every district on the desert.
He thus had an opportunity to obtain information of value by keeping notes of what he heard. In this way he heard of “Lost Mines.” He personally knew many of the characters mentioned in these stories and traditions and he spent many months of hardship looking for some of these lost mines but has never been fortunate enough to discover any of them.
These stories are printed here for the reason that they are interesting to any person contemplating entering the mining field because it gives him an insight into the difficulties the prospector encounters in his search for wealth. Most of these stories on lost mines have a foundation of truth, but the author cannot vouch for the greater part of the traditions.
The Lost Mines of the Desert
A crowd stood gaping into the wide window of a Spring Street store in the metropolitan city of Los Angeles. It was an awed crown, that continued of large proportion through-out the day. Toilers from the factories intermingled with men from the offices, while society women, stepping from their limousine cars, edged through the ranks of the working girls who were also numerous in that always-changing crowd.
The lure of gold drew them there, rich and poor alike. It was the actual metal, the real yellow wealth in its various forms: quartz rock that exuded it from every pore, the nugget worn smooth on the rock bed of a stream, and the dust. It was dramatically displayed, not from a mirrowed surface as though in a jeweler’s cabinet, or from out the folds of rich velvet, but in its native element, lying amid rocks and sand.
It was depicted as a desert scene, weird in every detail, created by the hand of a master in topographical work and staged just within the heavy plate glass. The sands were molded in to dunes and mounds across a long, flat plain and led into a mountain range which formed the background. And on this miniature desert waste were strewn equally miniature marks of the luckless adventurer who had threaded the waste in search of wealth. His bones, with those of the pack mules, lay bleached beside the rusting tires of a wagon-wheel, telling a gruesome tale of lost hope and lost life.
And back among the mountain canyons were manikin men who toiled at the building of roads, at cutting away ledges of pure gold, at sinking shafts and erecting smelters. It was all real, so real that men and women seemed semi-hypnotized, and many of them succumbed to the honeyed words of the glib talker who invited them within the doors of the place for further examination of the newly discovered bonanza.
He was attired in the stage version of a typical prospector, wearing high leather boots, corduroy pants buckled within their tops, blue flannel shirt, red tie and topped with a wide sombrero. His chief duty lay in the distribution of highly illuminative literature on the rediscovery of one of the world’s greatest mines, the famous Esperanza de Guanarre of southwest Arizona near the border of Mexico, and extending the invitation to the flies that were caught in the web of curiosity to come into the parlor of the spider who peddled mining stock. Once within, the smooth talker, full of statistics and some facts relating to mining and particularly to the fabulously wealthy Annuncion property in southwestern Mexico, unfolded a tale of hardships and adventure.
He told the wealthiest mine of the American continent, lost more than a century ago after having paid its thieving, narrow-minded and illiterate Spanish renegade owner millions and millions – so many that the taxes which he contributed to the Spanish Government and the missions amounted to nineteen millions in a period of only a few years.
“And think, by dear sir, think of it, this was but a percent of the total which the man garnered from the immense hidden vein of pure metal which until several months ago lay idle only to be discovered by old John Milligan!” said this “con” artist.
And if the visitor was at all interested at this point in the narrative, an old miner, deeply wrinkled, poorly clothed, but enthusiastic in the extreme, was called from an obscure corner and introduced as the discovered of this pot of wealth. In quavering voice he told of his years of toil; dramatically he depicted his sufferings for want of water, for lack of food.
Almost invariably this brought the matter of stock to the foreground, revealed the fact that all that was necessary to bring this immense wealth to the mint at San Francisco was a railroad to the mines. Money for this was essential, and because of a desire to give many, instead of a few capitalists, the opportunity of adding still greater burdens of dollars to their already large packs, the general public was given this opportunity to subscribe for a few shares.
So perfect was the staging of this financial bubble, so harmoniously conducted were all the details, that within three weeks the four men who controlled the combine had managed to clear up something like seventy-five thousand dollars on stock that sold for twenty-five cents the share. Only the fact that they used the mails led to the sudden termination of operations. The Federal authorities had been making an investigation and had found total lack of property to be one of the chief reasons why the swindlers should not be taking-in a gullible public. Three of the four get-rich-quick artists were landed behind the bars, while a fourth, having had an inkling of what was coming, managed to get away with a good portion of the public contribution.
