The Rio Tinto/old Giroux property embraces 9 patented mining claims on a 166 acres adjacent to the town of Darwin, California. The Rio Tinto, Mammoth, Magnet, Mexican, Republic, Kingston and Toga 1,2 and 3. According to historical documentation from 1890-1908 mining produced Cu-Pb-Zn from a 200 foot shaft with a 9 foot cross cut and 70 foot inclined shaft. My grandfather, who was a prospector and miner, obtained this property in 1946. He was unable to work it due to other obligations and later declining health. After he passed away my grandmother leased the property to a single man who had a corporation called "Harvest Gold Corp." in 1992. Although he was very positive about the mine, He had to cancel the lease a couple years later due to lack of exploration funds and inability to raise capital. In the short time he leased the property he did do a chemical analysis on samples which showed Paleozoic limestones in a thrust fault contact with the Darwin Diorite stock, skarn mineralization with copper and gold in and near the thrust surface. He thought that a hidden copper/gold target was present but he was unable to pursue the positive findings. The property has not been worked on since. In 1980 a report written by the University of Western Ontario for potential Tungsten occurrences in the Darwin Hills, in the Giroux/Kingman area wrote that there was an area with a continuous band of garnet skarn 2500 feet long and up to 250 feet thick that contained disseminated copper oxides and sulfides that had been exploited. The overall skarn band was extensive to the depth well beyond the bottom of the Giroux shaft (203 feet). Dumps at the various workings contained jasper/limonite/copper oxide material as well as minor gold and silver. Another of these areas at the old Giroux and Kingman mines had a thick extension of skarn zone with good depth potential disseminated copper mineral and stratigraphic and structural setting comparable to many of the W/Cu deposits in the Yukon. The report said that the area needed careful examination as a Cu and possibly W, Au, and Ag prospect.