Treasure Trove Permits

Scott,

I want to thank you for a clear and candid view into the permit process and your own experiences regarding same.
I wanted to ask you if you have experience with any historical markings on living or dead trees ? If not could you kindly suggest someone or a technology that can help me to expose the details of markings that are no longer legible due to their age and condition ? I located a standing tree that is very large for its' specie and location. It is covered with many markings some legible and some not. It is not located in your forest but is on USFS land.

I have met one of the field guys that works under the District Ranger and he was someone I would gladly invite to my home. He went out of his way to see that an issue that I had was resolved and even made a follow up the next day to make certain. When he was at my camp for the follow up visit he noticed a piece of my gear and mentioned how he wished the DR office had one and how it would make rescues a whole lot easier than they presently are. I didn't ask him why they didn't have any at that time so I was unaware of the nature of funding problems existing for the FS. I will contact the District Ranger tomorrow and donate the gear. Thanks for the heads up.

Bill
 

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Gollum wrote: Who was the fellow?

If I said, he had a penchant for "pirate" nicknames, you would know instantly right? The fellow was quite a forum troll, no longer a member here - and thought the stones related to a mission and its' associated mines, but was not Matthew or Arizpe. I did a cursory comparison using his idea and was surprised, it is not so 'far out' as I expected.
 

=Zephyr
" Reaves tends to fill up most of the holes. Exactly how he intended to use them is still not clear, "

If I recall correctly (and I'm going by memory about the Arizona land swindle that I read a while ago), that if he was trying to claim a big chunk of territory, why not stick boundary markers at each corner of the "claimed" area? IIRC one set was found (or "produced" as evidence) around the time of the swindle. If this was another set, then possibly there are at least two others out there. If the scheme with the first marker fell flat, "discovering" the others would have been a waste of time, if not counterproductive. 'course, I could be wrong (and usually am.... ;)
**************
HI Zepher, so you are are married also hmmm

What you have posted makes excellent sense.

Tropical Tramp
 

Oroblanco said:
Gollum wrote: Who was the fellow?

If I said, he had a penchant for "pirate" nicknames, you would know instantly right? The fellow was quite a forum troll, no longer a member here - and thought the stones related to a mission and its' associated mines, but was not Matthew or Arizpe. I did a cursory comparison using his idea and was surprised, it is not so 'far out' as I expected.
Click to expand...

Yes! That was the OTHER nutjob I referred to. I never said he was stupid, just five or six cans short of a six pack.

After I caught him in a bunch of lies, I never paid any attention to anything he posted.

Best,

Mike
 

Djui5 wrote:I agree. Some of the stuff was plausible, though some of it was "holy left field bat man"

Boy howdy was it ever! However the basic premise that the site where the witch/priest was standing was intended to be the mission, then compared to locations of the mines associated with that mission (you know which one we are talking about) it could "fit" - IF the mines are actually located there. Since the location of only the LAST of the 'twelve' is known (public) it is not possible to check it absolutely. It might be a fun trip to go check out though!

Oroblanco
 

As usual, a lot of stuff to respond to since I was last here...

Tramp wrote: In my opinion and evaluation he is a sedately married man happily doing a job that he enjoys. but. like me, has never had a bribe offered to him, so, so much for an early retirement.

Sedately married? What’s that? I have been married to the same woman (2nd wife) for 28 years and we haven’t killed each other yet; does that count? I have been offered a bribe, though – once, by a colleague at the Bureau of Reclamation, to speed up review of a report: it was a six-pack of Dr Pepper and I never got it (of course, I didn’t give her any preference, either, so maybe I would have if I had done what she wanted). As for the “happily doing a job that he enjoys” bit…. Ten years ago I planned to die in place here, it was the greatest job in the world; five years ago I figured that I’d retire, but not until after I’d put my son through college. Today, I can tell you off the top of my head that I’ll be qualified to retire in exactly 148 days. I still love the Forest, I love the work (when I actually get to do any of it), and I love the Forest Service and what it stands for – the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run, as Gifford Pinchot liked to say. However, the Forest Service I signed on with is rapidly dying under this administration (we started going down under Carter, so I hate both parties equally), crushed by politicized leadership, overbearing and contradictory regulation, unfunded mandates, a bureaucracy that only a Russian could love, and a constant draining away of personnel, funding, and experience. It’s being replaced by one that depends on computer databases rather than fieldwork and hires children born and raised in cities to run those computers and who don’t go to the field to gather data and don’t look at it as a career, but just another two year job. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the Forest Service is the worst possible Federal agency, but it’s a whole lot better than all the rest. I still don’t know if I’ll retire this year – this is MY Forest after all, I grew up here, my Grandfather worked at Roosevelt Dam in the 1920s, my mother was born in Globe, raised in Phoenix (as was I), and still lives inside the Forest at Payson (where I can’t afford to retire now, thank you very much Clint Eastwood and Charles Barkley) and I still have so many things to do – but it’s getting real tempting.