The trial revealed that stock purchasers were of all classes – not confined to the ignorant, to the middle class or to the rich. The phantom of quick returns on little investment, the roseate dreams of opulence without work, and the idea of having a share in the famous lost property with a history had landed its suckers by the score and the hundreds. And this was but one of the hundreds of similar swindles that have been perpetrated in the past or are being carried on right at the present time and finding new “marks” to trim.
Usually the story of the lost mine is the bait used to land the fish. There have been dozens of these properties, and from time to time old tales are renewed by a sudden strike. Right at this moment [1921? 1925?] there is an old miner in San Bernardino, California, who claims that he has discovered the very mine referred to above, and he is sincere in his belief of location. There are countless miners who have deluded themselves into the same ideas, and some of them have actually discovered what have been lost mines.
These will-o’-the-wisps have beckoned many men from their homes, have sent them into hopeless regions where starvation and despair have been their only reward. They have proved to the rocks on which the miners have been wrecked, the beacons that have gone out, and the evanescent mirages that have lured onward to fatal endings.
On the other hand, they have been the means of bringing about many other valuable discoveries of mineral wealth. They had led the phantom-chaser to other riches than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The lost mine minds its way into the home of the elite occasionally, into the columns of the papers periodically and is always on hand to help while away the nocturnal watches around the camp-fire of the prospector. In the clubs and the bar-rooms of the Western cities where mining men congregate, where they mingle with men of social and political power, with adventurers from the South Seas, soldiers from the Philippines, traders from the Orient, the lost mine is always one of the most interesting topics.
Among these are some that have been classed almost among the fables of the ancients, but, despite that, have their foundations deeply rooted in fact.
-----
Editor's Note: If this mining chicane story seems hard to believe, remember the Great Diamond Hoax of the 1870's when experienced mining and financial men - including the great William Ralston, founder of the Bank of California - were taken in by a salting scheme. And the newspapers of the past few weeks tell us about a $50,000,000,000 Wall Street Ponzi fraud...
Good luck to all,
~The Old Bookaroo
I'd like to share excepts from a rare little book that may shed some light on this matter. If people are interested there are another nine specific tales. As time permits and interest demands I would be happy to transcibe and post these other yarns.
The Lost Mines of the Desert
from The Miner’s Guide; A Ready Handbook for the Prospector and Miner, by Horace J. West (Los Angeles: Second Edition – 1925)
Preface to Appendix
The Author of the Miner’s Guide has for many years searched for precious metals, etc., and during this search for wealth, sometimes with pack animals as a means of transportation, sometimes with the luxury of a team and wagon to haul conveniences never dreamed of with pack animals and personal packs. He has traveled into most mining districts of the Pacific Coast and the desert districts in particular and during this thirty years of experience lived among the Indians and met miners and prospectors from every district on the desert.
He thus had an opportunity to obtain information of value by keeping notes of what he heard. In this way he heard of “Lost Mines.” He personally knew many of the characters mentioned in these stories and traditions and he spent many months of hardship looking for some of these lost mines but has never been fortunate enough to discover any of them.
These stories are printed here for the reason that they are interesting to any person contemplating entering the mining field because it gives him an insight into the difficulties the prospector encounters in his search for wealth. Most of these stories on lost mines have a foundation of truth, but the author cannot vouch for the greater part of the traditions.
The Lost Mines of the Desert
A crowd stood gaping into the wide window of a Spring Street store in the metropolitan city of Los Angeles. It was an awed crown, that continued of large proportion through-out the day. Toilers from the factories intermingled with men from the offices, while society women, stepping from their limousine cars, edged through the ranks of the working girls who were also numerous in that always-changing crowd.
The lure of gold drew them there, rich and poor alike. It was the actual metal, the real yellow wealth in its various forms: quartz rock that exuded it from every pore, the nugget worn smooth on the rock bed of a stream, and the dust. It was dramatically displayed, not from a mirrowed surface as though in a jeweler’s cabinet, or from out the folds of rich velvet, but in its native element, lying amid rocks and sand.
It was depicted as a desert scene, weird in every detail, created by the hand of a master in topographical work and staged just within the heavy plate glass. The sands were molded in to dunes and mounds across a long, flat plain and led into a mountain range which formed the background. And on this miniature desert waste were strewn equally miniature marks of the luckless adventurer who had threaded the waste in search of wealth. His bones, with those of the pack mules, lay bleached beside the rusting tires of a wagon-wheel, telling a gruesome tale of lost hope and lost life.
