Gold! Was the Adams Claim ever found?

Factual Questions
1

I was just reading an 1892 account of the “Adams Claim”. Apparently a starving, bedraggled man named Adams came stumbling into Silver City, New Mexico in the late 1870s with a tale of a mountain of gold somewhere in the Chusca Mountains. The gold was in thick veins in white quartz shelves on the side of the mountain. In addition, there was a stream running off the face of the mountain whose bed was composed mostly of gold dust.

No one believed the tale until the miner produced a sample of the rock, which was exactly as he had described. Apparently the sample was so unusual and held gold in such abundance that it created a major sensation in Silver City.

The miner recovered somewhat, and he then led an expedition to retrace his steps to the mountain of gold. Unfortunately the miner hadn’t recovered as well as he thought, and he soon fell ill and died before the party could find the mountain. As of 1892 the Adams Claim had not been found.

My questions: does this sample still exist (or did it ever exist)? did anyone ever find a gold strike in the area that came anywhere close to matching Adams’ claim? If not, is there any realistic possibility that the miner’s claim was true?

I was surprised to find nothing on a Google search, outside a gypsum mine in Nevada called the Adams Claim.

2

The obvious answer would be “No. Why do you think Cecil continues to write his column?”

This is of course intended as a humorous, non-serious answer.

3

There’s an 1864 “lost mine” tale involving a man named Adams in New Mexico. The Lost Adams legend has a lot of similarities to what you describe (except for the Indians), but then again, all these tales are pretty similar.