Oro wrote: Ask any geologist or assayer, gold ores are highly individual in character with no two sources exactly alike - there were accusations that Waltz's ore was from the Vulture mine (which he never worked at) or from the Bulldog mine, others have pointed to the Mammoth mine or the Black Queen (near Goldfield) but the ores from these sources differs from Waltz's ore.

That’s exactly my point, actually, one of two: first of all, not only are no two ore bodies exactly alike, but no single ore body is exactly the same from one end to the other; the second is that there are, what?, 8 or so developed mines in the Goldfield area. Are there accurate descriptions of all of their ores sufficient to compare to the alleged Walz sample? With all the potential variability involved, how can we rule out the possibility of a Goldfield origin? Even more to the point, what is the provenance of the matchbox gold so often cited and shown as the Dutchman’s gold? Is there a documented chain of possession? Given Holmes’ minimal acquaintance with veracity, can we put much or any faith in the assertion that the matchbox gold is authentic – especially given the proximity of Holmes old (squatted) homestead to several other gold mines he could have stolen from - I just threw that one out for argument – I really don’t know what the ore from, say, the Red Rover looks like (maybe MesaBuddy does, since he likes the northern interpretation).

Oro wrote: I have to disagree about the discovery rate for new mineral deposits being made by the individual prospectors…

Actually, I think I was talking about exploration rather than discovery, per se, and wasn’t thinking about things like diamonds. Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of big company exploration over the years well outside any previously claimed areas with no visible surface mineralization. An example: a decade or so ago Kennecott drilled a boatload of holes west of Superior through a thousand feet of valley fill and volcanic ash looking for copper; the only prior claims in the area were for perlite. I will concede that exploration and discovery take place at all levels, but I still hold that major discoveries leading to profitable developments very rarely come from small prospectors nowadays – at least in areas as heavily worked over as central Arizona.

Oro wrote: why should we assume that the Dutchman's mine was located in the Superstitions (etc.)?
Roy, my friend, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell people for years! A thousand people have looked throughout the Superstitions for a hundred years and found nothing and yet right next door there was gold all over the place! If I was looking, I’d be prowling around Goldfield, not inside the volcanic caldera – especially since, at the time, before “Goldfield” became a place name, that whole area was often included in references to “the Superstitions.” I wouldn’t look so much to the North or NE of it, though, as you quickly get back into the volcanics after Government Well. Which means that the LDM was most likely “found” back in the 1890s when Goldfield was crawling with miners. As for the “North of Phoenix” school, that’s a possibility as well (Cave Creek, Rackensack, Red Rover, etc), but that’s all country that Dick Holmes would have known, which is, of course, as good a reason as any to tell him to look in the Supers….

Blazer wrote: If he cannot reply to my post personally because of his unique position, I think he would have said so. I would sooner believe his taking the time necessary to form detailed response.

I could – short of violating the Hatch Act, my “unique position” doesn’t restrain me all that much, I just don’t have that much more to tell you. You don’t like the Superstition Wilderness because you say we haven’t done the right thing regarding the boundaries. It so happens that I don’t like the Sierra Ancha wilderness because it includes roads and uranium mines from the 1950s and the rules about technology use in wilderness are preventing me from any sort of cost effective stabilization treatment for my deteriorating and wildly popular cliff dwellings. I wish that I had the time to research all the ins and outs of the laws and regulations concerning wilderness, but I don’t. I can barely keep up with the laws and regs concerning archaeology and historic sites. All that I can tell you is that if there are problems such as you have identified, they came about not as the result of any sinister agenda, but simply because we didn’t have the time or money to do everything asked of us by Congress. I know y’all think that’s a lame excuse, but it’s the only one I have. You know, when I first started with the FS 30 years ago, the book Prinicipal Laws Governing the Regulation and Management of the National Forests (approximate title – sorry, but I don’t keep one at home, which is where I am right now) was less than half an inch thick. Today it is nearly six times that big. It’s sensory overload. Like I said, I can barely keep up with my own stuff, much less be able to cite chapter and verse of someone else’s’ function. I’ve given you about all I’ve got on the subject – it’s time for you to talk to the Wilderness guys.

Mrs. Oro wrote: The "moratorium" law was that NO PUBLIC MONEY WOULD BE SPENT on new patenting.