And back among the mountain canyons were manikin men who toiled at the building of roads, at cutting away ledges of pure gold, at sinking shafts and erecting smelters. It was all real, so real that men and women seemed semi-hypnotized, and many of them succumbed to the honeyed words of the glib talker who invited them within the doors of the place for further examination of the newly discovered bonanza.
He was attired in the stage version of a typical prospector, wearing high leather boots, corduroy pants buckled within their tops, blue flannel shirt, red tie and topped with a wide sombrero. His chief duty lay in the distribution of highly illuminative literature on the rediscovery of one of the world’s greatest mines, the famous Esperanza de Guanarre of southwest Arizona near the border of Mexico, and extending the invitation to the flies that were caught in the web of curiosity to come into the parlor of the spider who peddled mining stock. Once within, the smooth talker, full of statistics and some facts relating to mining and particularly to the fabulously wealthy Annuncion property in southwestern Mexico, unfolded a tale of hardships and adventure.
He told the wealthiest mine of the American continent, lost more than a century ago after having paid its thieving, narrow-minded and illiterate Spanish renegade owner millions and millions – so many that the taxes which he contributed to the Spanish Government and the missions amounted to nineteen millions in a period of only a few years.
“And think, by dear sir, think of it, this was but a percent of the total which the man garnered from the immense hidden vein of pure metal which until several months ago lay idle only to be discovered by old John Milligan!” said this “con” artist.
And if the visitor was at all interested at this point in the narrative, an old miner, deeply wrinkled, poorly clothed, but enthusiastic in the extreme, was called from an obscure corner and introduced as the discovered of this pot of wealth. In quavering voice he told of his years of toil; dramatically he depicted his sufferings for want of water, for lack of food.
Almost invariably this brought the matter of stock to the foreground, revealed the fact that all that was necessary to bring this immense wealth to the mint at San Francisco was a railroad to the mines. Money for this was essential, and because of a desire to give many, instead of a few capitalists, the opportunity of adding still greater burdens of dollars to their already large packs, the general public was given this opportunity to subscribe for a few shares.
So perfect was the staging of this financial bubble, so harmoniously conducted were all the details, that within three weeks the four men who controlled the combine had managed to clear up something like seventy-five thousand dollars on stock that sold for twenty-five cents the share. Only the fact that they used the mails led to the sudden termination of operations. The Federal authorities had been making an investigation and had found total lack of property to be one of the chief reasons why the swindlers should not be taking-in a gullible public. Three of the four get-rich-quick artists were landed behind the bars, while a fourth, having had an inkling of what was coming, managed to get away with a good portion of the public contribution.
The trial revealed that stock purchasers were of all classes – not confined to the ignorant, to the middle class or to the rich. The phantom of quick returns on little investment, the roseate dreams of opulence without work, and the idea of having a share in the famous lost property with a history had landed its suckers by the score and the hundreds. And this was but one of the hundreds of similar swindles that have been perpetrated in the past or are being carried on right at the present time and finding new “marks” to trim.
Usually the story of the lost mine is the bait used to land the fish. There have been dozens of these properties, and from time to time old tales are renewed by a sudden strike. Right at this moment [1921? 1925?] there is an old miner in San Bernardino, California, who claims that he has discovered the very mine referred to above, and he is sincere in his belief of location. There are countless miners who have deluded themselves into the same ideas, and some of them have actually discovered what have been lost mines.
These will-o’-the-wisps have beckoned many men from their homes, have sent them into hopeless regions where starvation and despair have been their only reward. They have proved to the rocks on which the miners have been wrecked, the beacons that have gone out, and the evanescent mirages that have lured onward to fatal endings.
On the other hand, they have been the means of bringing about many other valuable discoveries of mineral wealth. They had led the phantom-chaser to other riches than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The lost mine minds its way into the home of the elite occasionally, into the columns of the papers periodically and is always on hand to help while away the nocturnal watches around the camp-fire of the prospector. In the clubs and the bar-rooms of the Western cities where mining men congregate, where they mingle with men of social and political power, with adventurers from the South Seas, soldiers from the Philippines, traders from the Orient, the lost mine is always one of the most interesting topics.
Among these are some that have been classed almost among the fables of the ancients, but, despite that, have their foundations deeply rooted in fact.
-----
Editor's Note: If this mining chicane story seems hard to believe, remember the Great Diamond Hoax of the 1870's when experienced mining and financial men - including the great William Ralston, founder of the Bank of California - were taken in by a salting scheme. And the newspapers of the past few weeks tell us about a $50,000,000,000 Wall Street Ponzi fraud...
Good luck to all,
~The Old Bookaroo
