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<ANTIMG id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="A History of the Comstock Silver Lode & Mines" width-obs="500" height-obs="742" /></div>
<div class="box">
<h1><span class="smaller">A HISTORY OF</span> <br/><span class="smallest">THE</span> <br/><span class="small">COMSTOCK SILVER LODE & MINES</span></h1>
<p class="center">DAN DE QUILLE
<br/>[WILLIAM WRIGHT]</p>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="ss"><span class="larger">PROMONTORY PRESS</span>
<br/>New York • 1974</span></p>
</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">Published by Promontory Press, New York, N.Y. 10016</p>
</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 73-92646</p>
<p class="t0">ISBN: 0-88394-024-8</p>
</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">Printed in the United States of America</p>
</div>
<hr />
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0"><b>Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data</b></p>
</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">Wright, William, 1829-1898.</p>
<p class="t">A history of the Comstock silver lode & mines, Nevada and the great basin region.</p>
</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t">Reprint of the 1889 ed.</p>
<p class="t">1. Comstock Lode, Nev.</p>
<p class="t">2. Nevada—Description and travel. I. Title. II. Series.</p>
<p class="t0">TN413.N25W9 <span class="hst">1973</span> <span class="hst">338.2′74210979356</span></p>
</div>
<div class="box">
<p class="center"><span class="larger">A HISTORY OF</span>
<br/><span class="smaller">THE</span>
<br/><span class="xxlarge">COMSTOCK SILVER LODE & MINES</span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center"><span class="large">NEVADA AND THE GREAT BASIN REGION;</span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center"><span class="larger">LAKE TAHOE AND THE HIGH SIERRAS.</span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center"><span class="smaller">THE MOUNTAINS, VALLEYS, LAKES, RIVERS, HOT SPRINGS, DESERTS, AND OTHER WONDERS OF THE “EASTERN SLOPE” OF THE SIERRAS.</span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center"><span class="smallest">THE</span>
<br/><span class="smaller"><b>MINERAL AND AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES</b></span>
<br/><span class="smallest">OF</span>
<br/><span class="larger">“SILVERLAND.”</span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center smaller">TOWNS, SETTLEMENTS, MINING AND REDUCTION WORKS, RAILWAYS, LUMBER FLUMES, PINE FORESTS, SYSTEMS OF WATER SUPPLY, GREAT SHAFTS AND TUNNELS, AND THE MANY IMPROVEMENTS AND INDUSTRIES OF NEVADA.</p>
<hr />
<p class="center smaller"><b>BY DAN DE QUILLE,</b>
<br/><span class="small">author of
<br/>“The Big Bonanza,”
<br/>The Wealth and Wonders of Washoe,
<br/>The Arid Zone and Irrigation, Etc.</span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center small">PUBLISHED BY F. BOEGLE,
<br/><b>BOOKSELLER & STATIONER,</b>
<br/>VIRGINIA, NEVADA.</p>
</div>
<hr />
<p class="center">Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1889, by
<br/>F. BOEGLE,
<br/>in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.</p>
<hr />
<p class="center"><i>NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO,
<br/><span class="sc">Pacific Press Publishing Company,
<br/>Oakland, Cal.,
<br/>Printers, Stationers, and Binders</span>.</i></p>
<hr />
<div class="pb" id="Page_iii">iii</div>
<h2><span class="small">INTRODUCTORY.</span></h2>
<p>The central idea in the preparation of this little book
has been to give, as concisely as possible, such information
in regard to the silver mines of the Comstock
as the visiting tourist is likely to require. In doing
this it was thought best to begin by briefly introducing
the whole State of Nevada. When shown a portion
of a thing we generally have some curiosity in
regard to the appearance of the whole. Though
much more space has been given to the mines, mining
works, towns, and industries of the Comstock
Lode than to anything else, yet it has been found
necessary to the plan of the work to include much of
surrounding regions, both in Nevada and California.
However, we have endeavored to keep on the “Eastern
slope” of the Sierras—have poached very little
on the California side. The Sierra Nevada Mountains
are a towering, rocky range, which constitutes a
natural dividing line between the regions of country
on either side. All on the east side of the Sierras
partakes more of the general character of Nevada
<span class="pb" id="Page_iv">iv</span>
than of California—is characteristic of the Great
Basin region. Although Owens River, Independence
and Owens Valleys, Owens Lake and Mono Lake,
are within the boundaries of California, yet they are
essentially parts of that region the whole of which is
known as the Great Basin.</p>
<p>In speaking of the Comstock Lode, after giving an
account of its discovery and something of its early
history, it has been necessary in noting the progress
of our towns and the improvements made in mining
and milling operations and methods to go up into
the Sierras to trace our water supply to its sources.
It is also from the great pine forests of the Sierras
that we derive our supply of lumber and timbers, and
the Sierras are our natural sanitarium—it is to the
lakes, valleys, and wilds of the “High Sierras” that
our summer pleasure trips are made. For this reason
mention has been made of lakes, valleys, mountains,
and creeks not strictly our own—though a large slice
of Lake Tahoe lies within our boundaries.</p>
<p>In mentioning rivers, lakes, and railroads it has
also been thought best to say something of all in the
State. In the case of the railroads it became necessary
to speak briefly of the towns they connect and
pass through, with a passing glance at the country
traversed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_v">v</div>
<p>Although the Comstock Lode, and mining and
milling in Western Nevada, are the principal subjects
of this book, yet it is not wholly a book on Nevada.
“No pent-up Utica” has for a moment been permitted
to “contract our powers.” We have been
guided more by the natural than the political divisions
of the country, therefore our little book takes in the
western edge of the Great Basin, climbing up to the
top of the Sierras, and peeping over in a few places.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_vii">vii</div>
<h2 id="toc" class="center">CONTENTS.</h2>
<dt class="small">PAGE.
<br/><SPAN href="#c1"><span class="sc">The State of Nevada</span></SPAN> 11
<br/><SPAN href="#c2"><span class="sc">Boundaries and Areas</span></SPAN> 11
<br/><SPAN href="#c3"><span class="sc">Physical Aspect of the State</span></SPAN> 13
<br/><SPAN href="#c4">THE RIVERS OF NEVADA</SPAN> 17
<br/><SPAN href="#c5">Humboldt River</SPAN> 17
<br/><SPAN href="#c6">Truckee River</SPAN> 19
<br/><SPAN href="#c7">Carson River</SPAN> 21
<br/><SPAN href="#c8">Walker River</SPAN> 23
<br/><SPAN href="#c9">Owyhee River</SPAN> 23
<br/><SPAN href="#c10">Reese River</SPAN> 24
<br/><SPAN href="#c11">Other Nevada Rivers</SPAN> 24
<br/><SPAN href="#c12"><span class="sc">Mineral Treasures of Nevada</span></SPAN> 26
<br/><SPAN href="#c13"><span class="sc">Agricultural Resources</span></SPAN> 28
<br/><SPAN href="#c14"><span class="sc">The Comstock Mines</span></SPAN> 31
<br/><SPAN href="#c15"><span class="sc">The Discovery of Silver</span></SPAN> 32
<br/><SPAN href="#c16"><span class="sc">Placer Mining on Gold Canyon</span></SPAN> 32
<br/><SPAN href="#c17"><span class="sc">The Grand Rush over the Sierras</span></SPAN> 38
<br/><SPAN href="#c18"><span class="sc">The Discoverers and Their Fate</span></SPAN> 39
<br/><SPAN href="#c19"><span class="sc">Early Mining and Milling</span></SPAN> 40
<br/><SPAN href="#c20"><span class="sc">Mining Difficulties and Inventions</span></SPAN> 42
<br/><SPAN href="#c21"><span class="sc">Various Mining and Milling Appliances</span></SPAN> 44
<br/><SPAN href="#c22"><span class="sc">The Comstock as a School for Miners</span></SPAN> 45
<br/><SPAN href="#c23">VIRGINIA CITY AND SURROUNDINGS</SPAN> 45
<br/><SPAN href="#c24"><span class="sc">City Improvements</span></SPAN> 50
<br/><SPAN href="#c25"><span class="sc">The Great Fire</span></SPAN> 52
<br/><SPAN href="#c26"><span class="sc">Virginia City at Present</span></SPAN> 55
<br/><SPAN href="#c27"><span class="sc">Views from the City and Vicinity</span></SPAN> 58
<br/><SPAN href="#c28"><span class="sc">The View from the Summit of Mount Davidson</span></SPAN> 59
<br/><SPAN href="#c29"><span class="sc">The Virginia and Truckee Railroad</span></SPAN> 59
<br/><SPAN href="#c30"><span class="sc">The Days of Bull Teams</span></SPAN> 61
<br/><SPAN href="#c31"><span class="sc">The Comstock System of Water Supply</span></SPAN> 63
<br/><SPAN href="#c32"><span class="sc">The Virginia City and Gold Hill Water Works</span></SPAN> 63
<br/><SPAN href="#c33"><span class="sc">The Big Water Pipes</span></SPAN> 65
<br/><SPAN href="#c34"><span class="sc">Additional Great Pipes</span></SPAN> 66
<br/><SPAN href="#c35"><span class="sc">The Sutro Tunnel</span></SPAN> 68
<br/><SPAN href="#c36"><span class="sc">The Reduction Works of Early Days</span></SPAN> 70
<br/><SPAN href="#c37"><span class="sc">The First Silver Mill</span></SPAN> 70
<br/><SPAN href="#c38"><span class="sc">The Many Mills of the Early Days</span></SPAN> 72
<br/><SPAN href="#c39"><span class="sc">Reduction Works of the Present Day</span></SPAN> 74
<br/><SPAN href="#c40"><span class="sc">Description of the Process of Working Comstock Silver Ores</span></SPAN> 74
<br/><SPAN href="#c41"><span class="sc">The Two California Mills</span></SPAN> 80
<br/><SPAN href="#c42"><span class="sc">The River and Canyon Mills</span></SPAN> 81
<br/><SPAN href="#c43">THE COMSTOCK LODE</SPAN> 82
<br/><SPAN href="#c44">Hoisting Works, Shafts and Mining, Past and Present</SPAN> 82
<br/><SPAN href="#c45">The Three Lines of Hoisting Works</SPAN> 84
<br/><SPAN href="#c46"><span class="sc">The Combination Shaft</span></SPAN> 86
<br/><SPAN href="#c47">The Deepest Workings on the Lode</SPAN> 88
<br/><SPAN href="#c48">A Return to the Second Line of Works</SPAN> 89
<br/><SPAN href="#c49">The Old First Bonanzas</SPAN> 91
<br/><SPAN href="#c50">The New Departure</SPAN> 92
<br/><SPAN href="#c51">Present Yield of the Comstock Mines</SPAN> 93
<br/><SPAN href="#c52">Vicissitudes of Fortune in Mining</SPAN> 96
<br/><SPAN href="#c53">TOWNS OF WESTERN NEVADA</SPAN> 98
<br/><SPAN href="#c54">Virginia City</SPAN> 98
<br/><SPAN href="#c55">Gold Hill</SPAN> 99
<br/><SPAN href="#c56">Silver City</SPAN> 101
<br/><SPAN href="#c57">Dayton</SPAN> 102
<br/><SPAN href="#c58">Sutro</SPAN> 104
<br/><SPAN href="#c59">Carson City</SPAN> 105
<br/><SPAN href="#c60">Empire City</SPAN> 109
<br/><SPAN href="#c61">Genoa</SPAN> 110
<br/><SPAN href="#c62">Reno</SPAN> 111
<br/><SPAN href="#c63"><span class="sc">Other Towns in Washoe County</span></SPAN> 113
<br/><SPAN href="#c64">Washoe City</SPAN> 113
<br/><SPAN href="#c65">Ophir</SPAN> 114
<br/><SPAN href="#c66">Franktown</SPAN> 114
<br/><SPAN href="#c67">Wadsworth</SPAN> 114
<br/><SPAN href="#c68">Verdi</SPAN> 115
<br/><SPAN href="#c69">LAKE TAHOE AND SURROUNDINGS</SPAN> 115
<br/><SPAN href="#c70">Emerald Bay</SPAN> 121
<br/><SPAN href="#c71">Fallen Leaf Lake</SPAN> 123
<br/><SPAN href="#c72">Silver Lake</SPAN> 123
<br/><SPAN href="#c73">Cornelian Bay</SPAN> 123
<br/><SPAN href="#c74">Agate Bay</SPAN> 123
<br/><SPAN href="#c75">Crystal Bay</SPAN> 123
<br/><SPAN href="#c76">Shakespeare Rock</SPAN> 123
<br/><SPAN href="#c77">Cave Rock</SPAN> 124
<br/><SPAN href="#c78">Glenbrook</SPAN> 124
<br/><SPAN href="#c79">Cascade Mountain</SPAN> 124
<br/><SPAN href="#c80">Rubicon Springs</SPAN> 124
<br/><SPAN href="#c81"><span class="sc">Routes to Lake Tahoe</span></SPAN> 125
<br/><SPAN href="#c82"><span class="sc">The Route from Truckee</span></SPAN> 125
<br/><SPAN href="#c83"><span class="sc">Distances from Tahoe City to Points on the Lake</span></SPAN> 126
<br/><SPAN href="#c84"><span class="sc">The Route from Reno</span></SPAN> 127
<br/><SPAN href="#c85">THE TOWN OF TRUCKEE</SPAN> 128
<br/><SPAN href="#c86"><span class="sc">Donner Lake</span></SPAN> 129
<br/><SPAN href="#c87"><span class="sc">The Donner Disaster</span></SPAN> 130
<br/><SPAN href="#c88"><span class="sc">Surrounding Points of Interest</span></SPAN> 131
<br/><SPAN href="#c89"><span class="sc">Independence Lake and Surroundings</span></SPAN> 132
<br/><SPAN href="#c90"><span class="sc">Webber Lake Wonders</span></SPAN> 133
<br/><SPAN href="#c91"><span class="sc">Pyramid Lake</span></SPAN> 134
<br/><SPAN href="#c92"><span class="sc">Winnemucca Lake</span></SPAN> 136
<br/><SPAN href="#c93"><span class="sc">Washoe Lake</span></SPAN> 138
<br/><SPAN href="#c94">THERMAL AND MEDICINAL SPRINGS</SPAN> 138
<br/><SPAN href="#c95">Steamboat Springs</SPAN> 139
<br/><SPAN href="#c96">Shaw’s Springs</SPAN> 141
<br/><SPAN href="#c97">State Prison Warm Springs</SPAN> 141
<br/><SPAN href="#c98">Walley’s Springs</SPAN> 142
<br/><SPAN href="#c99">Other Nevada Springs</SPAN> 143
<br/><SPAN href="#c100">RAILROADS IN NEVADA</SPAN> 144
<br/><SPAN href="#c101"><span class="sc">The Central Pacific</span></SPAN> 145
<br/><SPAN href="#c102"><span class="sc">Virginia and Truckee Distances</span></SPAN> 146
<br/><SPAN href="#c103"><span class="sc">The Carson and Colorado</span></SPAN> 146
<br/><SPAN href="#c104">Wabuska</SPAN> 147
<br/><SPAN href="#c105">Hawthorne</SPAN> 148
<br/><SPAN href="#c106">Luning</SPAN> 148
<br/><SPAN href="#c107">Bellville</SPAN> 148
<br/><SPAN href="#c108">Candelaria</SPAN> 148
<br/><SPAN href="#c109">Benton</SPAN> 149
<br/><SPAN href="#c110">Bishop Creek</SPAN> 149
<br/><SPAN href="#c111">Independence</SPAN> 149
<br/><SPAN href="#c112">Keeler</SPAN> 150
<br/><SPAN href="#c113"><span class="sc">Owens Lake</span></SPAN> 150
<br/><SPAN href="#c114"><span class="sc">Mono Lake</span></SPAN> 151
<br/><SPAN href="#c115"><span class="sc">Eureka and Palisade Railroad</span></SPAN> 151
<br/><SPAN href="#c116">Town of Palisade</SPAN> 151
<br/><SPAN href="#c117">Eureka</SPAN> 151
<br/><SPAN href="#c118"><span class="sc">Nevada Central Railroad</span></SPAN> 152
<br/><SPAN href="#c119">Town of Battle Mountain</SPAN> 152
<br/><SPAN href="#c120">Austin</SPAN> 153
<br/><SPAN href="#c121"><span class="sc">Nevada and California Railroad</span></SPAN> 154
<br/><SPAN href="#c122"><span class="sc">Proposed Railroads</span></SPAN> 154
<br/><SPAN href="#c123"><span class="sc">Salt Lake and Los Angeles</span></SPAN> 155
<br/><SPAN href="#c124"><span class="sc">Nevada, Central, and Idaho</span></SPAN> 155
<br/><SPAN href="#c125">NEVADA A LAND OF GREAT POSSIBILITIES</SPAN> 155
<dt class="pb" id="Page_11">11
<h2 id="c1"><span class="small"><span class="large">The State of Nevada.</span></span></h2>
<h3 id="c2">Boundaries and Area.</h3>
<p>Nevada is formed of the region of country formerly
known as Western Utah. The whole of Utah, prior
to its acquisition by the United States, was a portion
of the Mexican Department of Alta California. All
this vast region was acquired from Mexico under the
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was consummated
in 1848, and which treaty also gave to the
United States, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and
a part of Colorado. Nevada was constituted a Territory
in March, 1861, and was admitted into the Union
as a State in October, 1864. The State extends from
the 35th to the 42d degree of north latitude, and
from the 114th to the 120th degree west longitude
from Greenwich. The State in its greatest dimensions
is 420 miles long by 360 miles wide. Nevada is
bounded on the north by Idaho and Oregon, east
by Utah and Arizona, and south and west by California.
