Hi Randy!
I will grant you that it is entirely
possible that a Peralta or other Mexican
could have created maps in stone with this degree of accuracy. I am only pointing out how unusual it is to find a map that purportedly dates to 1847 with this level of accuracy. Even Santa Anna's army cartographers created maps with some big errors (thought to have contributed to the loss of one major battle in fact) and these were trained map makers. I have found errors in modern US topographic maps as well, but on the whole (no cheap pun intended) they have been very accurate, the greatest errors usually being the result of roads being moved since the map was last updated and modern development which also has been done after the map was last updated.
So we are left with the case that these maps are either made by the Peraltas, showing the route to their legendary lost mines in the Superstitions or they are frauds. There seems to be no middle ground. I don't understand the fence-sitters here (you are not alone Gollum) as really these must either be real or fakes, there is little risk in coming down on one side or the other; of course if one were to conclude that they are fakes, and they were proven real by someone finding the mines and becoming rich, then that person is likely to look me up to open that can of Whup-Arse on me for being partially responsible for their disbelief; however for someone to openly say that they are real, only to be proven wrong risks nothing but someone saying "I told you so" for there is no gold to lose in that case.
Randy posed a question:
How easy would it be for someone, creating the maps as they travel through the superstitions, to draw what they saw?
Drawing what they saw as they passed through, not too difficult, and what was most often done was what we call today a "Waybill" which shows the landmarks you should find on the path to the place you wish to get to. Maps covering whole regions were not the common way of marking down the route to mines or buried treasures (or hidden springs for that matter) by either Mexicans or later Americans, though military forces would go to the trouble of creating maps - but they needed maps showing whole areas for military purposes. This is NOT to say that the Peraltas
WOULD NOT or
COULD NOT have made stone maps to find their way back to the mines, however it was more common practice to make up simpler "Waybills" than to make up maps.
I don't wish to bore you good friends with too much of my rambling, but I have many problems with this.
1 - there is precious little evidence to prove there were any Peraltas
ever being in the Superstitions
2 - there is no evidence of Peralta gold mines in the Superstitions, as in records of gold sold, claims filed etc.
3 - If the Peraltas had gold mines in the Superstitions, why did they not file claims on them, when we know they filed legal claims on both their silver mine in Sonora and the gold mine in the Bradshaws?
4 - If the Peraltas did have secret gold mines (and this is contrary to documented behavior of the Peraltas) why would they have needed maps to find them again? I have personally had small "mines" (pockets actually) in really remote places, and had no need of any map to find them again, and this was long before we had GPS devices; now I don't think that I am so much more intelligent than the Peraltas nor more skilled in traversing wilderness so why would they feel a need for maps?
5 - If they did have secret gold mines, and decided to make up maps to them, why would they make them of stone rather than leather or paper or wood? Stones are heavy, bulky, unwieldy, and brittle; they would have been a hindrance while traveling in known hostile land, and if the mines were being kept secret because of fear of Americans coming, then leather or paper maps would have been FAR easier to conceal than any stones.
6 - If the Peraltas had secret gold mines in the Superstitions, then why did they head for the La Paz district and later up to the Bradshaws instead of heading direct to the secret mines in the Superstitions? That just does not make any sense at all, if they really had a whole group of secret and incredibly rich gold mines, they would choose to instead go off to other grounds and have to search anew and compete with the "feared" Americans.
7 - If the Peraltas had the secret mines, and had made up the stone maps, why did they leave them behind instead of taking the maps back to Mexico? This does not make a bit of sense to me, unless they were burying them right next to a large and permanent landmark easily found again, which is not the case.
8 - It seems that whenever we venture into the Peralta legends, we start running into FRAUDS. We have the Reavis-Peralta land grant fraud, the embellishing of Peralta tales by authors Storm and Bicknell, and the stock scheme of MOEL while they owned these stone mysteries. This tendency to run into frauds alone is a good reason for those big red flags to be flying, and to have that dose of salt handy for everything we are supposed to swallow. It certainly caused ME to wrinkle one eye and look at all the evidence with greater caution than I would in other cases.
9 - Isn't it strange that these stones are found right along a major highway, which is just outside the Superstitions? The finders stated that at least one of the stones was sticking out of the dirt, and was noticeably rectangular in shape - yet even though the whole area has been gone over by cowhands on horseback, and that the highway was built by road workers who DO notice things along the route as they work (just look at how many Indian artifacts they have found for example) not ONE of them ever noticed the odd rectangular stone sticking out of the ground!
10 - The best scientists in the world have great difficulty in estimating the age of every stone inscription; and most often look for other evidence found in the same site (like coins or pottery which can be dated with some confidence) and even the very best experts have been FOOLED and not just once. Despite this, we are supposed to accept the affadavits of some geologists (rather than epigraphers, which are expert in the field of stone engravings) who are not even considered the best in California let alone the nation or world as absolute proof of the age of the engravings, and this despite the fact that the stones were CLEANED even before the geologists had a chance to look at them! Any expert who tells you he or she can tell the date of any stone inscription AFTER it has been cleaned, without any outside evidence like coins or pottery, is making an empty boast. Since the stones were in fact cleaned before the geologists examined it, how can we accept their verdict as any kind of absolute proof?
