Ch. 1: Gold and Silver in 1912

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	GOLD AND SILVER.	259

	are found on bedrock. Bench gravels form the largest part of the deposits, which are reported 50 feet deep and to average $1.50 per cubic yard in coarse gold. The largest nugget found in this region was valued at $1,150 and assayed about 0.870 in fineness. One of the companies has a reservoir and preparations are under way for a hydraulic plant which will be supplied with water from Colorado River. A Newkirk hydraulic elevator will raise the gravel to sluice boxes. Weaver district.—For over 35 years the dry washes, gulches, and mesas of the Weaver district in the southern part of Yavapai County have been worked after each rainfall for the gold which has been caught in depressed areas and channels. The placer ground containing values extends from 1 to 10 feet in depth over an area of 5 by 8 miles. Stream gravel sand and mesa soils carry the gold, which, in the gulches, is very coarse, while on the mesas it is flaky and fine. The largest nugget found was reported to be worth $400. All of the gold has a fineness of 0.910. During 1912 about 30 placer miners, both Mexicans and Americans, were working with dry washers, rockers, or, when water permitted, by sluicing, and produced nearly $5,000 in gold. San Domingo district.—About 45 miles northwest of Phoenix is San Domingo Wash, in northern Maricopa County, where dry-placer ground is situated, covering an area 1,200 feet wide by 2£ miles long, with an average depth of 10 feet, and containing a reported average of about 40 cents per cubic yard. The surface is scarred by frequent watercourses down which the water runs in torrents after a heavy rain. It is proposed to work this placer by taking water from a reservoir built in "Rogers Wash," or by building a dam in Hassa-yampa River to catch the underground now and to pipe the water to the placers. Gold has been produced from this locality for many years by miners operating dry-washing machines. Teviston district.—During the wet season dry-placer ground in the Teviston district, Cochise County, yields a small quantity of gold yearly. About 300 acres have been reported valuable to a depth of from 3 to 10 feet, the latter being the greatest depth prospected. Bedrock is from 50 to 75 feet in depth. Most of the gold is coarse, and the ground by tests has yielded from 3 cents to $28 per cubic yard. The largest nugget found was valued at $375. Some cement or caliche has been found in prospecting the ground, but values have been found in the gravel beneath. Old Hat district.—An area of 25,000 acres in the Old Hat district,¹Pinal County, covering nearly the whole of Tp. 10 S., R. 14 E., Gila and Salt River meridian, distance 4 to 10 miles south from Oracle post office and 16 to 29 miles north from Tucson , is found containing valuable dry placer gravel, which has apparently been deposited at intervals by floods from the Santa Catalma Mountains so as to form a deposit of nearly equal value from surface to bedrock, there being no pronounced accumulation of heavy gold at bedrock except in the stream, Canada del Oro Creek, which passes through the region. The bed of dry gravel is from 6 feet deep at the creek side to 252 feet at the summit, with an average thickness of about 150 feet. The deposit is in general a loose gravel, uncemented. There are, however, alternating strata of deep red, clayey material. These strata are of nearly • Burgess, Capt. J. D,, personal letters.

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