Montezuma Mine (Empress of India Mine; Queen of Sheba Mine), Grosvenor Hills, Salero area, Tyndall Mining District, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Montezuma Mine (Empress of India Mine; Queen of Sheba Mine)	Mine
Grosvenor Hills	Group of Hills
Salero area	Area
Tyndall Mining District	Mining District
Santa Cruz County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

‡Ref.: Schrader, F.C. & J.M. Hill (1915), Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, USGS Bull. 582: 212-213.

University of Arizona Bull. 41 (1916-17), Mineralogy of Useful Minerals in Arizona: 22.

Galbraith, F.W. (1947), Minerals of Arizona, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 153: 15.

Keith, Stanton B. (1975), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 191, Index of Mining Properties in Santa Cruz County Arizona: 86 (Table 4).

Anthony, J.W., et al (1995), Mineralogy of Arizona, 3rd.ed.: 101.

Arizona Bureau of Mines card file Santa Cruz County.

MRDS database Dep. ID file #10234824, MAS ID #0040230291.

A former underground Pb-Ag-Cu-Au mine located on 3 claims (Montezuma claim; Empress of India claim; Queen of Sheba claim), in east-central (E½E½) sec. 36, T.21S., R.14E., near/adjacent to the La Paz mine, 1¼ miles south of Salero, on the Salero-Patagonia Road and the township line at the NE base of the Grosvenor Hills, at an elevation of about 4,350 feet, on private land. Owned at times, or in part, by the Wrightson Brothers (1857-1858); the Aztec Mining Syndicate (circa 1860); McCormick Harvester Co. of New York (late 1860's); Clark & Peterson, lessees (1900); Red Cloud Mining Co.; Ferry; Henderson; and Drake Enterprises.

Mineralization is irregular, generally narrow, quartz stringers containing sulfides along a quartz-fissure one in Laramide quartz diorite and quartz monzonite. The zone is brecciated, silicified, and oxidized with enrichment in silver, copper carbonates, and chalcocite.

The vein in the upper levels, for the most part, did not much exceed a few inches in width. At the bottom of the shaft the vein generally widened to 34 inches (85 cm) and contained reticulating lenses of silver and chalcocite ore, some of which averaged $2,250 or more to the ton (period values).

The country rock is medium-grained, iron-gray quartz-bearing diorite. The deposits are contained in a silicified and partly sheared and crushed zone or lode of this rock and associated quartz, which dips 65ºN. The lode in the vicinity of the mine is 175 feet wide. It is plainly traceable for nearly a mile east of the mine and is said to extend very much farther. On the west is passes beneath the covering of the younger volcanic rocks.

The lode contains also considerable quartz and iron or ferruginous material in rough-surfaced irregular stringers, veins, and bodies, ranging from ½ inch (1.25 cm) to nearly 18 inches (45 cm) wide and mostly lying about parallel with the dip or main structure of them lode. Also in the wall rock for 10 feet or more back from the lode is developed a stockwork of reticulated quartz veins or stringers, most of which lie at about right angles to the lode.

The croppings, which are mostly prominent, are heavily stained with iron and manganese and in places with copper carbonates and oxidized minerals of silver. A distinctive feature of the ledge is an 8 foot vein of quartz or siliceous ore on the north or hanging wall side, containing considerable chalcocite.

The deposits occur in numerous quartz stringers from 1 inch (2.5 cm) to 4 inches (10 cm) in width, which carry copper carbonates, iron and copper oxides and possibly acanthite.

Workings include an old 300 foot deep shaft and surface operations. More recent development is only to the 80 level by shallow shafts and drifts. Worked by Jesuits in the early 1800's and by other intermittently through the 1930's. Produced, together with the Montezuma Mine, some 300 tons or more of ore averaging about 3% Cu, 11 oz. Ag/T and minor Pb & Au.

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Link to USGS MRDS:	10234824

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