Beth, you are right on the money (sorry about the pun – and the “breather” joke – I forget that my sense of the absurd comes from an entirely different life history than most of y’all). That was the reason; we call it “moratorium” just for need of a convenient expression – and it isn’t the FS that handles patents, it’s BLM. We don’t even have total control over our own administered lands – patents, exchanges, any transfers of ownership still go through BLM. For us, it was a bit of a “breather” though, since processing patents so often depended on a mineral exam and you could count the number of examiners available to us within the FS and BLM on one hand – the work piled up faster than lawyers could file motions. The part that I don’t understand is how the “moratorium” came to include work being paid for by the applicants. We do that all the time with land exchanges – since we don’t have enough people to do the studies ourselves, we happily accept work paid for by the proponents. I could probably find out or at least get an opinion from our geologist, but I can’t guarantee that it would be very satisfying.

About “the Stones” Blazer wrote: Scott has a lot of resources and contacts available to him. I am sure he will consult all of them before he challenges any of Jim's comments.

He’s right, I do and I have but nobody seems to pay any attention. Quite frankly, the last thing in the world that I care to do is go point for point with Hatt over the stones. Not because I would lose the debate, but because it would be time-consuming and pointless. I’ve read Jim’s stuff. His belief in their authenticity is just that – belief, faith, if you will – and like so many others, he is convinced that those things are real, are important, and “mean something.” Arguing with True Believers is counterproductive and frustrating. There is no scientific, historic, or logical reason to believe that the stones are anything but a hoax just like all the runestones and Viking stone maps that have fed a cottage industry in Wisconsin for generations. Even if they were “real” and were somehow historic, as has been frequently recognized by many other than myself, there is absolutely nothing on them that is related to any recognizable landscape, no scale, no direction, etc; no reference point that would allow anyone to use them as a map. As Oro points out, hundreds of people have tried and none have found a damned thing. But none of this makes a bit of difference to the True Believers, who simply choose to believe what they want to believe; any evidence or analysis to the contrary is deemed either incompetent and incorrect or conspiratorial. As Blazer said, supposedly quoting Gollum (and I’m paraphrasing both of them here), “What you believe … carries more weight than any expert's opinion.” So what’s the point of debate or analysis?

As far as I’m concerned, the burden of proof is not on the people explaining why they are fake, it’s on the people who claim that they are not. As for who faked them, if I cared, I might follow up on Glover’s evidence regarding Johnny Steel – nobody ever talks about him. The one guy I’m pretty sure had nothing to do with them (sorry Jose) is “Baron” Reavis; if they had been part of his scheme, they would have had clear references to the Peralta family, dates, land grant boundaries, etc. Also, he was familiar enough with the system to know that archived documents were the way to go, not a bunch of rocks covered with “code,” cartoons, and squiggly lines.

Bottom line on the stones – they make no logical (or logistical) sense and every bit of objective evidence and analysis says that they are fake. Unfortunately, there will be people who will never accept that and will believe in their authenticity no matter what. There’s folk that be taken by belief and religiosity and for them what matters in the ‘verse is only what world they conjure from their own desires and then there’s folk be taken by science and logicality and for them the only real world is that they can touch and measure and where one thing follows another according to rules. Ain’t many bridges twixt those two worlds and not much point tryin’ to build one, especially where the lure of treasure’s involved.

Cheers – and welcome back Mike!
Scott

PS to OldBillinUT I wish I could repay the generosity of your donation to the outfit with some help with your question, but old tree markings are tough and there’s no specific technology or technique out there that I'm aware of to make reading them or reconstructing them any easier. If you could send me a photo or two, I might be able to help if I had a context for it - kind of tree, terrain, proximity to roads or trails, proximity to past logging, mining, sheep ranching, etc, but I can't guarantee anything, of course. Have you tried contacting the Forest Archaeologist where it's located? He or she may have some sense of it or maybe some archival info that could help. Anyway, on behalf of all of us in the FS, Thanks.
 

Hey Scott,

Methinks you missed the meaning of my statement!

