the Apaches. They are very impudent, and commit
their depredations in broad day-light, talk to the people while they
are driving off the animals, and always escape without being molested.

The other day they came within 800 yards of the Fort and looked down
upon it.

In order to bring them to terms the Government ought to enlist 1000
Pinos and Papagos to accompany the military. Indians are the only
persons who can successfully traverse these mountains and hunt up their
hiding places. If this is not done, they will surely break up our
settlements here. Forts ought to be established in the very heart of
the Apache country, in the places fit, and used by them for
cultivation. If this is done we will soon bring them to terms.

Until now, our mining establishments have not been molested by them,
and we are going on in high glee. This is undoubtedly the richest
silver mining country in the world. If the United States will make just
and liberal laws for us; give us protection; remove those trifling and
unprofitable custom houses on the frontier, at least for 5 or 6 years;
procure us a transit through Sonora to Guaymas, and hasten along the
rail-road to California, this will indeed be a prosperous country, and
will astonish the world with its production of silver and copper. But
with such terrible obstacles as those mentioned above and the great
length of transit to transport goods over the roads which we have to
take at present, progress only is possible for such as find mines of
the extraordinary and incredible richness of the Heintzelman vein. If
the present promises of few of these mines are realized, by working
them on a scale commensurate with their extent and richness, I have no
doubt but that they will equal in production the whole silver exports
of Mexico.

I think an appropriation ought to be made to sink artesian wells
through the Papagos country, between San Xavier and the lower Gila.
This route cuts off about 100 miles from the best route via the Pinos
villages. It is laid down on my map, as a rail-road route, now at the
office of the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, at Cincinnati, Ohio.

The country consists of a succession of plains and isolated mountain
ridges, none of which need to be crossed. In fact it is a dead level to
Fort Yuma, and, in consequence, no grading is necessary. There is
scarcity of water, but the soil in general is excellent and grass
abounds all along the line, while the mountains t