Previous to its acquisition by the United
States, the region now constituting the State of Nevada
<span class="pb" id="Page_12">12</span>
was wholly occupied by tribes of wild Indians.
The country was then known only to a few white
men, trappers and Indian traders, whose business at
certain seasons led them into what was then almost a
<i>terra incognito</i>, and which was marked upon the maps
of that day as the “Great American Desert,” or the
“Unexplored Region.”</p>
<p>The area of the State is, by the most reliable estimate,
112,190 square miles, or 71,801,819 acres.
This includes what is known as the “Colorado
Basin,” in Lincoln County, on the southern boundary
of the State, and which embraces an area of
about 12,000 square miles lying north of the Colorado
River. This basin region was taken from Arizona
and given to Nevada by an Act of Congress in 1866.
Assuming the water surface of the numerous lakes in
Nevada to cover an area of 1,690 square miles, or 1,081,819
acres, there remain 110,500 square miles, or 70,720,000
acres as the land area of the State. The
vastness of this region is not at once grasped by the
mind of the reader. It may be more readily realized
by comparison with some of the well-known Eastern
States. The area of Nevada is 2,578 square miles
greater than the combined areas of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, New Jersey, and
Rhode Island. Indeed, after giving to each of the
States named its full measure of acres, there would be
left enough land to make two additional Rhode Islands.
<span class="pb" id="Page_13">13</span>
In all this great territory, however, there are
only about 62,000 souls. Belgium, with an area of
11,373 square miles, has a population of 5,253,821,
or about 462 persons to the square mile, and there
the rural population is to that of the towns as three
to one. Were Nevada as densely peopled as Belgium
it would contain 51,749,780 souls, a number
almost equal to the present population of the whole
United States. It will therefore be seen that before
becoming as thickly settled as is Belgium, Nevada
still has room for 51,687,780 persons within her
boundaries.</p>
<p>The Sierra Nevada Mountains from the western
boundary of Nevada for a distance of over 300 miles,
constitute a stupendous snow-capped granite wall
between the State and California. The mean height
of this part of the Sierra Nevada Range is about 7,000
feet. This towering range has a marked effect on the
climate of Nevada. But for its intervention the climate
of the whole State would be much the same as
that of California.</p>
<h3 id="c3">The Physical Aspect of Nevada.</h3>
<p>Though the western edge laps up onto the Sierra
Nevada Range, the greater part of the State of Nevada
lies to the eastward and is embraced in that
Great Basin region which extends to the western base
of the Rocky Mountains. This interior region forms
an immense plateau which has a mean elevation of
<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span>
four thousand feet above the level of the sea. In
Nevada, however, the average altitude of the plateau
may safely be set down at five thousand feet. The
altitude of White Plains Station, west of the sink of
the Humboldt, is 3,894 feet, and it is the lowest point
on the overland railroad between the Sierra Nevada
and the Rocky Mountains. Owing to this great
elevation there is in all parts of Nevada an atmosphere
pure, dry, and free from even the slightest
malarial taint. It is such an atmosphere as in many
other lands can only be found by going to the mountain
tops. The average level of the State is higher
than many of the noted mountain resorts in the Atlantic
States. It is owing to this altitude that the
nights in summer are always cool and pleasant, however
warm the weather during the hours of daylight.
The extremes of heat and cold are not great.</p>
<p>Running north and south through the elevated
plateau which forms the general base or floor of the
State are numerous parallel ranges of mountains.
These interior ranges are quite regular in course and
recurrence, and rise to a height of from one thousand
to seven thousand feet above the general level of the
country. Among these interior mountains are a few
peaks that attain an elevation of from 9,000 to
12,000 feet above the level of the sea. Between
these mountain ranges lie valleys ranging in width
from one mile to thirty miles. As these valleys are
hidden by the high, rocky ranges, and are not to be
<span class="pb" id="Page_15">15</span>
seen in a general survey of the country, even from
an elevated position, the aspect of the country is
sterile and austere, all being apparently a succession
of barren, rocky hills.</p>
<p>The majority of the valleys lying between these
rugged, parallel ranges are susceptible of cultivation,
and many are wonderfully productive. The bench
lands bordering the valleys are also exceedingly fertile
and yield large crops wherever water for irrigation
is led upon them. For all uses, those of the horticulturist
as well as the agriculturist, these bench lands
will yet be found the best in the State. The benches
possess a warm and willing soil.</p>
<p>The interior mountains, rugged and timberless as
they are, have their uses. From the summits of
many of the ranges flow springs and small streams
that afford a supply of water for the irrigation of the
valley and bench lands below. They are also conservators
of a supply of moisture. On the summits
of the higher ranges snow falls in winter to a great
depth, and from the melting of this in spring and
summer is derived a considerable supply of water for
use on the arable lands on either side. These reserves
of snow are also of great benefit to the mountain
pastures, causing grass to spring up along the
courses of a thousand ravines and little valleys, or
laps of land, on the slopes and tops of the hills. This
water supply may be made infinitely more valuable
than it is at present by the construction of suitable
<span class="pb" id="Page_16">16</span>
reservoirs at proper points in the large canyons for
storing it up till needed in summer.</p>
<p>The construction of such reservoirs has already
been commenced among the interior ranges, as well as
in places along the main Sierra Nevada Range, and
year by year more and still more such improvements
will be made. Already Nevada holds a high place as
an agricultural and stock-growing State, though for
nearly the whole term of her existence mining for the
precious metals has been the all-absorbing business of
the majority of her people, and has been the business
which has attracted the attention of nearly all the
wealthy men of the country. The State annually produces
immense quantities of hay, and the beef cattle
of Nevada are the finest and fattest to be found on
the Pacific Coast. A great part of the beef supply of
California is obtained from Nevada. The horses of
Nevada are also very fine and noted for their “staying”
qualities, as they have much broader chests and
larger lungs than the animals reared in valley regions
near the level of the sea. The State is also beginning
to make its mark in the business of wool-growing, not
only on account of the quantity but also the quality
produced. In price Nevada wool leads the wools of
all the new regions of the West. Fine wheat and
good grain of all kinds will everywhere be found in
Nevada, and the apples, peaches, pears, plums, and
all other kinds of fruit have a piquancy of flavor not
to be found in that grown in the sweltering valleys of
<span class="pb" id="Page_17">17</span>
California. The same may be said of all kinds of
kitchen vegetables, strawberries, and other small fruits.
In the way of potatoes the State produces such as
have no superiors in any part of the world. This
elevated region seems as much the natural home of
the potato as were those high valleys in the Andes
where it was first found growing wild, and where it
is said the wild tuber is still to be seen.</p>
<h3 id="c4">The Rivers of Nevada.</h3>
<p>Nevada has within her borders no large rivers. In
the Middle and Western States, her so-called rivers
would be rated as large brooks or creeks. In England
and some other European countries her streams
might pass for rivers. The largest river we have is
but a rill in comparison with the rivers of the West
and South. Our Nevada rivers, too, are peculiar in
that they nearly all remain in the State. But one
goes outside of our boundaries to wander away in
search of the great ocean. Most of our streams stay
at home. Rather than run away to be tossed about
and lost in the sea, they go down into the ground or
up into the air.</p>
<h3 id="c5"><span class="smaller">HUMBOLDT RIVER.</span></h3>
<p>The Humboldt River rises in the northwestern corner
of Utah, passes into the northeastern corner of
Nevada, in Elko County, and thence through Eureka,
Lander, and Humboldt Counties, to its terminus in its
lake and sink, just across the line in Churchill County.
<span class="pb" id="Page_18">18</span>
The total length of the river is nearly 350 miles, while
its width is only about thirty or forty feet, and its
average depth less than eighteen inches. The line
of the Central Pacific Railroad follows the course of
the stream a distance of about 320 miles, its channel
forming a natural depression through the country
which greatly facilitated the construction of the road.
Down its course also lay the route followed by the
emigrants who flocked across the “Plains” to California
after the discovery of the gold mines. The water
of the Humboldt is very bright and sweet toward the
head, but near the “sink” the stream becomes rather
sluggish and is somewhat tainted by the alkali absorbed
in the lower part of its course. Owing to the increased
use of water for the irrigation of bordering
lands above, the quantity flowing into the lake each
year grows smaller. The water carried out of the
river by means of ditches to the valley ranches is dissipated
by absorption and evaporation and never
reaches the terminal lake. Thus it is seen as a result
that the lake is gradually drying up. It will probably
eventually become extinct, or survive as a mud marsh.
In the spring, when the snow is melting about the
head-waters of the river, Humboldt Lake has a length
of about fifteen miles and a width of nine or ten miles.
In summer and toward fall it becomes much smaller.
At the south end of this lake is an outlet into a sink,
or shallow lake, twenty-five or thirty miles long by
about fifteen wide. This sink at times of high water
<span class="pb" id="Page_19">19</span>
connects with a similar sink formed by the overflow
from Carson Lake, the terminal basin of the Carson
River. In these sinks are found in the alkaline waters
myriads of small fish. These attract immense flocks
of pelicans, gulls, cranes, and other fish-eating water
fowl. At certain seasons the lakes, sinks, and surrounding
tule marshes are filled with ducks and geese.
Large flocks of swan are also often seen out in the
middle of the lakes. There is much fine agricultural
and grazing land along down the Humboldt River, and
about the lake and sink.</p>
<h3 id="c6"><span class="smaller">TRUCKEE RIVER.</span></h3>
<p>Truckee River is one of the most beautiful of the
streams of Nevada. It takes its rise in California
and its head is an outlet from Lake Tahoe. This
outlet is on the northwest side of the lake and is
about fifty feet in width. It has an average depth of
five feet and a velocity of six feet a second, which
gives a flow of about 123,120,000 cubic feet in twenty-four
hours. The head of the river is in Placer
County, California, it runs nearly north into Nevada
County, in the same State, to the town of Truckee,
when it turns and flows northeast till it enters the
State of Nevada at Verdi, in Washoe County. Its
course from Verdi to Reno, the county seat of
Washoe County, is nearly east, thence it is northeast
to the town of Wadsworth, on the Central Pacific,
when it suddenly turns to the north, and, after a course
of about twenty-five miles, enters Pyramid Lake.
<span class="pb" id="Page_20">20</span>
From the outlet of Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake the
distance is about 100 miles.</p>
<p>After leaving Tahoe the Truckee receives the
waters of many mountain streams. Below Verdi it
passes through many beautiful and fertile valleys and
meadows. Pyramid Lake has an elevation of 4,000
feet above the level of the sea; Lake Tahoe is 6,247
feet above sea-level, therefore between the two points
the river has a fall of 2,247 feet, an average of a little
over twenty-two feet to the mile. Along the river
from end to end there is almost unlimited water
power, there being a great volume of water, during
several months, and an abundance of fall. This
water-power is utilized at Reno to some extent, but
what has been done there is merely a commencement
toward what should be done. Large areas of land
are irrigated by ditches leading out of the Truckee at
several points. The stream is filled with beautiful
trout of two or three species, and also contains other
smaller fishes of several kinds. A kind sometimes
seen in its waters at the spawning seasons is a large
fish of the sucker tribe, which runs up from Pyramid
Lake, and is called “koo-ee-wa” by the Piutes. It is
half head, and in every respect is a very ugly fish. It
is said that the “koo-ee-wa” is found nowhere else in
the world. It is a palatable and wholesome fish, but
its appearance is against it. The Piutes spear and
cure (by drying in the sun) great quantities of this
fish. Several kinds of Eastern fish have been planted
<span class="pb" id="Page_21">21</span>
in the waters of the Truckee and have been found to
flourish. Fish ladders have been placed at all the
dams in the rivers to permit of the trout and other
fish ascending toward the head-waters to spawn in the
various tributary creeks.</p>
<p>The Truckee River is named after “Captain
Truckee,” a Piute chief who in the early days guided
a party of emigrants from the Humboldt to the beautiful
stream and thence through Henness Pass across
the Sierras to California. Captain Truckee also acted
as a guide for Colonel Fremont when he passed
through the country in 1846. He died in the Como
Mountains in 1860, from the bite of some poisonous
insect, and was there buried by members of his tribe,
and whites, with much sorrow. A description of
Pyramid Lake will be given further along, as it deserves
a separate notice, being the largest lake wholly
owned by Nevada, and almost as large as the Great
Salt Lake, in Utah, which is seventy miles in length
by about thirty in width.</p>
<h3 id="c7"><span class="smaller">CARSON RIVER.</span></h3>
<p>The Carson River rises in the Sierras and has several
tributaries across the line in California, in Alpine
County. The river is about 220 miles in length and
ends in Carson Lake. It enters Nevada in Douglas
County. It has two branches, known as the East
Fork and the West Fork. These unite near the town
of Genoa, the county seat of Douglas County. The
river then plows through the center of Douglas County
<span class="pb" id="Page_22">22</span>
into Ormsby, passing near Carson City, the capital of
the State, thence into Lyon County, and finally finds
its terminal “sink” in Carson Lake, in Churchill
County. This lake has an outlet several miles in
length into a second lake, or sink, which at times of
great freshets is united with the lower sink of the
Humboldt, as has already been mentioned. Carson
Lake is circular in form and is about twelve miles long
and eight or nine in width. It has a depth of forty or
fifty feet, and its waters are quite sweet. The lower
sink is about twenty miles long and from four to eight
miles wide. Its waters, particularly toward the north
end, where it is very shallow, are strongly alkaline.
