Most are not aware that the film was re-done four times over six decades. One was "The Secret of Treasure Mountain" in 1955 and "McKennas Gold" in 1968, both were partial re-writes.
From the beginning, the crux of the
epic legend is Gold. There is a saying that Gold does not breed
co-operation and therefore any research will yield outrageous and highly
controversial assumptions.
Joseph Michael has a line in a song
called "Gold Town" which says "Gold still glitters in the ground, hidden
secret, like a laughing clown".
As most can imagine, anything on the
surface is gone, along with the huge galleries mined by large
corporations under growld. For millenniums, mankind has ground and
smelted any rock even thought to contain gold with most deposits now
depleted. Today, the heavy yellow metal approaches $1,000.00 an ounce
compared to $8.00 when the Anglos started coming to the area.
At the Oralce Steakhouse & Lounge, in Oracle, Arizona, is a display of the stones that started the legend. Gold and Silver ores in quartz visible with the naked eye.
The "Cody Stone",
named for Buffalo Bill Cody and from his lost mines near Oracle, is now
in eight museuns world wide and in the National Mining Hall of Fame.
Today in Nevada, 500 tons of ore are
required to produce 1 oz of Gold. Particles so small that they can not
even be seen with a microscope are recovered.
The "Cody Stone" should not be
confused with refined gold and silver, as in nature more than one
element is present. For example, Galena = Silver and Lead, Chalcopyrite =
Copper Gold.
No two stones are the same and vary
in amounts of gold and silver. However, the stones are extremely rare
and make very attractive pieces of jewelry, preserving our local
Heritage. Very little of the rich deposits remain, but there was a time
when the hills were alive with people delving in the earth for its
treasure. The artist who discovered, produced and is promoting the
stones is W T Flint Carter, who has been in the area going on forty
years.
RING
PENDENT
BRACELET