New twist on the LDM.

[somehiker]

Gold or no gold
Part two
Reason 3
Actually a line of reasoning that is more difficult to debate,since much of the evidence is anecdotal.Evidence is best presented in documented form,first hand and fresh.Chronological diaries,official reports and independent witness accounts included with these reports make the best case for any argument.Buttressing "the yes there is" side, on which I stand,are military reports and witness corroberation testifying to at least a recoverable amount of placer gold in the Superstitions and general area.Military reports of the era of The Apache Wars include reference to military personnel having panned creek beds in overnight bivoac areas during search and destroy missions in the Superstition and Tonto areas.I believe that there was once a Command Directive to this effect,but have been unable to find my related reference material.In most cases gold was found in the pan,however the amounts were judged to be insufficient for commercial exploitation.I suspect that in these cases the results probably equaled the effort,however they do indicate the presence of gold in recoverable amounts over a widespread area.I see little reason to doubt the veracity of these accounts,considering the circumstances in which they were recorded.
This is purely conjecture on my part,but I suspect that two factors play a large role in the debate over the presence of larger deposits.The first is the geology and the fact that the caulderic explosions fractured the older terrain to such a degree,and then covered much of the older strata in deep layers of ash/tuff,thus limiting prospecting to exposed areas of older rock in canyon bottoms,outcroppings,or cliff faces.The second factor might be the violent human history and the fact that by the time that it was relatively safe to prospect the area(which only the hardiest and most determined might do anyway),times had changed and fewer were willing to commit to a desert prospector's lifestyle.Other jobs in growing industries and existing mines beckoned.Of those that remained and did,in fact,scour these mountains for gold or silver,how many might have had the knowledge required to have hada chance of success.Few,I suspect,would have "looked where no other miner would".
Regards---SH.

 

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[Oroblanco]

Greetings,

I would wish to add that while the geography of the Superstitions probably has not changed greatly since the time of Jacob Waltz, the flora probably has. What is frequently termed "overgrazing" by cattle has resulted in some plant species taking advantage to flourish, as has happened here in Cochise county which had vast areas of grassland until the 1880s, when cattle grazing allowed mesquite to get the upper hand. The truth is the grazing was TOO LITTLE; not too much, as what happens is the cattle eat the tender and tasty grasses but refuse to eat the tough, thorny stuff - so the grass gets chewed down but the mesquites are un-touched, unless the cattle are almost "crowded" into eating down the brushy matter to the same level as the grasses. The tree-hugging club Natures Conservancy, which has been given almost legislative powers, discovered this fact - what we see as "overgrazing" is in truth UNDER-grazing, the ranchers allowing the livestock too much area so they eat only the most tasty plants and allow the undesirable weeds to take over. All of this is virtually academic anyway because even the earliest accounts of the Superstitions have described the plants as being thick and tough to get through with plenty of places of hostile Indios to lie in wait.

Oroblanco

 

[cactusjumper]

SH,

"Buttressing "the yes there is" side, on which I stand,are military reports and witness corroberation testifying to at least a recoverable amount of placer gold in the Superstitions and general area.Military reports of the era of The Apache Wars include reference to military personnel having panned creek beds in overnight bivoac areas during search and destroy missions in the Superstition and Tonto areas.I believe that there was once a Command Directive to this effect,but have been unable to find my related reference material.In most cases gold was found in the pan,however the amounts were judged to be insufficient for commercial exploitation.I suspect that in these cases the results probably equaled the effort,however they do indicate the presence of gold in recoverable amounts over a widespread area.I see little reason to doubt the veracity of these accounts,considering the circumstances in which they were recorded."

If what you say is true, there would still be gold in the canyons of the Superstitions today.
When there is water present, it could be panned. Metal detectors would also be able to find gold.......almost everywhere.

The LDM is located on the side of a ravine. If it was originally found by panning the ravines and creeks below it......they will still have signs of gold in them, unless the gold vein never made it to the surface.

What if the LDM did not start out as a "gold mine"? Is it possible the Spanish were working another mineral and found gold, as Waltz described it, surrounded by the matrix of the other ore?

Considering the volcanic nature/makeup of the region, is there a precedent for that taking place in other parts of the world? Is the LDM a tree that has been hiding for all these years in a forest? Could that be why it was so hard to find? Not that it was a singular event, but one of many. Once covered, everyone paid complete attention to those that were open.