These lakes are at times resorted to by great flocks of
all kinds of water fowl. It is a poor place for fish.
Trout are not plentiful, and the other kinds—suckers
and chubs—are soft and insipid.</p>
<p>The Carson River affords water for the irrigation
of immense tracts of land in Douglas County, in Carson
Valley, and other valleys below, and power for
running many large quartz mills that work the ores
of the Comstock Lode. The first of these mills are
at Empire City, and they are thence found all along
down the river to, and a short distance below, the town
of Dayton.</p>
<p>Owing to the great quantities of water taken from
it for the irrigation of ranches above in Carson Valley,
the river becomes almost dry in the lower part of its
course during the latter part of each summer. To
<span class="pb" id="Page_23">23</span>
remedy this evil large storage reservoirs should be
constructed in the mountains and higher foot-hill regions.</p>
<h3 id="c8"><span class="smaller">WALKER RIVER.</span></h3>
<p>Walker River rises in Mono and Alpine Counties,
California, and flows through Douglas and Lyon
Counties, Nevada. Walker Lake, Esmeralda County,
forms its terminal sink. The river is about 150 miles
in length. Its waters are bright and sweet, and are
filled with trout and good food fishes of other varieties.
The river has two large branches, known as the East
and the West Walker, which unite below Mason’s Valley.
The waters of Walker River serve to irrigate
immense tracts of as fine land as is to be found on the
Pacific Coast, lying in Antelope, Smith’s, and Mason’s
Valleys. For the first half of its course the river flows
northward, then it suddenly turns south and forms
Walker Lake. This lake is a very bright, beautiful,
and picturesque sheet of water. It is very irregular in
form, being frequently widened and contracted between
its rocky shores. It is about thirty miles long
and has a width of from five to eight miles.</p>
<h3 id="c9"><span class="smaller">THE OWYHEE.</span></h3>
<p>The Owyhee is the only Nevada river that finds its
way to the ocean. It rises in Elko County, in the
northwestern corner of the State, and, flowing north
into Idaho, becomes a tributary of the Snake River.
Through the Snake its waters find their way north into
the Columbia River, and thence into the Pacific Ocean.
<span class="pb" id="Page_24">24</span>
Every spring salmon ascend the Owyhee and afford
the anglers of Tuscarora and other mining towns and
camps in that part of the State excellent and profitable
sport. The Owyhee irrigates many beautiful valleys.
In this region prairie-chickens and sage-hens are abundant,
and a few deer are also found. In the vicinity
of the river are fine and extensive cattle ranges.</p>
<h3 id="c10"><span class="smaller">REESE RIVER.</span></h3>
<p>Reese River takes its rise in the Toyabee Range of
mountains, in Nye County, near the center of the
State. It runs through Lander County, near Austin,
and continues its course northward (under-ground and
on the surface) to near the Humboldt River, where it
disappears in the tule marsh. Strictly speaking, it
“empties” nowhere in particular. It has a channel
that leads into the Humboldt a short distance below
Argenta, but in summer its waters fall short of reaching
that stream by twenty miles. Although Reese
River is a narrow and shallow stream, it has a length
of about 150 miles. There are many fine valleys and
much excellent grazing land on the bordering benches
and hills.</p>
<h3 id="c11"><span class="smaller">OTHER RIVERS.</span></h3>
<p>Other so-called rivers in Nevada are Quin River,
a large creek which rises in Idaho and runs south in
Humboldt County to a small terminal “sink” situated
at the north end of a great range of mud flats and
marshes that lie to the northward of Pyramid Lake.
There are good stock ranges in the Quin River
<span class="pb" id="Page_25">25</span>
country. The Rio Virgin is a small stream about
eighty miles in length situated in Lincoln County, in
the extreme southeastern part of the State. It takes
its rise in Utah and empties into the Colorado River.
It has a tributary of considerable rise called Muddy
Creek, or the “Big Muddy,” on and about which is
much excellent land and several deserted Mormon
villages. At one time there were 500 Mormon families
settled in this part of Nevada, but they were called
back to Salt Lake by Brigham Young, and abandoned
their comfortable homes and fine and fertile farms.
The mouth of the Rio Virgin is but 800 feet above
the level of the sea, all this region being in what is
known as the “Colorado Basin.” The climate is
much the same as that of Los Angeles, California.
Oranges, figs, lemons, almonds, olives, pomegranates,
and all other semi-tropical fruits grow to perfection;
also cotton and tobacco. All the grains, vegetables,
and fruits of the temperate zone flourish finely. This
spot is the Eden of the great basin region.</p>
<p>The Colorado River forms the southeastern boundary
of Nevada. Although it is not one of the rivers of
the State system, yet it is one to which Nevada has
some claim. Where it sweeps along the southern
border of the State the stream is half a mile wide and
has a depth of from ten to twenty feet. The river is
navigable for steamboats from Callville, a short distance
between the mouth of the Rio Virgin, to Port
Isabel, on the Gulf of California, a distance of 600
<span class="pb" id="Page_26">26</span>
miles. Callville is one of the towns (now almost
deserted) founded by the Mormons during their occupation
of that region of the country. The proposed
railroad from Salt Lake City would cause this region
to again become populous and prosperous.</p>
<h3 id="c12">Mineral Treasures of Nevada.</h3>
<p>There are mines of the precious metals in every
county in the State. There are mines of gold, silver,
lead, copper, and other valuable metals in all the
rugged, parallel ranges of mountains running through
the great central plateau. Mining and agriculture are
thus pursued side by side. Lying between the mountain
ranges and running in the same direction are
valleys containing arable land, while on the benches
and lower hills are excellent grazing lands, on which
grow nutritious bunch-grass and other valuable native
grasses. In all parts of the State mining is being
profitably pursued, and almost weekly new and valuable
discoveries of the precious metals are somewhere
being made. Although the country has been
walked and ridden over in various directions for the
past twenty-five years, there are still hundreds of sections
where no real prospecting has ever been done.
Even in the oldest and best-known mining camps,
many discoveries yet remain to be made. Although
explorations were made in the southern half of the
State in the early days, and thousands of mining locations
made, little real mining has been done on any
of the hundreds of large and promising veins discovered.
<span class="pb" id="Page_27">27</span>
The work done has been mere surface
scratching, and the majority of the claims have long
since been abandoned by their locators. Lack of
facilities for the transportation of ores and supplies
made it impracticable to work mines situated at a
great distance from lines of railroad. The men who
prospected and made locations in wild and distant regions
were men of little means, and when their small
stocks of money and provisions were exhausted, they
were obliged to abandon their claims and return to
the settlements, as men of capital could not be induced
to invest their money in mines out in the wilderness
far from any means of transportation. Thus
it happens that there are many sections of the country
the mines of which are the same as unprospected—mines
which will produce millions when lines of
railroad shall furnish facilities for the transportation of
ore, machinery, and supplies. In Lincoln, Nye,
White Pine, Lander, Elko, and Humboldt Counties,
there are hundreds of mining districts in which this is
the case, and in these hundreds of districts are lying
unworked thousands of quartz veins, all showing
more or less of the precious metals at the very surface,
and even in the croppings above the surface.</p>
<p>A thousand years of mining will not exhaust the
mineral treasures of the mountains of Nevada.
Cheaper and cheaper means of mining and reducing
ores will continue to be found, and presently it will
be possible to work the mines of common metals
<span class="pb" id="Page_28">28</span>
which cannot now be touched. Besides gold and
silver the mountains of Nevada contain veins of copper,
lead, iron, antimony, nickel, zinc, and many others,
as cobalt, graphite, and the like. Not only are
the mountains of the State rich in all kinds of metals,
but the lower lands are also filled with valuable mineral
treasures. In the basins of extinct lakes in all
parts of the State, and aggregating hundreds of square
miles, are inexhaustible deposits of borax, soda, salt,
gypsum, glaubers, alum, sulphur, and many other
mineral products of a similar character, which are only
now beginning to be utilized at points near lines of
railway.</p>
<h3 id="c13">Agricultural Resources.</h3>
<p>In the limited space at command in a small book
such as this it is not possible to more than give to
the agricultural and horticultural resources of the
State a passing glance, as has been done in the case
of the mining and mineral products and resources.
Although until within a very few years past Nevada
has never been thought of outside of the State as
being anything else than a region of mines, of metals,
and beds of minerals, it is now evident that she has
agricultural advantages and resources long unsuspected.
Nevada is well calculated to become a great
stock-growing State. Already she has her “cattle
kings,” and they are not as the roving cattle kings of
other lands. They have struck their roots deep in
the soil and are permanent residents. While the
<span class="pb" id="Page_29">29</span>
tillage of the soil alone will be found as profitable
here as elsewhere for the small farmer whose ranch is
within reach of a ready market, the real and great
business of the Nevada land owner must be stock-growing.
This is not a matter of choice or taste, but
is a thing demanded by the configuration of the
country, the climate, and the nature of the soil. In
order that the natural resources of the country may
be properly utilized the greater part of the valley
regions (nearly all at a distance from towns) must be
given up to the stock-grower. He must have valley
lands on which to raise sufficient hay and other feed
to tide his live-stock through any severe spells of
cold weather or big snow-storms that may occur during
the winter months. In order to utilize the vast
surrounding grazing ranges the cattle king must have
a “center stake” driven in some good, productive
valley. This is required as a magazine of supplies
for the winter season. While cattle, horses, and
sheep will find a living on the ranges during the
greater part of the winter, still the stock-grower who
would not suffer occasional disaster must be provided
against the accident of possible cold “snaps” and
unusually heavy snow-falls. A glance over the physical
features of the country shows that the proportion
of arable to grazing land is very well balanced. When
proper attention shall be given to the storage of water
for irrigation it will be found that each valley will
have sufficient capacity to produce hay, grain, and
<span class="pb" id="Page_30">30</span>
root crops adequate to the requirements of the flocks
and herds that can find pasturage on the surrounding
range.</p>
<p>On the ranges are found several valuable native
grasses, some of which are cut for hay. Those most
valuable for hay are the blue-joint, red-top, one variety
of bunch-grass, and several varieties of clover.
All these grasses grow in the moist lands of the valleys
and natural meadows, but some varieties of
bunch-grass flourish on the hills and elevated benches.
Among the native grasses of the country could no
doubt be found one valuable variety at least that
would grow without irrigation and that could be
greatly improved by cultivation. Such a grass is probably
that called “sand-grass,” of which large fields are
frequently seen in dry, sandy, and apparently utterly
barren plains. It grows to a height of about fifteen
inches and has many spreading branches on each
stalk, which branches are loaded with a large black
seed, that is very fattening, and of which all kinds of
grazing animals are very fond. It would be well to
sow the seed of this grass, which is a species of
bunch-grass, on properly plowed and prepared ground
in order to ascertain its capability of cultivation.
There are not fewer than forty varieties of native
grasses found in Nevada and eight or ten kinds of
clover. Alfalfa is the forage plant most cultivated for
hay, and on a suitable soil has no superior. Timothy,
red and white clover, and other tame grasses, do well.
<span class="pb" id="Page_31">31</span>
A very valuable native forage plant, for the reason
that it flourishes in even the most arid and sterile
localities, is that commonly called “white sage.” It
is a plant of a whitish-ash color and does not belong
to the “artemesia,” or sagebrush, family. This hardy
plant furnishes good winter feed for cattle. It is
resinous and bitter until after the heavy frosts of early
winter. Freezing renders it tender, sweet, and nutritious.
Even human beings may support life on the
white sage. In hard winters, before the whites came
into the country, at times when no game could be
found, the Piutes were occasionally obliged to subsist
for weeks at a time wholly on white sage cooked
by boiling it in baskets by means of hot stones.</p>
<h3 id="c14">The Comstock Mines.</h3>
<p>Having now given the reader some idea of the topography
and physical aspect of the State, with a hasty
general view of its mineral and agricultural productions
and resources, we shall give a more particular
account of the Comstock Lode, in which the first
discovery of silver was made; where the deepest
shafts have been sunk, and where mining for the
precious metals is to be seen on a grander scale than
anywhere else in the United States, or anywhere in
the New World, taking into consideration the power
of the machinery used and the examples of scientific
mining engineering to be seen. A description of the
mines and mining methods of the Comstock will
answer for those of all other parts of the State, except
<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span>
that in places where the ores are argentiferous galena,
or otherwise very base, smelting furnaces take the
place of the ordinary stamp and pan mills.</p>
<h3 id="c15">The Discovery of Silver.</h3>
<p>The discovery of silver in Nevada in 1859 (then
Western Utah), caused an immense excitement in
California, and indeed throughout the United States.
The excitement was one such as had not been before
seen since the discovery of the gold mines of California.
Permanency and ultimate value being considered,
the discovery of silver undoubtedly deserves to
rank in merit above the discovery of the gold mines of
California, as it gives value to a much greater area of
territory and furnishes employment to a much larger
number of persons. It has given wealth and population
to all the vast region lying between the Sierra
Nevada and the Rocky Mountain Ranges.</p>
<h3 id="c16">Placer Mining on Gold Canyon</h3>
<p>Gold was first discovered in this region in the
spring of 1850. It was found in what is now known
as Gold Canyon, by a company of Mormon emigrants
<i>en route</i> to California. Having arrived too early to
cross the Sierras, they encamped on the Carson River,
where the town of Dayton now stands, to await the
melting away of the snow on the mountains. To
while away the time some of the men of the party tried
prospecting in a large canyon that put into the river
near their camp. They found gold in the first pan of
gravel they washed. Looking further they soon found
that certain bars and gravel banks afforded much
<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span>
richer pay dirt than that first tried. They were able
to make from $5.00 to $8.00 a day, but left as soon as the
mountains were passable, as they anticipated taking
out gold by the pound on reaching California. Other
emigrants who followed the Mormons did some mining
in the canyon while camped on the river. All
made good wages, and one or two families stopped
and went regularly to work at mining. However, when
the supply of water in the canyon gave out toward the
end of summer, they “pulled up stakes” and crossed
the mountains to California.</p>
<p>What was told of the mines on Gold Canyon by
these emigrants induced parties of miners working in
and about Placerville to visit them. During the winter
and spring months, while there was water, these
men were able to make from half an ounce to an
ounce a day. The camp had no permanent population,
however, until the winter and spring of 1852-53,
when there were over 200 men at work on the bars
and gravel banks along the canyon, with rockers, toms,
and sluices.</p>
<p>As the gold found in the canyon came from quartz
veins toward its head, about Silver City and Gold
Hill, these early miners were even then on the track
of the great Comstock Lode, but without once even
suspecting the existence of such a large and rich vein.
