long reply
Hola amigos - this reply ended up very long, so I must ask your indulgence, thank you in advance.
Springfield wrote
<in an earlier post I wrote>
Originally Posted by Oroblanco
On your reply #1 - you must not be observant of human nature, most people would want to announce it to the world. ...
Would you? Hubris 'has been the ruin of many a poor boy'.
A rather loaded question! I have, and the worst effect has been how difficult it is to keep the location secret when friends and especially good friends press for it; however it was a different legend less famous, far less rich and not the Lost Dutchman, and I do not plan to keep the location secret to the grave. Heck even the folks who worked on the infamous "Pit" mine only kept quiet for so long, and even a book got published telling the story now that it is past the statute of limitations. Those folks are not ruined today.
Your point however is very true, look at how many people have been utterly ruined by winning a major lottery, which logically should have improved their lives in huge ways. My bet would be that most of those lottery winners if given a chance would still take the win though.
<I wrote in an earlier post>
originally posted by Oroblanco
... I don't expect to convince you or anyone else about the reality of a lost Dutchman's mine, <snip>
My stance has always been that I haven't seen anything that would entice me to invest significant energy trying to find a 'Lost Dutchman Mine'. In that respect, you haven't convinced me because all you've provided is 120 year-old hearsay originating from, at best, three degrees of separation. As far as my knowledge of human nature goes, I fully realize two points: 1) if Waltz had a mine and provided true information about its location, the public would never, ever, be privy to the secret; 2) that most folks want to believe the tale and will accept most of the lore on face value.
Well amigo I don't get the impression that you have a burning desire to be convinced, but would add this much - while much of the info we have on the LDM is at least three degrees separated from the source - <
for our readers whom may not understand that phrase it is not Waltz, not from his friends directly, but from people who interviewed those friends;> there is a subset that is only two degrees separated (the pioneer interviews) and the basic facts remain:
- There was a real Jacob Waltz, you can look at photos of the matchbox,
- Waltz did help discover several rich gold mines previously which establishes that he was a capable and successful prospector,
- that Waltz was in fact present in Arizona in the early days,
- that his friends also existed, that they also went searching for the mine, and a handful of other facts.
Perhaps these facts are not enough for you, but for others it is. I would remind you that in some other lost mine or treasure legends we have even fewer facts to work with, and this does not make them false or fantasy. Look at the Silver King story for one example - the original finder had only shown the ore to some people and gave the most vague indication of where he had found it, we have no specimen from him (a fellow named Johnson) no location documents, no assay results, we do not even have any document to prove that this man Johnson was in Arizona at the time; yet the four men who then went out to relocate it were successful. I would add that just as there are people who want to believe the LDM exists, there are people whom do not want it to exist. However I won't give up on you amigo, as I know you to be a reasonable and intelligent person, the right fact or facts could turn up tomorrow which would change your mind. But I
don't want to bore you either!
Somero wrote
Not that I want to wade to deep into these waters, but I try to have a little more Faith in human nature. Perhaps some of the information we have today may have come from reliable sources, maybe those sources were Hoping that if the mine were found the finder may have compensated them for the information. As for taking information at face value, this may depend on ones own experiences in life, how much Faith can you put in one persons word against another, do I trust the word of a convicted criminal over a woman who made cookies. Not really sure where I am going with this, but I usually try to have Faith in people till their actions prove otherwise.
As for finding the mine, Probably dance like a fool then depending on what it may or may not contain, release the information or keep it quiet.
Just my thoughts..............time for more coffee
I have to agree, and I try to follow the same approach to any person; <living or dead> until they give me reason to doubt them, I will trust their word. To take this a bit further, it is quite possible that in the two most popular versions of the LDM, while some of the info may well be unrelated and does not properly belong attached to the LDM, it is also possible that some info is correct and could be important.
In other words using the same approach, as for example with one of the clues, that the mine is a huge funnel shaped pit with a tunnel driven below it, we now know that originates with the Ludy brothers story, so we have good reason to doubt it. But what about the clue concerning the spring closer to the mine, yet the choice by Waltz to camp at another farther away? That is not in the Ludy story, and may be true - just one example.
Cactusjumper wrote
Eric,
I believe the people who worked the Pit Mine (Silver Chief) for three years, took something out of there. They moved it outside the Wilderness Area and eventually purchased a legal mine. The ore went into that mine and became "legal".
There are some good reasons for that belief.
On the other hand, I have always said that is what I would do if I stumbled onto the LDM.
Good luck,
Joe
This small bit of subterfuge has been used successfully a number of times in the past, not always for a lost mine but for ore stolen from another mine or even as a way to launder money which was quite sophisticated. Didn't Bob C catch someone doing this some years back?
Apologies for the long winded post, wish I could have said it shorter.
Oroblanco
