Boston Paper - The Mining Region around Prescott, Arizona

With the Report of Mining Statistics, for the year 1872, there was published a geological map of the United States and Territories. This is, I believe, the only map which represents the geology of Arizona, and is, as far as my observations go, correct. It is, however, on so small a scale as to be of little practical value to the miner. I know of no other maps, even of localities, of this Territory. The topographical maps are also on so small a scale as not even to serve as guides from place to place; the largest, that of Eckhoff and Ricker, being only 30 by 30 inches to represent a territory of 135,000 square miles. For these reasons, it makes it exceedingly difficult to describe the various mining centres in an intelligent manner, and equally so to examine such a hilly country as it is intended to describe in this paper. When I first came into this Territory I soon realized the troubles I had to encounter in trying to form an opinion, or even to get the needed information on the geological contour. I have, therefore, labored as best I could to get a topographical diagram of the section of country represented by the map which accompanies this paper.* The lines run by the Land Department up the valleys of the Aqua Frio, and those west of the Hassayampa, and connected east and west to the north of Prescott, enabled me to inclose correctly the space covered by the Bradshaw and Sierra Prieta mountain groups, but the territory covered by these mountains, and the most difficult part, I have had to fill up as best I could. I have met with such success as to meet the approbation of those most familiar with the country, and, with the map in hand, any one would he able to cross it in any direction. As there has not been a single line of survey made across it, this has been no small undertaking, and I have had to depend upon sights from prominent points with the pocket-compass, or, in the absence of that, to make observations, with watch in hand, and guess as near as possible the meridian direction. Rut one main wagon-road passes through the district, that from Prescott to the Peck mine.