The trading-post, or little hamlet near the junction of
the canyon and the Carson River, which at first served
as a base of supplies, was presently left far behind as
<span class="pb" id="Page_34">34</span>
the miners worked their way up the stream from bar
to bar, and they founded a town of their own, on a
plateau near the canyon, called Johntown. This town
was situated a short distance below where Silver City
now stands, and was then the “mining metropolis”
of Western Utah. One dilapidated stone chimney
yet stands as a monument to mark the site of this
now ruined mining town.</p>
<p>Johntown constituted a center from which prospectors
occasionally scouted forth. These prospectors
had no thought of anything except placer mines—native
gold in gravel deposits. In 1857 some of these
Johntown miners struck paying gravel in Six-mile
Canyon. This canyon is about five miles north of
Gold Canyon, for the greater part of its course, but
the heads of the two canyons are only about a mile
apart, and both are on what is now known as the
Comstock Lode. The pay found on Six-mile Canyon
began only about a mile below the massive croppings
that tower above the Comstock; still these early miners
never once thought of going up to the head of the
ravine to look for and prospect the quartz veins; all
they thought of was free gold in deposits of earth and
gravel.</p>
<p>In January, 1859, James Finney, or Fennimore,
better known by his popular <i>soubriquet</i> of “Old Virginia”
(he being a native of the State of Virginia),
John Bishop, and a few others of the Johntown miners,
struck a rich deposit of free gold in placer diggings
<span class="pb" id="Page_35">35</span>
in a little hill at the head of Gold Canyon.
From this hill the town of Gold Hill derives its name.
These mines were so rich that most of the Johntown
people moved to them. The gold was in a deposit of
decomposed quartz mingled with soil, and the miners
were really delving in a part of the Comstock Lode
without at first knowing that they were at work on any
quartz vein. These diggings yielded gold by the
pound, at times.</p>
<p>In the spring of 1859 several Johntowners returned
to the diggings they had discovered on Six-mile Canyon
two years before. With these men went Peter
O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin, but finding all the
paying ground already claimed they went to the head
of the canyon and began prospecting on the slope of
the mountain with a rocker, leading in a small stream
of water from a neighboring spring. They found but
poor pay in the light top dirt they were working (for
there was no washed gravel), and they had about concluded
to abandon their claim when they made the
grand discovery of the age. They had sunk a small
pit in which to collect water for use in their rockers.
It was deeper than they had yet dug. Seeing in the
bottom of this hole material of a different appearance
from any they had yet worked, they were tempted to
try some of it in their rocker. When a bucket of this
dirt was rocked out, to their great delight the two men
saw that they had made a “strike.” The whole
apron of their rocker was covered with a layer of
bright and glittering gold.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div>
<p>In that little prospect hole, silver mining in America,
as now known, was born. At that moment the
eyes of these two men, standing alone among the sagebrush
of the rugged mountain slope, rested upon the
first of many hundreds of millions in the two precious
metals that have since been taken out of the
Comstock Lode; for in the rocker along with the gold
was a quantity of rich black sulphuret of silver. This
“heavy black stuff,” which not a little puzzled the two
uneducated miners, was almost pure silver. They
thought it was some worthless base metal, and were
very sorry to see it, as it clogged their rocker and interfered
with the washing out of the fine gold-dust.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Henry Comstock.</span>—Henry Thomas Paige Comstock,
as he gave his name—has by many persons
been credited with the discovery of the Comstock,
but it is an honor to which he was not entitled. The
credit of discovering silver in Nevada belongs to Peter
O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin. The grand discovery
had been made several hours before Comstock
knew of it. Toward evening on the day the “find”
was made, Comstock, who had been out hunting his
mustang, came to where the two men were at work.
They were taking out gold by the pound and decomposed
silver ore by hundreds of pounds. Comstock
saw the gold and realized that a great strike had been
made. He instantly determined to have a share.
He at once declared that he had a claim upon the
ground. He said he had located it some time before,
<span class="pb" id="Page_37">37</span>
also the water of the spring. He so blustered about
his rights and so swaggered about what he could and
would do that rather than have any trouble the two
quiet miners agreed to take him in and give him a
share of the mine.</p>
<p>No sooner had Comstock been made a partner in
the mine than he placed himself at the front in everything
about it. He constituted himself superintendent,
did all the talking and none of the working, and
was always ready to tell strangers about the mine.
When visitors came it was always <i>my</i> mine and <i>my</i>
everything. Thus people came to talk of Comstock’s
mine and Comstock’s vein; then it was the Comstock
vein—as persons making locations asserted
that they were on the same vein as Comstock, <i>i. e.</i>,
the Comstock vein—and in that way the name of
Comstock became fastened upon the whole lode. As
the first claim was called the Ophir, that would have
been a more fitting name for the whole vein than the
one it now bears. For a long time Comstock no
more appreciated the heavy black material that accompanied
the gold, and in lumps of which much of
the gold was embedded, than did O’Riley and McLaughlin.
It was not until returns had been received
from samples of it sent to California for assay
that anyone in Nevada knew that the “heavy black
stuff” was almost pure silver.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_38">38</div>
<h3 id="c17">The Grand Rush over the Sierras</h3>
<p>With the returns of
the assays came a rush from California. The assays
were made at Nevada City, California, and the result
so astonished the assayer that he could hardly believe
his figures or his eyes. But other assays verified those
first made, and the immense richness of the ore in
both gold and silver could no longer be doubted. A
few men were let into the secret, they let in a few
more, and at once the great news spread far and wide.
Soon miners, speculators, and adventurers of all kinds
came over the Sierras to the silver mines in swarms.
A town of tents, brush shanties, and canvas houses began
to appear on the side of Mount Davidson—then
known as “Sunrise Peak,” as it caught the first rays of
the morning sun. It was about the 1st of June when
the silver was first struck, and, the weather being warm,
many persons camped in the open air—cared for
neither tent nor brush shanty.</p>
<p>There were about 1,000 persons in Western Utah
at the time silver was discovered, and all were living
under Mormon rule. Most of those in the country at
that time were engaged in farming and cattle growing,
in trade with the emigrants, or in gambling and running
off stock; only about 200 were engaged in mining,
and all these were working gold placers. A number
of ranchers from surrounding valleys took up
claims on the line of the lode when they heard that
it was a silver vein, but neither the placer miners, the
ranchers, nor any one else that was in the country at the
time the great discovery was made, ever got more than
a few hundreds or thousands of dollars out of it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_39">39</div>
<h3 id="c18">The Fate of the Discoverers.</h3>
<p>Although Comstock was not a discoverer, he was one
of the original locators on the lode. He sold his interest
for $10,000. With this he opened a store in
Carson City for the sale of such goods as the trade of
the country demanded; also a similar store, but with
a smaller stock, at Silver City. Knowing nothing of
business, having no education, and being unable to
keep books, he was soon “flat broke.” After losing
all the property he possessed in Nevada, Comstock
struck out into Idaho and Montana, where he prospected
for some years without success. In September,
1870, while encamped near Bozeman, Montana, <i>en
route</i> to prospect in the Big Horn country, he committed
suicide, blowing out his brains with his six-shooter.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Patrick McLaughlin</span> sold his interest in the
Ophir (the discovery claim) for $3,500, which sum he
soon lost, and he then worked as a cook at the Green
mine, in the southern part of California, for a time. He
finally died while wandering from place to place and
working at odd jobs, generally as a cook.</p>
<p><span class="sc">Peter O’Riley</span> held his interest until it brought
him about $50,000, a part of which he received in the
shape of dividends. He erected a stone hotel on B
Street, Virginia City, called the Virginia House. He
then began dealing in mining stocks and soon lost
everything. Under the guidance of spirits—he was a
<span class="pb" id="Page_40">40</span>
Spiritualist—he finally began running a tunnel into a
bald and barren granite spur of the Sierras, near Genoa,
in Douglas County, expecting to strike a richer vein
than the Comstock. However, the spirits talked so
much to him about caverns of gold and silver that he
became insane and was sent to a private asylum at
Woodbridge, California, where he soon died.</p>
<p>The men who made millions were those who came
after the mines had been pretty well prospected, as
Mackay, Fair, Sharon, Jones, and others.</p>
<h3 id="c19">Early Mining and Milling.</h3>
<p>Once people became convinced of the richness,
extent, and permanency of the ore deposits on the
Comstock, towns were built up on the lode and at
points in the valleys as if by enchantment. Machinery
was brought over the Sierras under all manner
of difficulties by teams, and soon mills for working
the ores were built by scores. In 1859 the Americans,
as a people, knew nothing about silver mining.
At that time there were probably not a dozen American
miners on the Pacific Coast who had ever even seen a
sample of silver ore. In the California placer mines,
however, were quite a number of Mexicans who had
worked in silver mines in their own country. These
men at once deserted their gold placers in California
and came flocking over to the Sierras when the cry of
“Plata! mucha plata!” was raised among them. “A
gold placer,” said they, “is soon worked out, but a
silver mine lasts for generations and generations.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_41">41</div>
<p>At first the word of the Mexicans was law in the
new silver mines, both as regarded ore and the methods
of mining and working it. Every American miner
endeavored to secure a Mexican partner, or at least
a Mexican foreman to take charge of his mine. Mexican
methods, however, soon proved to be too slow
for the Americans. Their arastras, patios, and little
adobe smelting furnaces were the primitive contrivances
of a non-mechanical people, and of a race of
miners working as individuals, and on a very small
scale at that.</p>
<p>The Americans at once introduced stamp mills for
crushing the ore, and next introduced pans to hasten
the process of amalgamation. The operation of amalgamating
the crushed ore, which required days by the
patio process, was reduced to hours by the use of
steam-heated iron pans.</p>
<p>The Mexican miners were no better underground at
working in the vein than they were on the surface, at
extracting the precious metals after the ore was mined.
In the Mexican mine, where everything was managed
according to their own notions—the owner being a
Mexican named Gabriel Maldanado—they carried the
ore out of the mine in rawhide sacks, the miners
climbing to the surface by means of a series of notched
poles. Their timbering was also very defective. In
ore bodies so large as those of the Comstock, they
did not know how to support the ground.</p>
<p>Among the miners working in the gold placers of
<span class="pb" id="Page_42">42</span>
California at the time of the discovery of silver on
this side of the Sierras, were a few Germans who had
worked in the silver mines of their “Vaterland,” and
among these were some half dozen who had been educated
in the mining academy of Freyberg, and had
received regular scientific and practical training in the
art of mining. The mining and metallurgical knowledge
of these men was the best then existing in any
part of the world, as regarded the working of argentiferous
ores. The Germans introduced the barrel
process of amalgamation and the roasting of ores.
While the barrel process was a great improvement on
the patio, it was found not so well adapted to the
rapid working of the Comstock ores as the newly invented
pan process. It has also been found that the
free milling ores of the lode do not require to be
roasted.</p>
<p>Philip Deidesheimer, a German who had been appointed
superintendent of the Ophir Mine, however,
invented a method of timbering in “square sets,”
which is perfect in every respect, and which is still in
use in all Comstock mines. By this method of building
up squares of framed timbers an ore vein of any
width may be safely worked to any height or depth; a
vein 300 feet in width may as rapidly be worked as
one only 10 or 20 feet wide.</p>
<h3 id="c20">Mining Difficulties and Inventions.</h3>
<p>Early in the mining history of the Comstock there
began to be heavy flows of water with which to contend.
<span class="pb" id="Page_43">43</span>
This called for pumping machinery and apparatus;
and as greater and greater depth was attained,
larger and larger pumps were demanded. The best
and heaviest machinery in use in Europe was examined,
and upon this improvements were from time to
time made as increased flows of water required increased
capacity. All the inventive genius of the Pacific
Coast was called into play, and the result has
been the construction of some of the most powerful
and effective steam and hydraulic pumping apparatus
to be found in any part of the world.</p>
<p>At first the water with which the Comstock miners
had to contend was cold, but it was not long before
the deeper workings cut into parts of the vein where
were tapped heavy flows of hot water—water actually
hot enough to cook an egg, or to scald a man to
death almost instantly. Several miners have lost their
lives by falling into large tanks, or sumps, of this water,
hot from the vein. The hot water called for fans,
blowers, and all kinds of ventilating apparatus, as men
working in heated drifts had to have a supply of cool
and fresh air sent in to them. Great improvements
have also been made in hoisting cages, though the first
idea of these came from Europe.</p>
<p>In California at the time of the discovery of the
Comstock, were many men who had worked in the
mines of Cornwall, England. These men thoroughly
understood all manner of under-ground work, and were
able to successfully carry through many undertakings in
<span class="pb" id="Page_44">44</span>
the way of sinking shafts, inclines, and winzes, and in
making raises and running drifts in ground where the
difficulties at first sight seemed almost insurmountable.</p>
<h3 id="c21">Various Mining and Milling Appliances.</h3>
<p>Compressed air for running power drills, and for
driving fans and small hoisting engines at depths varying
from 1,000 to 3,000 feet below the surface, was
early adopted in the Comstock mines, as also were
the several new explosives for blasting. Diamond
drills for drilling long distances through solid rock
were also at one time in general use, but have been
discarded for prospecting purposes, being found unreliable.
The existence of ore may be ascertained by
means of the diamond drill, but the amount found is
a matter of uncertainty in all cases.</p>
<p>By the pan processes in the early days there were
immense losses in the precious metals and in quicksilver.
While the pans might be much alike in construction
almost every millman was making experiments
with some secret process of his own for the
amalgamation of the ore. It now seems ridiculous,
but some millmen were actually using sagebrush tea
in their pans, and others a decoction of cedar bark.
They tried all manner of trash, both mineral and vegetable.
It was at that time that untold millions in
gold, silver, and quicksilver were swept away into the
Carson River with the tailings; for the ore on which
all these experiments were tried was almost pure silver.
<span class="pb" id="Page_45">45</span>
Although scores of amalgamating pans of various
patterns have been invented and patented, there
is still room for improvement. The improvements
made from time to time have resulted in saving a large
per cent of the precious metals contained in the ores
operated upon, and also in a smaller loss of quicksilver,
yet none of the apparatus in use is perfect. Experiments
having in view further savings are still constantly
being made.</p>
<h3 id="c22">The Comstock as a School for Miners.</h3>
<p>The Comstock is the mother of silver mining in
America. In this lode hundreds of men have obtained
a thorough practical knowledge of mining in all its
forms and departments. Men who were graduated on
the Comstock are now to be found in all parts of the
world. They early went to Idaho, Montana, Utah,
Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and British
Columbia. Old Comstock foremen and superintendents
are to-day in charge of mines in Mexico, Central
America, South America, Australia, Africa, China,
Japan, and all other regions where there is mining for
the precious metals. Already they are in the gold
fields of the Amoor River—having pushed their way
across from Alaska—and they are ready to push their
way to the ends of the earth in search of the precious
metals.</p>
<h3 id="c23">Virginia City and its Surroundings.</h3>
<p>Virginia City, the county seat of Storey County, is
situated on the eastern face of Mount Davidson, the
<span class="pb" id="Page_46">46</span>
culminating peak of a range of rocky hills running
northeast and southwest, and having a length of about
thirty-two miles. Mount Davidson rises to a height of
7,775 feet above the level of the sea, and is a rocky,
treeless peak. On the slope of this mountain, about
1,775 feet below its summit, lies Virginia City. It
may be said that the city occupies a position about
midway between the base and the apex of the mountain,
as the Carson River, which flows along near the
eastern foot of the range, is 1,700 feet below the town.