Just a few loose thoughts that were bouncing around inside an inquisitive mind.

Joe

 

[somehiker]

Hi Joe:
Many of the thoughts that you express are similar to my own.I suspect that,given the geological layering and faulting and folding evident,we are searching an area both physically and intellectually demanding.I do suspect that coarse gold could be found,most likely in those canyons that do cut through the layers of volcanic cement.Any that follow the deeper fault lines would be a good place to start as would those that parallel the intrusionary dikes that wind their way through the Superstitions and look like giant fins on the landscape.
I am very much a latecomer to this forum,as well as the other sites,and certainly no expert on the subject of placer or hardrock mining.I have never owned or used a metal detector,but I suspect that the brush and boulders in the canyon and ravine bottoms would interfere with effective use.I have also never panned,although I have twice come across others who were panning(somewhat hostile) and once picked up a hitchhiker at Tortilla Flats and gave him and his considerable gear a ride up to the Reavis trailhead.This guy looked like someone straight out of the dutchman era,and had a pan hung by a chain from the bottom of his pack.There's more,but I'll tell the rest of the story in another thread sometime.A few years ago,while returning from a hike up to Peter's Cave,I noticed a large cavity under the big rockpile that lies near the bottom of Peter's Canyon.Thinking that it might be a passage leading to the downside of the rockpile and thus an easier return route,I slid down into the hole.Inside,I found a well used shaker box made of 1/4" hardware mesh on a wood frame and it looked like someone had been digging in the sand under the rocks.I moved the box to another place in the hole,just so the owner would know that someone else had been there.But I digress---It appears to me that the fact that most of the canyon bottoms are themselves so rough in nature and dry most of the year that wet panning would be mostly impossible.I doubt that all them big rocks would fit in a pan anyway.Kidding aside,I am going to offer a couple of other theories in my Hiding thread.
If the LDM is in fact located on the side of a ravine,it most likely penetrates an area of older rock with a vein or other intrusion present.I doubt that it was discovered originally by panning,even dry panning,or even by following a visible vein.I agree that it is certainly possible that gold was discovered within or adjunct to the deposit,while mining for something entirely different and of value to the miners at that time.Perhaps copper or silver or even raw material for paint or pottery was the original goal.I also am sure that the spanish were themselves latecomers,in two separate timeframes,exploiting what was already there in some cases.

Regards:SH

 

[alaskabill]

It's been many years since I have been to the Cactus Marker location, but this picture is pretty close. Where the canyon makes a straight line angled towards Bluff Spring Mountain is about where I remember it being. The terrain is nothing like what Cayce described.

Joe Ribaudo

Joe,

I don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but I thought you might get a kick out of this. I just downloaded the new version of GoogleEarth and thought it would be interesting to see if I could match you Cactus Marker Location image with a GoogleEarth image. Check it out. Yes, I've been in the Super's a few times myself.

Your photo



My GoogleEarth Image


I think I got the GoogleEarth "camera" pretty close to where your photo was shot.

Bill

 

[Cubfan64]

Looks to me like you nailed it - not got pretty close! The newest Google Earth sure looks nice!

 

[markmar]

Hi everybody

Maybe my introduction to seems little crazy in what Edgar Cayce " saw " about the LDM , but I have my reasons and maybe some day I will be vindicated .

Cayce " saw " two different spots in his vision . The triangle shaped rock is a clue to the Walter Perrine's cave of gold bars and don't has any relation with the LDM . The description of the LDM place is correct but is about a half mile afar and not east from that specific rock .

BTW , the Perrine's cave is just few feet from the triangle shaped rock . This rock is in the middle of a circle shape .

 

[markmar]

The triangle shaped rock in the middle of the circle shape and below the balanced rock marking .



And the covered shaft's entrance

 

[markmar]

The Padres map also shows a round shape as a clue .

