Dear Ellie Baba;
I've nev er spent so much as 5 minutes searching for the LDM, my friend. In truth, parallel research into the early colonization of the Americas has sent me to the same places as most LDM writers have visited, but my interest in the LDM is purely in the form of entertainment. I rather enjoy the irony of so many otherwise logical, responsible men and women searching high and low for something which they will not find, and the reason why they will not find it is because I firmly believe that it never existed in the first place.
One man, working alone in hardrock country would be VERY hard pressed to scratch out enough color from the rocks to pay for his beans and flour and yet I am supposed to believe that Jacob Waltz was quietly amassing a fortune? If you are doubtful, accquire the same tools which were available in the late 1800s, namely hammer and drill, and walk up to any rock face you happen to find. Once you sized up the face, start drilling and keep track of how much host rock you are able to dislodge AND process in one week.
Now, after you've dropped from exhaustion, you'll probably conclude that Mr. Waltz either had some serious help or someone was lying. In order to be able to mine gold of the magnitude that Jacob was supposedly extracting would take a lode of huge proportions and I really do not think that a lode that size could have remained undetected for this long, as all gold formations tend to shed deposits at a constant, albeit very slow, rate. if there were a lode of that stature in the Superstitions then a significant amount of alluvial gold would have been detected and helped to locate the source of the formation. Thus far, this has not happened.
Basically, what people are believing in is the words of a single person, that being Jacob Waltz and he may, or may not, have said those words. No one knows for sure, my friend. We only know what people TELL us and nothing more than this. In other words, it's strictly a "he said, she said" proposition, my friend, with virtually no written documentation to support the claims or theories.
Granted, hypothesizing about the LDM is thought provoking and fun, however I tend to keep my emotions in check in regards to anything connected to the LDM. I do belittle anyone who searches for the LDM however, everyone should be aware that the odds of finding it are very slim indeed. In all honesty, if I were to go into the Supes, I'd do so with one of my Minelab PI detectors. In this way I would know that if a gold nugget were in the vicinity I would stand a very good chance of recovering it.
Your friend;
LAMAR