A CHARACTERISTIC MINING "RUSH."--THE PROSPECTIVE MINING CENTER OF
SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO.


A correspondent of the _Tribune_ describes at length the mining camps
about Lake Valley, New Mexico, hitherto thought likely to be the central
camp of that region, and then graphically tells the story of the recent
"rush" to the Perche district. Within a month of the first strike of
silver ore the country was swarming with prospectors, and a thousand or
more prospects had been located.

The Perche district is on the eastern flanks of the Mimbres Mountains,
a range which is a part of the Rocky Mountain range, and runs north and
south generally parallel with the Rio Grande, from which it lies about
forty miles to the westward. The northern half of these mountains is
known as the Black Range, and was the center of considerable mining
excitement a year and a half ago. It is there that the Ivanhoe is
located, of which Colonel Gillette was manager, and in which Robert
Ingersoll and Senator Plumb, of Kansas, were interested, much to the
disadvantage of the former. A new company has been organized, however,
with Colonel Ingersoll as president, and the reopening of work on the
Ivanhoe will probably prove a stimulus to the whole Black Range. From
this region the Perche district is from forty to sixty miles south. It
is about twenty-five miles northwest of Lake Valley, and ten miles west
of Hillsboro, a promising little mining town, with some mills and about
300 people. The Perche River has three forks coming down from the
mountains and uniting at Hillsboro, and it is in the region between