good evening my friends: Having worked in las Colorados mine as the assayer / mill operator, which is similar in location and conditions, I can only say 'Amen". logistics are very challenging.

We had to lay in supplies for 6 months at a time. Jim and his crew have done a remarkable job so far from the photographs. and this on a fairly restricted budget.

Many times we had to renovate used equipment in the name of expediency.

I remeber once that Kopie arrived with a couple of old trucks loaded with rusty parts. the men dumped them out on the ground, Kopie said "fix it asap". I asked "just whot-n-l is it'? He replied "a thickener"? 'And just what is that"? I asked. He repled"it is to pull the solids out of solutions".

We didn't have Intenet in those days, so I scoured all of the old mining magazines and eventually found what it should look like when finished. sheesh. even the cycling suction plate was useless. I had to fashion one out of a block of Teflon, it actually worked to my surprise.

For those that might be interested, it is a large, long, open drum covered with light canvas that is rotated in a solution of concentrates. As it rotates, the cloth emersed in the solution is subject to a "suction", this pulls the 'Mud' against the cloth, and as it rotates the suction continues drawing the free water off . As it further rotates the damp section covered with mud, is given a pulse of air which expands the canvas causing the concentrate (mud) to fall off into a collector for further drying and shipment.

Simple huh? well it took me two weeks to get it working, more to my surprise than Kopies. He had a sublime faith in me ???

This is typical of work in the remote sierras, however your equipment at La Yesca appears to be of excellent quality and installation work. But it must have been fun to get it up there and set it up.

Since I also had to run the milling operation, I realize that there will be many tweaking o

perations to be done, then it is off to the 'hi Ho' song from 'Cinderella, and Jim can finally partially relax.

I am sure that Jim is far more anxious to get the production rolling than any of us.

Don Jose de La Mancha