It is literally “a city set on a hill.”</p>
<p>From the tents and brush shanties set up near the
Ophir Mine immediately after the discovery of silver
was made, the growth of the town was rapid. The
first structure worthy of the name of “house” was
erected in the summer of 1859, by Lyman Jones, a
pioneer miner of Gold Canyon. It was of canvass
and was 18x40 feet in size. Soon several frame structures
were removed from Johntown and from Dayton
(then called “Chinatown”) to the “new diggings” of
“Ophir.” Lumber from saw-mills in the foot-hills of
the Sierras was then procured and a few small houses
and offices erected. As there was then no wagon
road up the mountain to where the city now stands it
was necessary to carry lumber up to the new diggings
on horses, half packing and half dragging it from the
valley, where it was delivered by wagons. Very soon,
however, a wagon track was made up the mountain,
and building then progressed more rapidly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_47">47</div>
<p>At first the new mining camp had no fixed or acknowledged
name. It was variously spoken of as
“Ophir,” “Ophir Diggings,” “Pleasant Hill,” and
“Mount Pleasant Point,” though at that time there
could have been nothing very “pleasant” about the
place, except the sight of the gold and silver then being
dug out by the pound and by the ton almost at
the surface of the ground—less than a yard below the
roots of the sage-brush. Even as late as October,
1859, the place was called Ophir Diggings. About
that time James Fennimore, known among the miners
as “Old Virginia,” was in the camp one night, having
a “little run with the boys,” when he fell and broke
his whisky bottle against a rock. Old Virginia picked
up the bottom part of the bottle, in which still remained
a small quantity of the precious liquid, and,
solemnly pouring it upon the ground, said, “I christen
this camp Virginia!” He called upon those present
to bear witness to the fact that he had duly named
and christened the town in honor of himself and his
native State.</p>
<p>Old Virginia was a favorite among the miners, and
one and all declared that Virginia should be the name
of the town. At first the place was called “Virginia
Town,” but soon the word city was tacked on to Virginia,
the name by which it was christened, and
Virginia City it has remained. Old Virginia had some
right to name the town. He was one of the first to
mine on Six-mile Canyon, working at a point now included
<span class="pb" id="Page_48">48</span>
in the eastern suburbs of the city, and he was
the first man in the country to locate a quartz vein in
the vicinity. This vein was a large one lying west of
the Ophir, and known as the “Virginia Vein,” or
“Virginia Croppings.” This back lead contained a
vast deal of “base metal,” but very little paying ore.
The location was made February 22, 1858, more than
a year before the discovery of silver. In July, 1861,
“Old Virginia” was thrown from a “bucking” mustang,
in the town of Dayton, and killed. At the time
of his death he was possessed of about $3,000 in gold
coin.</p>
<p>The first buildings were erected pretty much at
random in the new town, but soon streets were laid
out. Those nearest the Ophir Mine were first built
on—A and B Streets. In the spring of 1860, B Street
was the principal business street of the town, and
there were several places of business on A Street,
while many new buildings were going up on C Street—the
principal business street at present.</p>
<p>The first winter (1859-60) many persons lived in
holes excavated in the side of the mountain and
roofed with sagebrush and earth. There were then
no hotel accommodations worthy of the name. Peter
O’Riley’s stone hotel, on B Street, was not yet completed,
and the International Hotel, owned by Bateman
& Paul, was a little frame structure, capable of
accommodating only a small number of persons, and
those in the roughest style imaginable. In May, 1860,
<span class="pb" id="Page_49">49</span>
a war broke out with the Piute Indians that lasted a
month. This trouble caused a grand stampede of
the white settlers, and gave the new town a temporary
backset, but the people soon recovered from their
fright, and in another month building was as lively as
before the war broke out.</p>
<p>During the years 1860-61 the town built up very
rapidly, and in 1862-63 brick and stone “fire-proof”
buildings were erected in all directions, as already
fires began to be of frequent occurrence. Year by
year the city grew in area, population, and wealth.
Building went on both summer and winter, and at
times was pushed almost day and night. As the
mines were opened and worked their immense richness
attracted hundreds and thousands of persons
from California, and all parts of the Atlantic States
and Canada. Money was more plentiful and the
prices paid for skilled and all other kinds of labor
were far higher than anywhere else on the American
continent; all articles of merchandise also brought
greater prices than could anywhere else be obtained.
Gold coin jingled in the pockets of all in the city—those
of the drones as well as those of the workers.</p>
<p>With the honest, industrious, and peaceable came
the sharper, the idler, and the desperado. Adventurers
of every class and every grade of wickedness,
both male and female, swarmed in the town. There
were many desperate affrays, robberies, and murders.
“Cutting and shooting scrapes” were of almost daily
<span class="pb" id="Page_50">50</span>
and nightly occurrence in the streets and in the saloons.
At one time the nightly killings were so frequent
that residents expected each morning to hear
that there was “a man for breakfast.”</p>
<p>Finally murders, robberies, and incendiary fires became
so frequent that a “Vigilance Committee,”
known as “601,” was organized and became active in
the spring of 1871. It was the object of the organization
to rid the town of all manner of evil-doers, and
particularly of such desperate characters as almost without
provocation killed peaceable citizens. After there
had been two or three hangings by “601,” and after
many bad characters had received “notices” to leave
(which all at once obeyed), the city again became
quiet and orderly.</p>
<h3 id="c24"><span class="smaller">CITY IMPROVEMENTS.</span></h3>
<p>Owing to the steep slope of the mountain, the site
of the town was by no means favorable, but, at great
cost for grading, many fine, level streets were constructed.
The principal streets were then filled in to
the depth of a yard with waste quartz and other hard,
flinty rock from the mines. This work was so well
done that to this day the streets are hard, smooth, and
dry. The Virginia Gas Company was early organized,
and the streets and business houses lighted with gas.
As early as 1862 a water company organized and
brought a supply of water from several tunnels run
into the Virginia Range west of the city. This
water was conveyed to the town by means of wooden
<span class="pb" id="Page_51">51</span>
flumes and iron pipes, and distributed to customers
throughout the place. The supply of water, however,
at that time was not adequate to the requirements of
the town, and the quality was poor, being much impaired
by the deleterious minerals it held in solution.
Mention of the present system of water works will be
made in another place.</p>
<p>Meantime, while the town was building up, good
wagon roads had been constructed in various directions
at great cost. A number of fire companies had
been organized (provided at first with hand engines,
but afterwards with steamers), and Virginia City began
to take on the appearance of a real “city,” not only
in the number and substantial character of the buildings,
and swarms of people it contained, but also in
the number of conveniences it afforded, its many societies,
churches, schools, theaters, clubs, orders, and
organizations, usually considered the necessary adjuncts
and requirements of civilized and intelligent
communities. There were also several daily and
weekly newspapers, telegraph, express, and all other
similar offices required by business and mining men,
and by the people at large. Indeed, in 1875 the area
of the city was as great as at present, and much more
populous, as at that time it was estimated to contain
20,000 people. Hundreds and thousands of these,
however, were mere birds of passage, being neither
business men nor owners of property. At and about
Gold Hill at that time it was estimated that there
<span class="pb" id="Page_52">52</span>
were about 10,000 souls. The two towns, originally
a mile apart, were connected by buildings—had grown
together. Both towns were filled with mills and mining
works, that gave employment to many thousands
of miners, mechanics, and workingmen of all grades
and classes.</p>
<h3 id="c25">The Great Fire.</h3>
<p>Everything was thus flourishing and prosperous—the
“Big Bonanza” was yielding its millions, and several
other mines were working great and rich bodies
of ore—when Virginia City was overwhelmed by a
great calamity.</p>
<p>On the morning of October 26, 1875, a fire broke
out in a frame lodging-house on A Street, in the
western part of the town, just above all the great business
blocks, and in a few hours all in an area of half
a mile square was laid in ashes. Before the fire was
subdued no fewer than 2,000 buildings—including
mills, hoisting works, churches, business houses, and
structures of all kinds—were swept away. Hundreds
of families were left homeless and destitute. Owing
to the early hour at which the fire started (six o’clock),
and the fearful rapidity with which it spread in all
directions, few persons were able to save any of their
goods or valuables. In all, property to the value of over
$10,000,000 was destroyed. Many great and destructive
fires had before swept through and devastated the
city, but this was the greatest ever experienced in the
place. Scores of buildings that had always been
<span class="pb" id="Page_53">53</span>
rated as fire-proof melted away in the fervent heat
like frost in the rays of the morning sun.</p>
<p>Almost in the start the court-house, the building
of the Washoe Club, the International Hotel, and several
other large buildings, were ignited and began vomiting
pillars of flame that scattered sparks and cinders
far and wide. As the fire progressed the millions of
feet of lumber and timbers and the thousands of cords
of wood about the mining works made fires that could
not be successfully combated, and which nothing
could withstand. At the Consolidated Virginia Hoisting
Works and Mill alone there were on fire at the
same moment, and in one mass, 1,250,000 feet of lumber
and timbers, and 800 cords of pine wood, not to
speak of the two great buildings, and all the stores
they contained; also the adjoining assay office, and
contents. Across the street the freight and passenger
depots of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad Company
were sending up immense pillars of flame, while
just south Piper’s Opera House, an immense frame
structure filled with all manner of very inflammable
material, was a volcano, vomiting destruction on all
sides. Between and about these large structures a
score or more of smaller buildings were belching
flames. This was the scene at but one spot. A few
rods to the southward three tall churches (Catholic,
Methodist, and Episcopal) were sending tongues of
flame into the very clouds, amid whole acres of smaller
buildings that formed a tumultuous sea of fire. At
<span class="pb" id="Page_54">54</span>
the same time to the northward the Ophir works, with
fifty smaller structures, were wrapped in flame. In the
same fierce way the fire was raging over half a
mile square of the very heart of the town. Although
there were scores of narrow escapes, only two persons
lost their lives in the fire, and two or three were afterwards
killed by falling walls.</p>
<p>To rebuild the town at once was the universal
determination. The insurance on the property destroyed
amounted to $2,500,000 (the loss at the
Bonanza Mines alone was $1,461,000), which was
something to begin with; besides many persons whose
property was destroyed had plenty of money left with
which to rebuild. There was not a moment’s delay.
The next morning the work of clearing away ruins
preparatory to putting up new buildings was begun in
all parts of the city, water being thrown upon the
red-hot bricks to so cool them that they could be
handled. Rebuilding began the morning after the
fire, and hardly ceased day or night until all the
ground of the burnt district had been again covered.
The big mining companies were especially active.
Although engaged in rebuilding the mills and works
destroyed, the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company
paid its regular dividends of $10 a share in
November and December, the two amounting to
$2,160,000. In less than thirty days from the time
of the fire new works replaced those destroyed by
fire, and the machinery was in place and ore hoisted
<span class="pb" id="Page_55">55</span>
on Thanksgiving-day. In sixty days after the fire
the business streets of the city were rebuilt, and with
larger and finer structures than those that had been
destroyed. The whole burnt district was so soon
covered with new buildings that strangers arriving in
the city looked about them in surprise and asked,
“Where was your big fire?” That was a busy time
on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, no fewer than
forty-five trains a day passing over the road during
the great building rush. But for the railroad the city
and mining works could not have been rebuilt that
year.</p>
<h3 id="c26">Virginia City at Present.</h3>
<p>Although Virginia City covers as much ground and
contains larger and finer buildings than before the
great fire, it is not so populous as in the old flush
times of the “Big Bonanza.” In those days every
hotel and lodging-house was filled to overflowing;
now most of those in the city are permanent inhabitants
and property owners—those who formerly composed
the grand army of “sports,” adventurers, and
idlers have gone to other fields. At present the city
contains a population of only about 9,000 persons,
but nearly all those now in the place have permanent
homes and some legitimate and remunerative employment.
As about one-fourth of the male population
is constantly at work under-ground in the lower levels
of the various mines, the streets do not present so
<span class="pb" id="Page_56">56</span>
thronged an appearance as those of a non-mining
town containing the same number of inhabitants.
The place, however, presents a very different appearance
on a holiday when all the mining works are shut
down and the miners are on the surface.</p>
<p>The first care of the people of the city after rebuilding
the place was to guard against the recurrence of
such a sweeping conflagration. A number of huge
water tanks were constructed high above the town on
the side of the mountain, with a proper system of
mains and hydrants extending through all parts of the
city. The pressure is so great at these hydrants that
the firemen are able to throw a stream over the flag-staff
of the tallest building in the city through a nozzle
of the largest size. A few paid firemen now fight
all the fires that occur in the city. As the hydrants
are always ready the firemen have only to get to them,
attach their hose, and at once they have powerful
streams steadily playing on the fire. “Promptness of
action” is their motto. They seldom allow a fire to
get out of the building in which it originates. Usually
they have a fire out before a steam fire-engine could
get up steam.</p>
<p>The fire mains are distinct from those which supply
water for domestic purposes, and those again from
such as furnish water for use at the mills and hoisting
works of the mines. There is a system of gates
whereby the water may be shut off from the hydrants
of any block in the city and turned to any other block
<span class="pb" id="Page_57">57</span>
or blocks of buildings. This system is so perfect that
employes of the water company working in conjunction
with the firemen are able to at once turn the water
to any part of the city in which it may be required,
at the same time shutting it off from all other parts.</p>
<p>All the churches, halls, district court-house, theater,
and other public buildings are finer than those destroyed
in the big fire, and again are seen trees and
grounds of handsome appearance in various parts of
the city. In the city are several school-houses that
cost from $20,000 to $60,000, besides which there are
a number of private schools, and the fine school of
the Sisters of Charity. There is also a hospital—St.
Mary’s, a commodious brick structure—under the
charge of the Sisters, as well as a large and well-conducted
county hospital. Both are located beyond
the eastern suburbs in quiet and pleasant places. The
halls belonging to the many societies and secret orders
are elegant and costly. The city now has electric
lights, two daily newspapers, and one weekly.</p>
<p>The mills and hoisting works are a striking and
characteristic feature of the place. The immense
waste dumps, high trestle-work car tracks, trains of
ore cars on the railroad, clouds of black smoke belched
from many tall stacks, trains loaded with wood and
timber, all tell that mining is the great industry of the
city; then much of the street talk heard is of mines
and mining stocks.</p>
<p>The International Hotel is the oldest in the city.
<span class="pb" id="Page_58">58</span>
It was founded in 1860, when it was a mere frame
shanty fronting on B Street. The hotel destroyed by
the big fire was a commodious brick structure, but the
present building is far finer. It now extends from B
to C Street, is constructed of brick, stone, and iron,
and is six stories in height. It is capable of accommodating
in excellent style a large number of guests.</p>
<h3 id="c27">Views from the City and Vicinity.</h3>
<p>Though the landscape visible from the city cannot
be called beautiful, yet it is grand and picturesque.
On all sides except the east, the town is shut in by
near ranges of high, rocky, and barren mountains.
To the eastward the eye reaches over a vast area composed
of tracts of sandy desert, valley lands, dark and
rocky hills, and rugged and towering mountain ranges.
The chief of these is the Humboldt Range, seen blue
or purple in the distance, from 150 to 190 miles away.
