Try this one on for size.
Forgotten Trails and Devil's Gold by Bob Allen. Subtitle, "They Challenged the Devil for Spanish Gold". Copyright, 1991 by Bob Allen, printed by Artex Publishing, Inc. of Stevens Point, WI. It's only 240 pages and soft covered, but it is excellent reading. Inside the title page is the statement, Orders should be forwarded to:
Bob Allen
P.O. Box 519
Tulare, CA, 93274
I bought my copy at Wayne's Detector Sales, in OKC, in about 1995 or '96. The book is about Mr. Allen and his partner making prospecting trips into the mountains of California. The main story, though, is about them searching for a hidden Spanish Mine that turned out to be cursed by the Indians. This is no work of fiction, but some of it reads like it is. Especially when he tells of the "disappearing" ridge on the haunted mountain and his run-in with the Indian ghost. He almost died from a mysterious illness brought on by that run-in. His partner had to get him out of the mountains and to a hospital double-quick.
I was in Wayne's shop a few months after reading the book and a young woman came in to look around. Turned out, she was one of Bob Allen's nieces. I asked her how Mr. Allen was doing and she said that he FINALLY got out of the hospital, but was not fully recovered, even though it had been a couple of years and the doctors still weren't sure exactly WHAT he'd suffered with. She said that he was wanting to write another book about someother prospecting and treasure hunting adventures. But, then she told us that she didn't think he'd ever be able to do it; that she didn't think he'd ever fully get over his ailment. I asked her about one or two things from the book and she said that her uncle would never lie or stretch the truth about his experiences; that if he said something happened--
it happened !
Now, I'm thinking about reading it again.
If you want a book that could possibly take all winter to read, then take a look at
DE RE METALLICA by Herbert Hoover and his wife. Yes, PRESIDENT Herbert Hoover and his wife wrote this book after he left the presidency. They translated Spanish mining manuals VERBATIM---straight, pure translation. That's why I said it could take all winter to read. I believe the average person could only take about half a dozen pages at one "sitting" before getting a headache.
This book covers all the different ways the Spanish explorers looked for precious metals, including dowsing, how the mines were to be set up; even how big the ingots were to be. I got a copy of this book for reference and research, but I've not read it through. Like I said--headaches.
