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Blair, Robert.
Tales of the Superstitions... 1975. Well written in a scholarly style.
Presents all the verifiable facts and represents the state of the art, circa 1975. By far the most careful and
thorough book on the subject. Devastating criticisms of Ely and other writers. This is where to start if the
facts are important. There are just a few serious and careful writers in this field, Blair is the best of the
bunch. He cites sources, offers theories and explanations based on facts, does not indulge in irrational
speculation -- close to a singular accomplishment in this literature, and is one of the very few authors to give
any serious attention to the story of the story; how did the story acquire these particular legendary elements
and when? He tries to track various strands of the story back to logical sources, for instance the real
Peraltas and their mining activities in frontier Arizona. Blair is highly skeptical and he misses a few things,
(the newspaper article by Bicknell, see Davis,
Kearny, and Kollenborn) but he offers soundly reasoned explanations for key elements of the Lost Dutchman story and he knows what he is writing about. CM: "A history of the Lost Dutchman Mine with previously unpublished information. This could possibly have been the best book ever published on the subject had the author been more positive in his statements. "Supposedly," "probably," "likely," and similar qualifying words lend suspicion to the quality of the whole work. It, nevertheless, deserves a place in every lost mine library." Suspicious because Blair qualifies his assertions about the Lost Dutchman?
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