These mountains and their snow-clad peaks stand out
against the dark-blue of the sky far beyond the green
cottonwood groves that follow the meanderings of the
Carson River, far beyond the Forty-mile Desert and
the lake and sink of the Carson, and beyond Humboldt
Lake and Sink.</p>
<p>To the northeast are seen several sharp and splintered
peaks, while to the southeast, from twenty to
fifty miles away, rise the huge and grand peaks of the
Como Mountains. From the Divide (the dividing
ridge between Virginia and Gold Hill) may be obtained
a magnificent view of the main Sierra Nevada
<span class="pb" id="Page_59">59</span>
Range and its many mighty snow-capped peaks as
they trail and circle away from west to south till they
are lost to view behind lower interior ranges at a point
over 150 miles away.</p>
<h3 id="c28">The View from the Summit of Mt. Davidson.</h3>
<p>From the peak of Mount Davidson may be obtained
a grand and extensive view of the country in
all directions. To the westward is seen Washoe Lake
and the green meadows and fields by which it is surrounded.
Although Washoe Valley and its lake seem
to be just at the foot of the mountain they are from
eight to ten miles distant. Beyond and high above
the valley tower the pine-clad Sierras, with, along their
line, several giant granite peaks, snow-capped the
greater part of the year. Prominent among these
stands out Bald Mountain, just north of Lake Tahoe,
and within plain view Mount Lincoln, Job’s Peak,
Silver Mountain, and many other peaks that have
names. Twenty miles to the northward are to be seen
the green pastures and alfalfa fields of the Truckee
Meadows, while to the southward we have the Sierra
Range and Eagle and Carson Valleys. Carson City
is hid by intervening low hills. To the eastward are
the same deserts and mountains that compose the landscape
viewed from the city, but from the top of the
mountain the eye ranges over a vastly wider field.</p>
<h3 id="c29">The Virginia and Truckee Railroad.</h3>
<p>From our elevated position on the peak of Mount
<span class="pb" id="Page_60">60</span>
Davidson we may trace nearly the whole course of
the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. This road runs
from Reno to Virginia City <i>via</i> Carson City, and is
fifty-two miles in length. Besides being in one part
the most crooked railroad in the world, its whole
course is a great curve. The distance from Virginia
City to Reno as the crow flies is only about seventeen
miles, and but twenty-two by wagon road, yet to connect
the two points by rail required a road fifty-two
miles in length.</p>
<p>From Reno, where the road connects with the
Central Pacific, its course is southward through
Truckee, Meadows, and Steamboat, Washoe and
Eagle Valleys, to Carson City, a distance of thirty-one
miles. From Carson City the road runs east
down the Carson River about nine miles, when it
leaves the river and, turning to the north, begins to
climb the mountains to Virginia. From the river to
Virginia the distance is thirteen miles and the maximum
grade is 116 feet. In climbing the mountain
there are many very short curves. The maximum
radius of curves is 300 feet. By adding together all
these curves it is found that a passenger on the road
actually travels seventeen times round a circle between
Virginia and Carson City. On the road are
six tunnels, whose united length is 2,400 feet, and
there are numerous deep cuts in very hard rock.
The only high bridge is the trestlework on which the
road crosses Crown Point Ravine, at Gold Hill.
This bridge is eighty feet in height.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_61">61</div>
<p>Ground was broken on the road February 19, 1869,
and eight months thereafter the most difficult part of
it was finished and trains were running to Carson—twenty-one
miles. The construction of this twenty-one
miles of road cost $1,750,000, the greater part of
which sum was expended on the first thirteen miles.
In round numbers the whole fifty-two miles cost
$3,000,000. The road does an immense business in
the transportation of Comstock ores to quartz mills
on the Carson River, and in carrying back from the
valley wood, lumber, and timbers for the mines; it
also carries from Reno to Virginia great quantities of
all kinds of goods and merchandise—coal, ice, provisions,
fruit, and machinery—with mails, express, and
many passengers daily. The road connects with the
Carson and Colorado Road at Mound House, eleven
miles below Virginia City. The road and its many
side-tracks and switches constitute a lasting monument
to the engineering skill of the late I. E. James.</p>
<h3 id="c30">The Days of “Bull Teams.”</h3>
<p>Before the Virginia and Truckee Railroad was
built all freight was transported by teams. Ore was
hauled to the mills by teams, and teams brought to
the mines all the wood, lumber, and timber required.
Teams also hauled over the Sierras all the mining
machinery and supplies required by the mines and
mills, and all the goods and merchandise needed by
various kinds of stores, shops, and business houses.
<span class="pb" id="Page_62">62</span>
When the Central Pacific was completed this hauling
of merchandise was from Reno, <i>via</i> the Geiger grade
wagon-road. Hundreds of teams of all kinds were
required to handle the goods and merchandise, other
hundreds the ore, wood, lumber, and timbers, and
still others to do the miscellaneous hauling of the
country. When the big reduction works of the Ophir
Mining Company were in operation near Franktown,
in Washoe Valley, lines of teams from one to three
miles in length were to be seen moving along the
Ophir grade. On all other roads it was much the
same. Teams of from ten to sixteen horses or mules
hauled trains of from two to four loaded wagons.
At times so many teams thronged Virginia City that
blockades occurred which could not be broken for
hours. Stages, omnibuses, delivery wagons, drays,
carts, buggies, carriages, and all kinds of vehicles were
inextricably mingled in a jam that filled the principal
streets for blocks. With all the cursing of “mule-punchers,”
“swampers,” and “bull-teamsters,” it
would often be two or three hours before the wheels
of traffic again began to revolve. When these blockades
occurred about noon, teamsters would often get
out their dinner pails, spread their meal on their
load of wood, brick, or lumber, bring out from the
nearest saloon a measure of beer, and in a leisurely
way partake of the midday repast. Then all passengers
and all mail and express matter were carried by
stages, and so great was the rush of travel and business
<span class="pb" id="Page_63">63</span>
that the coaches went out and returned in droves,
five and six in a string. In 1859, 1860, and 1861,
great quantities of goods were transported across the
Sierras from California on the backs of mules. Some
of the pack-trains were composed of fifty, eighty, and
even as many as one hundred mules. They brought
over all kinds of freight, even huge casks of liquor
and large pieces of mill machinery. On the return
trip they often carried passengers. In those days the
“hurricane deck” of a mule was not to be despised.</p>
<h3 id="c31">THE COMSTOCK SYSTEM OF WATER SUPPLY.</h3>
<h3 id="c32">The Virginia City and Gold Hill Water Works.</h3>
<p>When silver was first discovered on the Comstock,
the flow of water from natural springs was sufficient
to supply all the wants of the small communities then
constituting the towns of Gold Hill and Virginia City.
As the population increased, wells were dug in many
places (distant from springs), and the domestic needs
of many families were for a long time supplied by
water-carts that peddled the water of both wells and
springs. Presently the water of several tunnels added
to the available stock, but as mills and hoisting works
multiplied, the demand for water for use in steam boilers
became so great that it was impossible to supply it without
creating a water famine among the people of the
two towns, now thousands in number, with hundreds
<span class="pb" id="Page_64">64</span>
of new arrivals every week. In this emergency the
Virginia City and Gold Hill Water Company was
formed. Outside of mining companies it is the oldest
incorporation on the Comstock Lode. The only
available supply of water at that time was that flowing
from a few tunnels that had been run into the mountain
above the city for mining purposes. This was
collected by means of ditches and wooden flumes, and
stored in large wooden tanks, whence it was distributed
about the city through iron pipes. When this
supply became insufficient, as it soon did, tunnels
were run for the express purpose of tapping water.
As these drained out the hills and failed, new ones
were run in the range both north and south of the
city for a distance of several miles.</p>
<p>Finally every device was exhausted, and the hills
above the level of the city were thoroughly drained.
It then became necessary to look to the main range
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In those mountains
was an inexhaustible supply of the purest and best
water to be found in the whole world, but between
the lakes, creeks, and sparkling fountains of the Sierras
and the range on which stood Virginia City, lay
Washoe Valley, an immense trough nearly 2,000 feet
in depth. How to get water over such a depression
was the question. Mr. H. Schussler, an engineer of
great repute, and who had planned the Spring Valley
Water Works of San Francisco, was brought to Nevada
to view the situation. He said the deep valley
<span class="pb" id="Page_65">65</span>
could be crossed, and in the spring of 1872 surveys
were made and an order given Eastern manufacturers
for the construction of a large wrought-iron pipe.
The first section of the big pipe was laid June 11,
1873, and the last on the twenty-fifth day of July of
the same year.</p>
<h3 id="c33">The Big Water Pipe.</h3>
<p>The total length of the pipe is 7 miles and 134
feet. The pipe has an interior diameter of 12
inches, and is capable of delivering 2,200,000 gallons
of water in twenty-four hours. The inlet of the pipe
is on a spur from the main Sierra Nevada Range, and
the outlet is on the crest of the Virginia Range of
mountains. The pipe lies across the valley in the
form of an inverted siphon. At the lowest point, the
perpendicular pressure on the pipe is 1,720 feet, or
about 800 pounds to the square inch. The inlet being
465 feet higher than the outlet, the water is forced
through the pipe under tremendous pressure. The
water is brought to the inlet from the sources of supply
in two large covered flumes, and at the outlet end
of the pipe is delivered into two large flumes, which
carry it to Virginia City, a distance of twelve miles.</p>
<p>This pipe was constructed of sheets of wrought
iron riveted together. Each section was fastened with
three rows of rivets. At the point of greatest pressure
the iron was five-sixteenths of an inch in thickness,
but near the ends, upon the sides of the two opposite
<span class="pb" id="Page_66">66</span>
mountains, it tapered down to one-sixteenth of an
inch. In the construction of the pipe there were
used 1,150,000 pounds of rolled iron and 1,000,000
rivets, while 52,000 pounds of lead were used in securing
the joints of the sections. At each joint the
sections were inserted into cast iron sleeves, and it
was within these sleeves that the lead was used. The
total weight of the sleeves was 442,500 pounds.</p>
<p>The first flow of water through this pipe reached
Gold Hill and Virginia City on the evening of August
1, 1873, amid the greatest rejoicings of the people
of both towns. Cannons were fired, rockets sent
up, and bands of music paraded the streets. Never
before in any part of the world had water been conveyed
under a pressure so great; and it still remains
the greatest. Previous to this, 910 feet was the greatest
perpendicular pressure under which water had
ever been carried through an iron pipe. This had
been accomplished by Mr. Schussler, at Cherokee
Flat, California.</p>
<h3 id="c34">Additional Great Pipes.</h3>
<p>In 1875 the water company laid alongside the
first pipe a second having an inside diameter of ten
inches. This pipe is lap-welded, and, there being no
friction of rivet heads upon the water, the flow through
it is equal to that through the twelve-inch pipe,—2,200,000
gallons every twenty-four hours.</p>
<p>Before 1875 the supply of water was obtained from
creeks on the eastern slope of the mountains lying
<span class="pb" id="Page_67">67</span>
east of Lake Tahoe, but in the year named, the water
company pushed their main supply flumes through to
Marlette Lake, which lies inside of the Tahoe basin.
To do this it was necessary to run a tunnel 3,000 feet
in length through the dividing ridge, or rim, of the
Tahoe basin. The sheet of water known as Marlette
Lake is almost entirely artificial, and owes its existence
to a big dam—is in reality a large reservoir. The
water covers an area of over 300 acres, and in the
middle is about 40 feet deep. The reservoir holds
16,000,000,000 gallons of water.</p>
<p>The second pipe was laid under the supervision of
Capt. J. B. Overton, Superintendent of the works
of the water company, who also extended the flumes,
constructed the tunnel through the mountain ridge,
and made all the other improvements. In 1887 a
third iron pipe of twelve inches inside diameter was
laid across the valley alongside the first two. It was
also a welded pipe and delivers much more water than
either of the others. The inlet pressure has been
raised on all three pipes, and they now deliver a total
flow of about 10,000,000 gallons in twenty-four hours.
In 1887, also, a branch flume was run to the northward
(Marlette Lake lying to the southward) a distance
of nine miles, which taps a number of creeks tributary
to Lake Tahoe on the east and northeast sides.
In the same year a reservoir capable of holding 20,000,000
gallons was constructed on Hobart Creek, on
the east side of the dividing ridge. In and near the
<span class="pb" id="Page_68">68</span>
city are reservoirs holding from 3,000,000 to 10,000,000
gallons, and a number of tanks along the side of
Mount Davidson of from 60,000 to 80,000 gallons,
capacity. The water is brought a distance of from
twenty-five to thirty-seven miles, and the supply
(aided by the several storage reservoirs) is ample for
all present uses. The total cost of the works of the
company has been about $2,500,000. Each of the
three pipes has its separate inlet and outlet, from two
flumes and into two flumes. Between the outlet and
the city the water passes through a large storage reservoir.</p>
<h3 id="c35">The Sutro Tunnel.</h3>
<p>While there was a scarcity of water on the surface
at Virginia City, there was a superabundance of it,
both hot and cold, under-ground in all the mines.
Levels were flooded so suddenly that oftentimes the
miners narrowly escaped being drowned by the vast
subterranean reservoirs that were unexpectedly tapped.
Great delays in mining were caused by these floods,
and to pump out the water that filled the lower levels
cost immense amounts of money. Several tunnels from
1,000 to 5,000 feet in length were run into the mountain,
but they were of only temporary utility, as the
shafts of the mines were soon below their level. In
order to overcome these water troubles, Adolph
Sutro early conceived the idea of running an immense
drain tunnel under the Comstock Lode from the lowest
possible point. A survey was made by Mr. H.
<span class="pb" id="Page_69">69</span>
Schussler, and work was commenced on the great
drain tunnel (since known as the Sutro Tunnel) October
19, 1869. It starts at the edge of the valley of
the Carson River, at a point nearly east of Virginia
City, and has a length of 20,145 feet—nearly 4 miles.
It taps the central parts of the Comstock Lode at a
depth of about 1,650 feet. The tunnel is 16 feet
wide and 12 feet high. Drain flumes are sunk in
the floor and over these are two tracks for horse-cars.
It required nearly eight years to construct the tunnel,
and the total cost was about $4,500,000. Although
the leading mines had their shafts down nearly 3,000
feet before the tunnel was finished, yet it was of great
use, as it saved 1,600 feet of pumping.</p>
<p>From the main tunnel branches were run north and
south along the east side of the vein for a distance of
over two miles, with which the several companies connected
by drain drifts from their mines. The flow of
water through the tunnel has at times been over 10,000,000
gallons in twenty-four hours. Between the
mouth of the tunnel and the Carson River there are
155 feet of fall, but it has never been utilized for
driving reduction works. New connections are still
being made with the tunnel for drainage. Though it
never paid anything near what was anticipated by
Mr. Sutro, the tunnel still brings in a snug sum annually.
Last year (the fiscal year that ended February
29, 1888) the receipts for royalties amounted to
$237,258.33. It costs a considerable amount annually
<span class="pb" id="Page_70">70</span>
to keep the main tunnel and branches in repair.
