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The deserts of the American southwest have long been the discussion of lost mines and buried treasures. For hundreds of years, man has scoured the desert floor searching for any signs of the countless tales of lost riches. Some have claimed to have found the elusive treasures but only to be lost again, while others grew old or died trying. None the less, the legends live on as they are passed down from generation to generation. Maybe you will be the lucky one...

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Pyramid in the Desert
By Michael Paul Henson

From page 36 of the September 1986 issue of Lost Treasure magazine.
Copyright ©1986, 1999 Lost Treasure, Inc.

This site should be of interest to treasure hunters, archaeologists, and historians. The item was written by a newspaper correspondent for the "Daily Free Press," August 3Oth, 1853, in the flowery method of the time. I quote:

"The Placerville Herald, of the 2Oth, contains a letter from a correspondent at San Bernardino, in this State, giving an account of the discovery of a truncated pyramid on the great American desert, some 200 miles northwest of the junction of the Gila with the Colorado (in the Colorado Desert of California). The discovery was made by a party of five adventurers who attempted to cross the desert in search of a shorter route than that now known. . . .

"An object appeared upon the plain to the west, having so much the appearance of a work of art, from the regularity of its oudine and its isolated position. Passing over an almost barren sand plain, a distance of nearly S miles, they reached the base of one of the most wonderful objects considering its location, (it being the very home of desolation) that the mind can possibly conceive of; nothing less than an immense stone pyramid, composted of layers or courses from 18 inches to nearly 3 feet in thickness, and 5 to 8 feet in length. It has a level top of more than 50 feet square, though it is evident that it was once completed, but that some great convulsion of nature has displaced its entire top, as it evidently now lies a huge and broken mass upon one of its sides, though nearly covered by the sands.

"This pyramid differs, in some respects, from the Egyptian pyramid, it is, or was, more slender or pointed, and while those of Egypt are composed of steps or layers, receding as they rise, the American pyramid was, undoubtedly, a more finished structure, the outer surface of the blocks being evidently cut to an angle that gave the structure, when new and complete, a smooth or regular surface from top to bottom.

From the present level of the sands that surround it, there are 52 distinct layers of stone, that will average at least 2 feet; this gives its present height 104 feet, so that before the top was displaced, it must have been, judging from an angle of its sides, at least 25 feet higher than at present. How far it extends beneath the surface of the sands, it is impossible to determine."

I can find no mention of this invaluable find in any follow-up articles wntten at that time.

-Michael Paul Henson