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THE LOST BASIN
...Continued
It was filled almost to the top with debris, brush, cactus etc.
and swarmed with rats, which is probably the main reason that
many prospectors who have visited it have never made a closer
examination of the mine. At the depth of about eighteen feet,
the opening of a tunnel was found, and it was at once decided
to explore this tunnel before going deeper in the shaft. After
cleaning out the tunnel .....which had evidently been packed in
by innumerable ...of rats, it was decided to burn it out, as being
the quickest way to clean it, besides making it ...for the rats.
This was accordingly done, and the party waited patiently for
it to burn out.
After waiting two days with no signs of the
fire burning out, they concluded to fill in the time by thoroughly
prospecting the ground in the vicinity. The shaft lies on one
side of a small butte or mound, and in a few hours Mr. Tillman,
who was prospecting on the opposite side of the mound, found a
small crevice or aperture, which bore traces of having been made
by the hand of man, instead of by nature. After cleaning it out
and enlarging it, be found that it was evidently the mouth of
an old tunnel. It being also filled with brush, he set fire to
it and an hour or two afterwards an immense sheet of flame with
clouds of smoke and dust burst forth from the opening with a roaring
noise like that from a furnace. The rest of the party were attracted
on the spot by the noise and at once arrived at the conclusion
that the tunnel extended through the hill a distance of between
three and four hundred feet, and was the same tunnel which they
had found in the shaft, and that they were in a fair way to make
an important discovery. When our informant left the spot, the
fire had been burning for four days with no signs of its dying
out. If it should turn out that the tunnel has been timbered,
the fire will no doubt work much injury and probably result in
its caving to, but from the character of the veins it was supposed
that no timbering had been done.
While waiting for the fire
to burn out the party continued prospecting and were rewarded
by finding an immense pile of rocks, some of which were still
standing in walls, being evidently the remains of a stone cabin
or more likely from the size of the ground plan a fortification
of some considerable extent. Behind the remains of one of these
walls a human skull was found, tending to prove the nature and
purpose of the building.
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