What I was referring to was looking at the actions of the people who possessed the Stone Maps rather than what they said. People talk out of their a$$es all the time, and lie, lie, lie! You can usually tell if thier words REALLY match their TRUE feelings by watching their actions. For instance:

If Travis Tumlinson was either involved with hoaxing the Stone Maps, or knew or believed them to be fakes, his actions while he possessed them would have been totally different than they were:

He kept the stones existence a secret from all but a few people. He took about a dozen trips from Hood River, Oregon to the Supers trying to solve them. He NEVER attempted to sell them . When his health began failing, he gave the Stone Maps to his brother Robert. Robert never attempted to sell the stones either (even though he was living in a tiny apartment on a very small pension). He DID find a partner in his landlord Gene Davis, who sponsored about four trips to Az from Oregon before Robert's health began to fail, at which time he gave the stones back to his infirm brother. They stayed in Travis and Alleen's possession until after his death in 1961. Sometime after he died, Alleen sold them to an old family friend (Clarence O. Mitchell) for $1200.

It doesn't matter what any EXPERTS may say about the Tumlinsons, or what Travis and Robert might have said to ANYBODY. What is important to see is how they treated the Stone Maps while they had them in their possession. ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS!

THAT was my point, Scott. I didn't imply that my beliefs were more important than any experts' opinions. I listen to what EVERYBODY has to say on a subject. I take what EVERYBODY says with a grain of salt, and see if there is any motives for what they say (book deals etc). I factor MANY things into my opinion forming process.

Best,

Mike
 

Hey Scott,

Thanks for the suggestions I looked at the organizational and phone listings and there was no listing for a Forest Archaeologist or Archaeologist for the region. I will check with the State listings tomorrow. Come July I will get back there and take some photos all I have now is a video taken with a gem of a low res camera but was all I had at the time.
The more I think this over it it seems that someone already under a workload might get a little bent at the suggestion of making a long drive for "doodlings" as they may be viewed by someone not interested in this sort of thing. It's not too far from what I think is an area where a mineral deposit is near surface per USGS map so I am looking for a tie in if there is one. It has been suggested that this may have been a grave marker and I can't rule that out due to lack of knowledge on my part.
Thanks for your time and objective point of view it's hard not to want to become wrapped up in the excitement of solving the riddles and anticipation of that reward for all the time spent on our passion.
Congrats on 28 years of making it work thats twice as far as I ever managed it with 1 or 2. But so far but this time it not been so difficult as before all I had to do was marry an Indian Princess what a hoot eh ? Take care pard not too many days left to labor and then you are on your own time.

Bill
 

SCott


. The one guy I’m pretty sure had nothing to do with them (sorry Jose) is “Baron” Reavis; if they had been part of his scheme, they would have had clear references to the Peralta family, dates, land grant boundaries, etc. Also, he was familiar enough with the system to know that archived documents were the way to go, not a bunch of rocks covered with “code,” cartoons, and squiggly lines.

******************************

Scott how could you?? After my lying like hell to give your tarnished image a bit of undeserved polishing, you traitor you! "ET TU SCOT" sniff

Seriously, I can think of no-one else that would benefit or go to that much trouble. I rather imagine that there were a ton of unviewed documents from Reavis that might have explained them. With his devious thinking he just might have had other undisclosed documents which may have needed the stones casually being found (in time) to prove their authenticity. When the plan went bad, (due to an employee of BLM burying them in an unidentifiable place) they were just quietly eliminated or simply buried in the other files..


Jose el Tropical Tramp a reincarnated Jesuit form 1640.
 

Greetings,

Blindbowman good luck and good hunting, hope you find the treasure that you seek.

I too once thought I had "pinned it down" to a spot, (on Four Peaks, to be specific) which proved to be nothing but a prospect pit someone had dug and found bull quartz. I too have been lured by a flash of reflected light from a distance, but sometimes that flash of reflected light is nothing but a discarded beer can that happens to line up with the Sun at the right moment to fool a guy. I hope yours proves to be more than this! ;)

As to Reavis, ask yourselves this - would he have had access to a topographic map made in 1942, specifically the Florence quadrangle, which has been compared with these Peralta stones and shows a remarkable affinity? That alone is enough to raise a red flag, and should exonerate the Grand Duke of Arizona Reavis from having added to his spectacular frauds with a set of treasure maps. Besides there is no reason to suppose that Reavis even heard of the legend of Peralta mines in the Superstitions, since those legends don't make an appearance in history until after the death of Waltz in 1890s.

Oroblanco
 

Buncha BULL HEADED =-----------. Reavis Reavis hehehehe

As for the stones matching the quadrangle, since the stones were supposedly made by visual means, why not? Many maps in the past are startling accurate. For as small an area as the Supers, which I frankly have never seen nor have I studied the Florance data, why not? (this way I am not prejudiced snicker)

The often published map of Tayopa turned out to be almost 99% correct, "once" you identified it's location.
HOWEVER, that has been the unsolved problem for 400 years. Not any more.

The same with the stories associated with the supers.

Of course how do the stones tie in with any of the mines etc ??