11 - The stones were sold by the remaining family members for CASH, now $1200 may not sound like much to some folks but in the early 1960s you could buy a new or nearly new CAR for that amount. This point does not fill one with confidence in their being genuine, even if the two brothers had passed away prior to the sale. MOEL then used the stones to bilk investors out of thousands of dollars, which resulted in a criminal investigation - now this is pointed to by some as being a GOOD thing, because it got the stones tested and brought them to the public light, but wouldn't it cast less shadowy clouds if the stones had NOT been the basis behind a stock scheme, been a part of a criminal investigation, and had been examined by experts (in epigraphy) without involving any frauds?
12 - then we learn that the state placed a value on the stones at NOTHING other than a
curiosity which seems an odd thing if they were really some kind of ancient stone inscriptions by Peralta pioneers, doesn't it? Why did the state conclude that the stones had no real value? You would think that if the state believed them to be genuine, they would not have concluded their value was nothing more than a curiosity, wouldn't you?
13 - How is it that all four stones were found by the same people? Can you think of any other similar incident in the history of mankind? The Tumlinsons must have either been superb at searching for such things, or incredibly lucky to find all four!
14 - Why is it that not ONE of the stones is missing? Can you think of another incident in history where a full set of FOUR carved stone inscriptions after missing over a century were found, without ONE missing?
15 - Why is it that the stones look so pristine, with little apparent weathering? I guarantee you that if you take a stone, carve an inscription onto it and bury it in the ground, even in the "dry" Superstitions, come back 100 years later and it will be visibly degraded, and might even be difficult to read at all! These stones look like they were made last WEEK, not over 100 years ago - even the one which was supposedly sticking out of the ground shows no line where the weathering was different, which should be obvious as the exposed portion would be eroded differently than the portion below ground.
16 - Why is it that not ONE of the four stones is cracked or broken? Are they made of granite? Do you realize how rare that is, to find stones that had been buried and has not been broken or at least cracked? Yet these stones look excellent, no visible cracks even (though admittedly we are working from photographs.)
17 - If these stones are really maps to legendary lost gold mines of the Peraltas, then why is it that the Tumlinsons and all those who followed them failed to find a single ONE of these legendary mines? That to me is the final, ultimate test of any treasure map, and these stones have failed it miserably and repeatedly. Do you have some reason to think that you (anyone reading this) are so much more intelligent than the Tumlinsons or the others who have tried using those maps, that YOU could work out the secret flaw in them and thus find the lost mines? While I do not consider myself a total moron, I also do not consider myself so much more intelligent than other treasure hunters including the Tumlinsons, and if they failed to find any lost mines while using those "maps" then what reason would I have to think that I WOULD succeed, where so many others have failed?
18 - If these stones are authentic, why then do we have no record of them ever existing prior to 1949? Surely Pedro Peralta would have known of them, and most likely would have made some efforts to retreive them rather than go with the rest of the Peraltas into the Bradshaws? Yet there is no mention of them anywhere, prior to 1949...right in the heyday of famous Lost Dutchman Mine author and Peralta legend embellisher Barry Storm...!
This is not even the full account of the doubts; like Mike pointed out these "maps" match up remarkably well with modern topographic maps, quite possibly TOO remarkably well if you just think about it. To me, the whole Peralta legend in the Superstitions along with the stones is one for the campfires,
not one to induce me to go spend hours in the archives and weeks in the hills.
I don't know how to sway your opinions to agree with me, and have presented every reason for doubt that I have; yet some are just more willing to propose some alternate theory to "shoe fit" the whole Peralta legend in with those stone "maps" and this only shows me that I am really wasting your time and my own since no matter what is said about being on a fence, your posts show something different. You provided me with a clear answer by not answering the simple question, are you willing to go up into the Superstitions yourself and put the stones to the ultimate test, even had a volunteer to accompany you, but I get no answer. My main reasons for trying to convince you NOT to waste your talents, abilities and time (not to mention efforts and travel expenses) was to prevent you wasting your time, or worse for you to go out and find that they are false, and end up quitting treasure hunting altogether. You have removed all my worries about your quitting the game with your optimism, (no optimist ever quit something because of a single incident) and the issue of wasted time is now moot too as you have mentioned that you are pouring hours and hours into researching these stones to prove every point of the story as absolutely as you possibly can; plus I have already spent hours on this myself, heck just re-reading the old posts has taken up hours for me and I am a pretty fast reader. So my reasons for debating against your studying these mystery stones are moot - there is no way I can ever convince you NOT to keep pursuing them so I won't waste any more of your time. If you DO finally prove them authentic beyond doubt (this involves finding a lost, rich Peralta gold mine in the Superstition mountains for me) I hope you will let me know and I won't mind your saying "I told you so." Thanks for your time, this has been an engrossing and fascinating discussion, I wish I could align myself with the believers and say the stones are genuine maps but I just have way too many doubts and find the alternate explanation to be the more likely in my opinion. That old semi-scientific test, Occam's Razor, in which the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, seems to me in this case to be a simple case of fraud. It seems a shame (to me) that these frauds are taking up the time and efforts of friends and fellow treasure hunters, but heck at least those folks won't be competing with me in following up OTHER leads, and other treasures. I will check back and read the continuing discussion but I don't think I have much (if anything) to add, pro or con. (HEY I heard that Hooray!
)
Thanks for the very interesting discussion, good luck and good hunting, and I hope you all have a great day!
your friend,
Roy ~ Oroblanco
"We must find a way, or we will make one." --Hannibal Barca
I sure can't say it is impossible that Reavis to have created them, just seems less likely than a much more modern origin.