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Joe,, Some hiker, would take issue with you on the accedental discovery of Gold while working another type of materiell, What other beesides Gold / ilver was worth the long, dangerous trip

 

[gollum]

Joe,, Some hiker, would take issue with you on the accedental discovery of Gold while working another type of materiell, What other beesides Gold / ilver was worth the long, dangerous trip

Hey Don Jose de Guacamole,

How about this:



Just a nice chunk of almost pure iron. It also contains a whole bunch of tungsten nodules. In the 1600s-1700s, good sources of iron were as valuable as gold or silver. The chunk in the picture came from the Spanish Mine in Ryan's Last Video (#11), where Ryan videos Frank and I inside the mine. If you go to the OTHER PLACE and watch the video, you can see some amazing shots of beautiful quarts stringers that contain a whole lot of silver. sO................if silver is found in an iron mine...... I would have knocked out a big chunk of that, but the roof had come down in one place, and was badly fractured and crumbly.

Here is a screen grab of a stringer w/AG:



Its not really obvious, but watch the video. Its easy to see there.

Mike

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Hi mi buddy Gollum, I agree on the iron, but excellent quality and quantities were found in The islands Pt had no particular value yet. So the canon were often cast with consiiiiderable PT in them. Be careful ya big lug, don't want to lose you.

 

[gollum]

Hi mi buddy Gollum, I agree on the iron, but excellent quality and quantities were found in The islands Pt had no particular value yet. So the canon were often cast with consiiiiderable PT in them. Be careful ya big lug, don't want to lose you.

It'll take more than a mine collapse to do me in! HAHAHA

But thanks for the thought - Mike

 

[Eldo]

I don't see how that's possible. "Thunder God's Gold" came out in 1945, and the Casey LDM Reading was from 1944. Edgar Casey died in 1944 (before Storm's book came out). Maybe you can explain how Casey read Storm's book a year before it's publication? Also, Casey didn't do much reading the last year of his life.

Best,

Mike

Or how he died right after trying to crack open the "Apache Thunder God's" Jesuit Vault, They must have put a new "Curse" on him....

Did he break the codes with his Psychic 'Black Hand'

LOL

Not that psychics aren't real.....but it usually takes a better crack at a mine system to find the KGC deep in their operations.

NOW I AM COMPLETELY SKEPTICAL ABOUT THE OTHER SO CALLED FORETELLINGs HE HAS MADE........so much different from what I found and he ignores the fact that there were so many deaths....

A Psychic could not miss all that killing at Massacre Point and would have known that "No Miner Would Find The Vault"

and to look through the "Eye" of a needle from what Jacob Waltz said,

do you think an eye is shaped like a knife edge?

 

[Eldo]

Hey Don Jose de Guacamole,

How about this:

View attachment 1219080

Just a nice chunk of almost pure iron. It also contains a whole bunch of tungsten nodules. In the 1600s-1700s, good sources of iron were as valuable as gold or silver. The chunk in the picture came from the Spanish Mine in Ryan's Last Video (#11), where Ryan videos Frank and I inside the mine. If you go to the OTHER PLACE and watch the video, you can see some amazing shots of beautiful quarts stringers that contain a whole lot of silver. sO................if silver is found in an iron mine...... I would have knocked out a big chunk of that, but the roof had come down in one place, and was badly fractured and crumbly.

Here is a screen grab of a stringer w/AG:

View attachment 1219111

Its not really obvious, but watch the video. Its easy to see there.

Mike

I'll take my gold and silver any day over that Iron

 

[Azquester]

Looks like gold Mica, Pyrite and lead ore.

I found a huge vein of that stuff once brought some of it home and had it assayed.

I'll take my gold and silver any day over that Iron

View attachment 1219548View attachment 1219549View attachment 1219550

 

[sgtfda]

Looks like gold Mica, Pyrite and lead ore.

I found a huge vein of that stuff once brought some of it home and had it assayed.

I agree Bill

 

[Eldo]

Noooope....silver and nickel in the first primarily with lead and iron ore.......after assaying the samples at 20 sieve density.

The gold hasn't come back yet but it is mainly in higher concentrations in the lower rock photos.

The one with my hand is also silver and nickel, but has some other metals on the outer layers

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

Mica usually forms as part of a mineral assemblage in a 'rock' (petrology v mineralogy) It would be strange indeed to find it in a vein. You might make geologic history if you can prove that. Want to be famous MR. bill ?

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

C Netherlands, Mica also comes in large sheets, veins ?. Clear sheets are valuable.