After yesterday's interlude for the observance of Arizona's 100th anniversary of becoming a state, this is the final photo of the abandoned Sunflower mine.
This is a close view of the mercury vapor cooling tanks at the Sunflower mine. I considered changing this to black and white, but I ended up liking the patina of the rust. 
Here is another industrial black and which photo of the mine separator, which I showed in black and white a few days ago. The size of the gears on the engine that turns the giant pipe shows how much force it must have taken to pulverize the ore so that it could be heated and the mercury vapor removed.
This is a mystery. I think this truck must have slid down the hillside, then flipped over. I don't think a truck this size could not flip over in this small area any other way. And later some timbers fell across the truck.
In order to pulverize rock, to heat it to vaporize the mercury embedded within the ore, and then to cool the vapors and collect the mercury that has condensed out of the vapors, you can imagine that there would need to be some very heavy machinery. 
It is amazing to me that this tall wooden mine structure is still standing after being abandoned 50 years ago, particularly because the wood is unprotected by paint or preservative. It must have been built to be sturdy to handle the heaving mining operations.
Here is another photo that Stuart took of the Sunflower mine. This photo shows some of the equipment for hauling the ore out of the mine. 
This is another view of the structure that held the mercury gas cooling tanks that I showed yesterday. You will notice the same tree with the unusual white bark in both photos.
These are the mercury gas cooling tubes of the old Sunflower mine. The mine was in operation from 1913 to 1965. The mercury was extracted by crushing a type of rock called cinnabar, which was burned at high temperature in a furnace, then the vapor was cooled in these tanks and liquified into mercury.
The mine has a network of old shafts. If I had been with Stuart when he made this trip, I would be telling him, "Make sure you have a strong flashlight and watch carefully for snakes and scorpions."
An old mine will have a mine shaft, of course. Abandoned mine shafts in the desert are a problem. Every once in a while a person will fall down them, sometimes when they are driving an all terrain vehicle over a mine cover that gives way. Sometimes, the mines were left uncovered or the covers have deteriorated.
As the trail that Stuart drove rounded one of the bends in the road, you will see this unmistakable remains of an old mine. Stu chose this trail to drive because it led to the site of an old mine.