Tropical Tramp
 

the blindbowman said:
the stones in fact show the locations of both the tunnle and the pit .... but not for the reasons everyone think ...


the indains did show Kino the mine and the spainish dug the tunnle trying to get to the mother load of the vein ...

i can prove this dirrectly with out a dout ...


the stones were made to show the tunnle area not the LDM . but the LDM pit dose show up in on the stones .. so who ever made the stones knew the location of both the tunnle and the pit .... from what i can tell the tunnle was started by the jesuits and than taken over by the spainish than they slaved indains to work it ...

at one point as one acount tells the story the indains got free and killed both the jesuits and the spainish .. between there and massacre cayon and than put the bodies back in the tunnle and sealed it .....

the stones IMHO are from kino teaching the indains how to read and write . the indains could have made the maps and he was collecting the ones that pointed out anything of value ... remember only kino and the indains knew the locations of both the tunnle and the pit ...

maybe the indains told kino and he made the maps from what they had showed him !

when you have found the tunnle and the pit and know the real locations you see how the clues fit around them ..

IMHO there is a holly place of the old ones ... it maybe the oldest indain site ever found... . i walked around it ...it is the oldest i have ever seen anywhere...

i am 1/3 mohawk , i can not touch any part of that site . i can walk threw it as long as i leave no sign that i was every there . but i can not stop or talk or show others where it is .

do not think i am odd for what i beleave .i stoped when i saw it and put my chiff beads on and gave the hawks cry . you dont under stand , the Apache way ... i have 8 fourfathers unlike my full blooded indains friends ....the tribes that fill my spirit no the past of these sands ....

the site is tribeable and will remain so ...

this is why the indains confuse the clues ...

would you open your soul and leave it unprotected ?
Click to expand...

I want to make sure I am not misunderstanding you.

You believe Father Kino taught the Apache how to read and write, and then the Spaniards "slaved" the Indians while the Jesuits were still around.

If "only kino and the indains knew the locations of both the tunnle and the pit ...", how did the "spainish" get control of the mine(s)?

The "tunnle" is said to be directly below the pit. Are you saying that it is not close to the pit?

Where can we find the the "acount" of the Indians getting free and killing "both the jesuits and the spainish.."?

I have been around this legend for many years, and have missed a great many of your "facts".

cj
 

Good luck to you Blindbowman, hope you get those permits and excavate the site(s) you want to. It might seem like a pain in the neck with all the govt red tape, but hope you understand why they have so much hoops to jump through.

I still don't see the connection of Father Kino and the Jesuits with the Superstitions, perhaps you can find the proof that will answer all the questions. There are many legends in the southwest, and many lost mines and lost treasures - some have been found and recovered, most remain lost. There are many people who do not believe that there are any lost treasures so when someone finds one, it is nice to be able to point to their success, quiets the skeptics.

Oroblanco
 

Hey BB,

What Mrs. Oro is saying is that to be "part" anything, it has to be in multiples of two (this is because you can only have two people responsible for a birth). And after your parents, everything falls into multiples of four (four grandparents). If your mom was Mohawk, you would be half. If your grandmother was Mohawk, you would be one quarter. If your great grandmother was Mohawk, you would be one eighth. If your great great grandmother was Mohawk, you would be one sixteenth, and so on.

Best,

Mike
 

I'm not touching that one! ;D ;D ;D

Best,

Mike
 

Bowman,

"the indains did show Kino the mine and the spainish dug the tunnle trying to get to the mother load of the vein ..."

While it is documented that the Apache, actually Yavapais/Mojave Apache, (Apache only by intermarriage) did make some overtures to Father Kino, and he did make an effort to visit them, that visit never came about. The expedition did make it as far as San Augustin. After two days Kino and Manje travelled to Santa Catalina, but that was as far north as they got.

The dividing line between Old Mexico and Arizona, was pretty much the International border as it exists today. The reason for that division, was the Apache presence north of that line. Kino never had peaceful relations with the Apache, that I have seen documented.

Had what you say happened with Kino and the Apache, It would have been a momentous event celebrated throughout New Spain. Both Kino and Manje would have written volumes about any such meeting. The time required to teach an Apache to read and write Spanish is not missing from the journals of Father Kino. He would have been very proud of such an accomplishment.

You need to find someone else to be the lead man in your story. Father Kino is just not historically available for such a role. That assumes you wish to be historically correct. I would suggest you research the travels of two Jesuits who came after Kino. Father's Keller and Sedelmayr come to mind.

There is just too much documented history for Father Kino. You are barking up the wrong historical tree.

cj
 

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