This great drain at a depth of 1,600 feet below
the surface allows of Pelton water wheels being
set up in the shafts of the several mines and worked
under immense pressure, there being a free discharge
from the wheels. At the C and C shaft of the Consolidated
California and Virginia, such wheels have
been put in every 500 feet from the surface down to
the Sutro Tunnel level. The water used on the first
wheel on the surface, in the stamp-mill, is caught up,
led to the shaft, and used on the second 500 feet below,
and so on down to the tunnel level, the power
being brought from wheel to wheel to the surface by
means of a system of steel wire cables. Thus is
transmitted to the surface the power developed by the
whole series of wheels.</p>
<h3 id="c36">The Reduction Works of the Early Days.</h3>
<p>In the early days the building of quartz-mills kept
pace with the building up of the towns. As early as
October, 1859, Logan & Holmes had a four-stamp
horse-power mill in operation at Dayton, and Hastings
& Woodworth had two water-power arastras at
work, which reduced six tons of ore a day. This ore
was not worked as silver ore. It was from the surface
of the Comstock Lode, at Gold Hill, and was
worked for gold only. In the spring of 1860 many
mills for working silver ore began to be erected.</p>
<h3 id="c37">The First Silver Mill.</h3>
<p>The first silver-mill that went into operation was
<span class="pb" id="Page_71">71</span>
the “Pioneer,” erected by Almarin B. Paul, on Gold
Canyon, at the north end of Silver City, just below
the Devil’s Gate. It was a steam mill and contained
twenty-four Howland rotary stamps and twenty-four
amalgamating pans. The work of erecting the mill
was commenced May 24, 1860, and it began work
August 13, the same year. Some others have claimed
the honor of starting the first quartz-mill in Nevada,
but this was undoubtedly the first silver-mill. In it
were operated the first silver amalgamating pans ever
seen anywhere. The iron amalgamating pans were
the result of experiments made by Almarin B. Paul
before he began the erection of his mill. He thought
the German barrel process and Mexican patio too
slow, and began to make experiments with some small
iron pans that had been in use at some of the quartz-mills
in California for grinding and working the sulphurets
saved by concentrating machines in working
the quartz of the gold mines. The best of these was
found to be the “Knox Improved Pan,” in which was
a false bottom that formed beneath the pan a steam-tight
heating chamber. By the use of this kind of
pan, and by treating the heated pulp with certain
quantities of salt, sulphate of copper, and some other
chemicals, before adding quicksilver, it was found that
a charge (whatever amount of crushed silver ore the
pan would hold) could be amalgamated in about three
hours. The results obtained with Knox’s Improved
Pan were so satisfactory that Mr. Paul placed pans of
<span class="pb" id="Page_72">72</span>
that pattern in his new mill. Soon after a score of
pans of different styles were invented, and to this day
pans of new patterns are still being invented and patented.</p>
<p>The Coover & Harris Mill, Gold Hill, was the first
mill in the country to start up with steam. It blew
its steam whistle a day before that of Paul’s “Pioneer”
was heard, but it could not then be called a silver-mill
as it was working gold quartz, the same as was
worked, in October the year before, at Dayton, by
Logan & Holmes and Hastings & Woodworth. The
mill had a fifteen horse-power engine that drove an
eight-stamp Howland rotary battery and crushed six
tons of ore a day. At first it was a dry crusher, but
soon Paul’s Concentrators and Knox’ pans were used.
The Harris of the firm was Dr. E. B. Harris, now a
resident of Virginia City.</p>
<h3 id="c38">The Many Mills of the Early Days.</h3>
<p>Very soon after these first mills went into operation
several others started up. By the spring of 1862 no
fewer than eighty-one quartz-mills were at work, the
majority of them on ore from mines situated on the
Comstock Lode. These mills were located in Virginia
City, on Six and Seven-mile Canyons, at Gold
Hill, Silver City, Dayton, at Empire City, and all
along the Carson River below that town; two or three
near Carson City (on Clear Creek and Mill Creek),
and a dozen or more about Washoe Valley and down
toward Steamboat Valley. Many of these mills were
<span class="pb" id="Page_73">73</span>
of small capacity, having only from two to ten stamps,
but there were already a few first-class reduction works,
as regards capacity, though their methods and processes
were defective. The reduction works of the
Ophir Company, in Washoe Valley, cost $500,000,
contained thirty-six stamps, were driven by an engine of
100 horse-power, and was capable of working 100
tons of ore a day. The Gould & Curry Mill then
building on Six-mile Canyon was of still greater capacity,
and the Land, Bassett, Winfield, Empire State,
Central, Marysville, Trench, Swansea, Phœnix, Succor,
Rock Point, Merrimac, Vivian, and several other
mills, contained from fifteen to twenty-five stamps
each. After the completion of the Virginia and
Truckee Railroad the majority of the outside mills
(mills to which it was necessary to transport ore, wood,
and other supplies by wagon) were pulled down and
removed to new mining camps in various parts of the
State. The greater part of the ores of the Comstock
were then reduced in steam mills near the mines or
in water mills on the Carson River on the line of the
railroad; and this is still the case.</p>
<p>We now have fewer mills than in the early days,
but they are of greater average capacity, and are in every
respect more effective than were those first erected.
More ore is crushed to the stamp, and the time
required for the amalgamation of the pulp has been
very materially reduced. All the present mills are so
constructed that there is very little handling of the
<span class="pb" id="Page_74">74</span>
ores operated upon, and labor-saving apparatus has
been introduced into nearly every department. Even
the old oil lamps are being thrown out of the mills and
the electric light introduced.</p>
<h3 id="c39">REDUCTION WORKS OF THE PRESENT DAY.</h3>
<h3 id="c40">Description of the Process of Working Comstock Silver Ore.</h3>
<p>In speaking of the works at present in use for the
reduction of silver ore, it will only be necessary to
describe the process in use in one mill, as all work
after the same system. Being the most recently
erected, and quite perfect in all its arrangements, the
new mill of the Nevada Mill and Mining Company,
commonly called the Chollar Mill (as it stands near
the Chollar old shaft), shall furnish the illustration
necessary to an understanding of the method of working
Comstock ores now generally in use. The mill
covers nearly an acre of ground, and the machinery is
at present (March, 1889) driven in part by a Pelton
water wheel 11 feet in diameter, and in part by power
electrically transmitted from the Sutro Tunnel level.
The mill building stands in a depression near the
head of a small ravine. Such a site was selected in
order that from the time the ore enters the mill its
course at each stage necessary to its complete reduction,
shall be downward—that there shall be no lifting
or hoisting of ore or pulp.</p>
<p>The mill stands a little over one hundred yards
<span class="pb" id="Page_75">75</span>
south of the Chollar shaft. From the shaft the ore is
run in the same cars in which it is hoisted from the
mine directly into the upper story of the mill. It is
there dumped through openings in the floor into the
ore bins. Over these ore bins are placed in a slanting
position iron bars three inches apart, forming
screens called “grizzlies.” Through these screens
the fine ore falls into the bins, while the large lumps
of rock roll down upon a floor in front of the rock-breaker,
an apparatus that works much on the same
principle as a lemon-squeezer. Between the jaws of
this powerful machine the largest and hardest piece
of quartz rock is at once chewed into fragments sufficiently
small to be fed into the batteries, where
the heavy stamps reduce it to pulp. The ore is delivered
into the batteries by self-feeders, which are so
regulated as to keep constantly under the stamps the
proper quantity of rock to do well the most work.
At the Chollar (or Nevada) Mill there are sixty stamps,—twelve
batteries of five stamps each. Each stamp
weighs about eight hundred pounds. On the end of
each stamp is a heavy head or block of iron or steel
called a “shoe,” and in the bottom of the mortar (a
long iron box in which the stamps of each battery
work) is a similar block of iron called a “die,” upon
which the shoe of the stamp strikes when it pulls. It
is between these two blocks of steel that the quartz is
crushed.</p>
<p>A small stream of water flows into each battery, and
<span class="pb" id="Page_76">76</span>
as the ore is reduced to a powder the water floats it
out through the fine screens that are fitted into the
face of each mortar. The pulverized ore and water,
on passing through the screens, falls into a small
trough, or sluice, which carries the muddy mixture
down to the settling tanks, on a floor below, in the
amalgamating room. In the tanks the crushed ore
settles and the water runs off. From the tanks the
pulverized ore, which resembles thin mortar, is shoveled
out upon the floor alongside the amalgamating
pans, into which it is shoveled whenever they are to
receive a fresh charge of ore.</p>
<p>The pans are of iron and each holds a “charge” of
about 3,000 pounds of the mortar-like pulp. In the
bottom of each pan are thick plates of chilled iron or
steel called “dies,” while revolving upon these are
other heavy pieces of steel, called “shoes” or mullers.
In the pans the pulverized ore is ground till it is
much finer than when it passed through the screens
of the battery.</p>
<p>When a pan has received its charge of pulverized
ore (“pulp”) a small amount of water is added to
render it sufficiently thin to be readily stirred by the
mullers. The pans have tight covers and double bottoms.
The double bottoms are steam chambers by
means of which the pulp in the pan is kept hot
while it is ground and agitated. After a charge has
been ground about two hours, some 300 pounds of
quicksilver are added (for 3,000 pounds of pulp),
<span class="pb" id="Page_77">77</span>
also a certain quantity of salt and sulphate of copper;
and sometimes soda or caustic potash and other
chemicals, if thought necessary, when the agitation in
the pan is continued two hours longer. The time of
working in the pan varies from three to five hours.</p>
<p>The Chollar Mill has thirty of these pans. On a
platform below that on which stand the pans are fifteen
settlers. These are about twice the size of the
pans. At the end of three or five hours each settler
has drawn off into it the contents of two pans. In
the settler the pulp, quicksilver, and amalgam are kept
in motion for about two hours. During this time
water is let in and the pulp made very thin. The
quicksilver and amalgam settle to the bottom of the
“settler,” and are drawn off through a pipe and pass
into a strainer—a strong canvas bag. There is an
iron box around each strainer, and this is kept locked.</p>
<p>It is in the pan that amalgamation takes place.
There the sulphuret and chloride of silver is changed
to the metallic form by the chemical action of the sulphate
of copper (bluestone) and salt, and when it takes
the metallic form it at once unites with quicksilver.
The gold contained in the ore (generally one-third of
its whole value) being always in the metallic form, is
amalgamated as soon as it is ground out of its inclosing
shell of quartz, or pyrites of iron.</p>
<p>The thinned pulp—mere muddy water in appearance—on
leaving the settlers passes into large wooden
tubs called “agitators,” in which are revolving rakes.
<span class="pb" id="Page_78">78</span>
In these tubs is caught some valuable material—principally
amalgam and quicksilver. From the “agitators”
the pulp flows out of the reduction works
through a small flume which conducts it to the blanket
sluices, fifty yards away in the open air. The blanket
sluices are broad, shallow flumes in the bottom of
which are placed strips of coarse woolen blanketing.
In passing over these blankets the pulp deposits pulverized
iron pyrites containing gold, some fine particles
of amalgam, and quicksilver; also such silver
sulphurets as escaped being amalgamated in the pans.
From time to time the blankets are taken out of the
sluices and rinsed in a large tank, in which operation is
saved whatever of value they may have caught.</p>
<p>The amalgam collected in the strainers standing
below the settlers is placed in a press and as much
quicksilver as possible pressed out, when it is placed
in retorts, which are heated till all the mercury is
driven off. There then remains behind the silver and
gold, in a dull, rough-looking mass. This “crude
bullion” is then broken up and placed in the melting
pots, to be made into “bricks” and assayed. The
bars or bricks made weigh about 100 pounds each.
From the top and bottom of each pot or crucible of
molten gold and silver is taken a small quantity of
the fluid metals from which assays are made to determine
the value of the bars. About thirty per cent
of the value of the Comstock bullion bars is in gold,
though it has at times run up to fifty per cent in some
mines, and as low as ten per cent in others.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_79">79</div>
<p>Though the Nevada Mill is in part driven by water,
half the power used is electrically transmitted from
six forty-inch Pelton water wheels set up in a large
chamber excavated on the Sutro Tunnel level of the
Chollar Mine, 1,630 feet below the surface. These
small Pelton wheels drive six Brush dynamos, which
generate the current that passes over the copper wires
to the electric motors in the mill. The electric apparatus
transmits to the main driving shaft of the mill
about sixty-five per cent of the power developed by
the Pelton wheels. Each Pelton wheel drives a dynamo,
and one, two, four or all the dynamos may be
run at the same time, just as may be required, each
Pelton and dynamo being independent of the others.</p>
<p>After the water is used on the large-surface Pelton
wheel in the mill it is caught up and by means of a
small flume is conducted to the shaft of the Chollar
Mine, near at hand, down which two large iron pipes
carry it to the six small Peltons below. By thus
twice using the same water a saving of one-half is
made. The pressure on the lower Pelton wheels is
immense. Never before has any water wheel been
operated under a vertical pressure of 1,630 feet.</p>
<p>The Nevada Mill was built to work the ores of the
Hale and Norcross, Chollar and Potosi Mines. It is
one of the most substantial mills in the country, and
no mill in the State is better arranged. It is lighted
with electricity, and the grounds in front are illuminated
by means of an arc light on a tall mast.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_80">80</div>
<h3 id="c41">The Two California Mills.</h3>
<p>The California stamp and pan-mills in Virginia City
reduce the ores of the Consolidated California and
Virginia Mine. The stamp-mill is situated immediately
east of the C and C shaft of the mine. It contains
eighty stamps. The ore crushed in this mill
is amalgamated in the pan-mill, which stands about
1,500 feet further east. The crushed ore is conducted
from the stamp-mill to the pan-mill through an
iron pipe four inches in diameter. The process of
amalgamation is much the same as at the Chollar
Mill, except that the pulp goes directly into the amalgamating
pans instead of being first received in settling
tanks. It flows from pan to pan—the outflow of the
first pan passing into the second through a pipe, thence
into a third, and so on and from settler to settler,
being in all about three hours in passing through the
series. This is called the Boss Continuous Process.
It is in use in no other mill on the Comstock, as yet.
In connection with the Rae electrical process of
amalgamation (in which a current of electricity is
passed through the settlers) it is found to work satisfactorily.
The electric current prevents loss of
“floured” quicksilver. Both mills are driven by Pelton
water wheels. A single Pelton wheel eleven feet
in diameter, placed on the surface, drives the eighty
stamps of the battery-mill, and also twelve Boss grinding
pans. The water used on the surface Pelton is
caught up and conducted to the C and C shaft, where
<span class="pb" id="Page_81">81</span>
it is used on a series of Pelton wheels of the same
size. These wheels are placed in chambers made for
their reception 500 feet apart from the top of the shaft
down to the Sutro Tunnel level (there 1,500 feet), and
by means of steel wire cables, used as belts, the power
of all the lower wheels is brought to a main driving
shaft on the surface. The whole power is then transmitted
to the pan-mill (about 1,600 feet) by means of
steel wire cables passing over pulleys placed on a
series of tall wooden towers. The cables pass over a
considerable depression between the top of the C and
C shaft and the pan-mill; three high towers are required
in the middle portion.</p>
<h3 id="c42">River and Canyon Mills.</h3>
<p>The Mexican Mill, on the Carson River, contains
forty-four stamps and a corresponding number of pans,
settlers, and other amalgamating machinery. The
Morgan Mill has forty stamps. It works ore from the
Consolidated California and Virginia Mine. The
Brunswick Mill contains seventy-six stamps, the Vivian
sixteen, Santiago thirty-eight, and Eureka sixty.
All these mills are about and below Empire City, and
all work Comstock ores. The Eureka Mill is run on
ore from the Consolidated California and Virginia.
The Rock Point Mill (thirty stamps), at Dayton, and
the Douglas Mill (ten stamps), in Lower Gold Hill,
also work Comstock ores.</p>
<p>At and about Silver City are two or three small
<span class="pb" id="Page_82">82</span>
mills that work the ores of mines in that neighborhood,
and on the Carson River are the Douglas and Woodworth
Mills, which work tailings.</p>
<p>On Six-mile Canyon, below Virginia City to the east,
are several small water mills having an aggregate of
about thirty stamps. These work ores from the mines
on the canyon and in Flowery District. On the canyon
are also one or two small mills that work tailings
and the concentrations from blanket sluices.</p>
<p>The Alta Mining Company has a ten-stamp mill,
with concentrators, immediately adjoining the hoisting
works at their mine. The Justice Company have a
new ten-stamp mill near their mine.</p>
<p>Owing to the fact that many mines are now at the
same time producing large quantities of ore, a lack of
milling facilities is being felt. To meet this demand
the Nevada Mill has been enlarged one-third, and the
capacity of other mills will be increased, and perhaps
some new mills will be erected. Processes by means
of which low-grade ores may be profitably worked will
no doubt yet be invented or discovered, which will
cause many new works to be erected either on the
Carson River or in the neighborhood of the mines
producing large quantities of such ores.</p>
<h3 id="c43">THE COMSTOCK LODE.</h3>
<h3 id="c44">Hoisting Works, Shafts, and Mining, Past and Present.</h3>
<p>The Comstock Lode crops out along the eastern
<span class="pb" id="Page_83">83</span>
face of Mount Davidson about 1,200 feet below the
summit, and just above the western suburbs of Virginia
City. To the northward and southward the
vein runs along the east side of other and smaller
mountains of the same range. The face of Mount
Davidson slopes to the east at an angle of about
twenty-five degrees, and the vein dips in the same direction
at an average inclination of forty-five degrees.
It was at first supposed that the vein dipped to the
west (into Mount Davidson), and the first hoisting
works were erected on or near the croppings, where
shafts were sunk and inclines sent down. For the
first 400 to 500 feet the vein did pitch to the west into
the mountain. Mount Davidson was then supposed
to be the great central magazine, or nucleus, of all the
silver found near the surface, and claims located on
the slope of the mountain below to the eastward found
but little favor in the eyes of mining men and would-be
purchasers. Suddenly all this was changed, and
there was a general “right-about-face.” It was discovered
in the Gould & Curry and the Ophir Mines
that at a certain depth the lode became perpendicular,
then turned and took a regular dip to the east, of
about forty-five degrees, following as a footwall the
syenite slope of Mount Davidson. It was then seen
that the false dip above was caused by the top of the
vein being bent over under the pressure of sliding material
on the slope of the mountain at and near the
surface.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_84">84</div>
<h3 id="c45"><span class="smaller">THE THREE LINES OF HOISTING WORKS.</span></h3>
<p>However, much ore was mined at the first line of
works, particularly at the Ophir, Mexican, California,
Gould & Curry, Savage, and Hale & Norcross Mines.
But, as the dip of the vein was away from these first
works, it presently became necessary to move to the
eastward about 1,000 feet. As very deep shafts
would there be required in order to intersect the lode,
larger and much more powerful hoisting works and
pumping machinery must be erected. Indeed, the
new works required to be first-class in every respect,
as the shafts would be far deeper than any yet put
down on the lode, and it was by this time known
that there would be immense quantities of water to
handle.</p>
<p>Accordingly, the second line of fine and powerful
first-class works, seen at present, and again in active
use, was constructed. The shafts of the new line of
works all cut into the heart of the vein, and in several
the “bonanzas” found were so large and so rich as
to astonish the whole mining world and create a
much greater and far more widespread excitement
than was seen when silver was first discovered in the
croppings of the vein at the Ophir Mine. All the
leading mines were soon taking out their tens of millions,
but when the “big bonanza” was struck in the
Consolidated Virginia and California the yield of gold
and silver bullion soon became a matter of scores of
millions. It was then that the fame of the Comstock
<span class="pb" id="Page_85">85</span>
spread to every corner of the world, and the rush of
speculators, fortune-seekers, and adventurers of all
ages, sexes, and classes was greater than ever before.
Though what is called the “Big Bonanza” was struck
in the Consolidated Virginia in October, 1873, at a
point on the 1,167-foot level, it was not until October,
1874, that the excitement in regard to it reached
fever-heat. The main shaft had then reached the
1,500-foot level, and the ore disclosed by drifts and
chambers was of such extraordinary and astonishing
richness that experts could hardly believe their eyes
or assayers their figures.</p>
<p>The Comstock Lode had a width (between the
syenite wall on the west and the propylite on the east)
of from 1,000 to 1,200 feet at the point where the
“Big Bonanza” was struck. The space between the
two walls was filled with what is locally termed “vein
material” (gangue), and in this was found the ore
body or “bonanza,” which was in one place over 300
feet in width. This mass of ore yielded from $100
to $700 per ton, but in places were found masses of
pure native silver and spots of ore so rich in black
sulphuret and gold that to make assays of it was much
like making assays of the pure metals. From the
“Bonanza Mines” alone from 1873 up to 1882 were
taken $111,975,761.39; but in 1879 the yield began
to fall off as the vein was followed downward, and
in 1882 the amount of bullion taken out was small,
not paying expenses.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_86">86</div>
<p>In the meantime (while the big bonanza of the
Consolidated Virginia and California companies was
being worked out) most of the leading companies had
exhausted their second bonanzas. Instead of prospecting
further in their immediate neighborhood,
they all determined to go still farther east, sink a new
line of shafts, and tap the vein at a still greater depth.
This time they went out about 2,000 feet beyond their
second line of hoisting works, or 3,000 feet east of
the croppings of the lode. As it would be necessary
to sink shafts to a depth of about 3,000 feet to intersect
the vein, the hoisting works, hoisting machinery,
and all else was made much larger, more powerful,
and on a grander scale in every respect, than the second
line. The principal works on this third line are
those of the Combination shaft, New Yellow Jacket
shaft, Osbiston and Union shafts, and the Forman
shaft. In sinking these several companies united, the
work was prosecuted with the greatest energy, and no
expense was spared as regarded machinery and appliances.</p>
<h3 id="c46"><span class="smaller">THE COMBINATION SHAFT.</span></h3>
<p>Of these shafts, that which attained the greatest
vertical depth was the Combination—the joint shaft
of the Chollar, Hale & Norcross, and Savage Companies.
Before work on it was discontinued it had
reached the great depth of 3,250 feet. There is but
one deeper vertical shaft in the world. This is the
<span class="pb" id="Page_87">87</span>
Adalbert Shaft, in the silver mines of Bohemia, which
is 3,280 feet deep. There is no record of the time
when work on this mine in Bohemia was commenced,
though its written history extends back to 1527. The
Combination Shaft was sunk at the rate of three feet a
day, even in rock as hard as flint. The whole shaft
is sunk in very hard rock (andesite), every foot of
which had to be blasted. It is thirty feet by ten feet
in size and is divided into four compartments for the
accommodation of the hoisting and pumping apparatus.</p>
<p>The shaft was sunk to the depth of 2,200 feet before
more water was encountered than could be hoisted
out in the “skips” with the dirt. Down to the 2,400
level two Cornish pumps were used, each with columns
fifteen inches in diameter. A drift run west
into the vein tapped more water than the Cornish
pumps could handle, when the management introduced
hydraulic pumps. These pumps are run by the
pressure of water from the surface through a pipe running
down from the top of the shaft, whereas the
Cornish pumps were run by huge steam engines.
The shaft is connected with the Sutro drain tunnel at
the depth of 1,600 feet, and to that point it was necessary
to pump all the water. At the 3,000 level were
placed a pair of hydraulic pumps, the deepest in the
world. In Europe the deepest point at which a hydraulic
pump has ever been worked is 2,700 feet.
This is in the Hartz Mountains, in Germany.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_88">88</div>
<p>When one stood at the 3,000 level and looked up
a compartment of the shaft (five feet by six feet in
size) the little spot of daylight seen at the top appeared
to be about four inches square. At this great
depth even the smallest bit of rock falling from the
top whistles like a rifle-ball before reaching the bottom,
and, striking a man on the head, would instantly
kill him. Should a man fall that distance little would
remain on which to hold an inquest—his body would
be quite “dissipated.” The Cornish and the hydraulic
pumps working together had a daily capacity of
5,200,000 gallons—a small river! Hydraulic pumps
were placed at the 2,400-foot level, the 2,600 and the
3,000 levels. Some idea of the great size of these engines
and pumps may be formed when it is stated
that the stations excavated for them were eighty-five
feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, and twelve feet high.
All this space was so filled with machinery that there
was only room left to move about among it. Drifts
were run to the west to the lode at the 2,400, 2,800
and 3,000-foot levels. On the 3,000 level the distance
from the shaft to the east wall of the vein was
found to be only 250 feet. The lode at this depth
(3,000 feet) was found to be of great width and well
mineralized—indeed the Hale & Norcross folks had a
good showing of ore.</p>
<h3 id="c47">The Deepest Workings.</h3>
<p>Although the Combination Shaft is the deepest vertical
opening on the lode, it is not the point of deepest
<span class="pb" id="Page_89">89</span>
mining. The deepest workings are in the mine of the
Union Consolidated Company, toward the north end
of the lode. There long drifts were run and much
prospecting done at the great depth of 3,350 feet.
This depth was obtained by running a drift from the
bottom of the vertical shaft and then sinking a winze
from the drift.</p>
<p>The Yellow Jacket (new) shaft has a vertical depth
of 3,050 feet, and much prospecting was done in the
mine at a depth of 3,000 feet; also in the Belcher
and Crown Point. In the Belcher excellent prospects
were being obtained when the company were obliged
to discontinue work. By connecting adjacent shafts
by means of drifts and otherwise maintaining a proper
system of ventilation miners experience no difficulty
in working at any depth yet attained on the Comstock
Lode.</p>
<h3 id="c48">A Return to the Second Line of Works.</h3>
<p>February 13, 1882, a flow of water was tapped on
the 2,700 level of the Exchequer Mine, that flooded
not only that mine, but also the Alpha, Imperial,
Yellow Jacket, Kentuck, Crown Point, Belcher, Overman,
Segregated Belcher, and Caledonia. The water
rushed to the Yellow Jacket Shaft, where the pumping
was done which drained the advanced workings (most
eastern) of all the mines named. The Yellow Jacket
folks pumped and bailed an average flow of 110 miners
inches a day for seven days. Though they were raising
1,320 gallons every minute the water gained on
<span class="pb" id="Page_90">90</span>
them and raised to the level (2,700) on which it was
tapped by the Exchequer. The water had then filled
all the drifts, cross-cuts, and winzes of the whole group
of mines from the Bullion south to the Caledonia.
Pumping was still continued, for the purpose of exhausting
the subterranean reservoir in the Exchequer,
till March 28, when the water had been so far reduced
that there was a depth of only 950 feet above
the 3,000 level of the Yellow Jacket Shaft. Then, as
no combined arrangement could be made among the
several companies interested to continue the work
and drain all the mines, the Yellow Jacket Company
stopped pumping and shut down their works. This
stopped all work below the level of the Sutro drain tunnel,
and the works have never since been started up.
Had all the companies “stood in” for a time longer all
the flooded mines would have been thoroughly drained.</p>
<p>The cost of the new works on the advanced line
had been so much, and the expense incurred in hoisting
and pumping from such great depths was so heavy,
that stockholders in all the mines along the lode now
became discouraged. They declared that what had
happened in the case of the Gold Hill group of mines
was liable to happen in the other deep workings, and
began to clamor for a general return to the works at
the second line of shafts, where it was known that
pay ore had been left behind in the race after depth.
When stockholders found that the deep shafts did
not at once cut into pay ore, when they tapped the
<span class="pb" id="Page_91">91</span>
vein, they had no patience to wait for much prospecting
to be done. They demanded that paying deposits
be sought for at once in the old levels above
the Sutro Tunnel, where there could be no trouble from
water. Thus it happens that along the whole lode all
the mining now being done is at the works situated
over the second line of shafts, and above the level of
the Sutro Tunnel. These shafts are by no means
shallow, as they range in depth from 2,000 to 2,900
feet. The return has been fortunate. The vein being
from 400 to 1,000 and even in places 1,400 feet
in width between walls, it was very little explored in
the neighborhood of the works of the second line of
shafts. When the bonanzas in sight were exhausted,
the universal cry was: “Get away to the east! Strike
the lode at greater depths! Another 1,000 feet of
depth will give us a third fertile zone—a third line of
bonanzas!” Now it is being discovered that large and
rich deposits of ore had been left behind—that they
are scattered in all directions in the great breadth of
vein material like plums in a pudding. Again dividends
are the order of the day along the famous old
lode.</p>
<h3 id="c49">The Old First Bonanzas.</h3>
<p>Out of the first “bonanzas” great fortunes were
taken. The bonanza of the Ophir, into which the
first discoverers of silver—O’Riley and McLaughlin—accidentally
dug, yielded about $20,000,000 before it
was exhausted; the Savage, $16,500,000; Hale &
<span class="pb" id="Page_92">92</span>
Norcross, $11,000,000; Chollar and Potosi, $16,000,000;
Gould & Curry, $15,500,000; Yellow Jacket,
$16,500,000; Crown Point, $22,000,000; Belcher,
$26,000,000; Overman, $3,250,000; Imperial, $2,750,000,
and the Kentuck, Sierra Nevada, Justice, and
many other mines sums running from hundreds of thousands
up into millions. In all, the yield of the mines
on the Comstock Lode from the discovery down to the
present time has been between $350,000,000 and
$400,000,000. Of much of the silver and gold at
first taken from the lode, both at Gold Hill and Virginia
City, there is no record; and in many instances
since that time much gold and silver bullion has been
obtained from ores, tailings, slimes, and sulphurets
that was never fully accounted for.</p>
<h3 id="c50">The New Departure.</h3>
<p>In the new departure, of which a return to the second
line of hoisting works was the leading feature, the
two bonanza mines—the California and the Consolidated
Virginia—were consolidated and incorporated
as one mine under the name of the Consolidated California
and Virginia. Work was resumed in the old
upper levels and soon small streaks of low-grade ore,
that had formerly been passed by, led to deposits of
fair milling ore. In working these deposits other
bodies were found, and finally many new and valuable
ore bodies were developed. A fire which had been
smouldering for about ten years in a section of the old
workings was extinguished by the use of carbonic acid
<span class="pb" id="Page_93">93</span>
gas, and this gave access to large deposits of milling
ore that had not before been available. This and the
new discoveries soon gave the company large bodies
of ore in a number of places above the Sutro Tunnel
level. Again many miners were employed, and the
output of ore became sufficient to keep many stamps
in constant operation.</p>
<p>The total yield of the “Big Bonanza,” in the California
and Consolidated Virginia, was as follows:
Consolidated Virginia, $65,116,822.69: California,
$46,858,938.70, making a total of $111,975,761.39.
Out of this the Consolidated Virginia paid dividends
amounting to $42,930,000, and the California a total
of $31,320,000 in dividends.</p>
<h3 id="c51">Present Yield of Leading Mines.</h3>
<p>Since the consolidation of the two mines, the Consolidated
California and Virginia has yielded $8,001,856.95,
and has paid dividends amounting to $2,440,800,
up to and including December, 1888. The total
yield of the great ore deposit known as the “Big
Bonanza,” from the time of its discovery to the end of
December, 1888 (under both incorporations), was
$119,977,618.34, and the total amount of dividends to
the same date was $76,690,800. To give an idea of
the rate of the present yield of the mine the following
details are furnished: For the quarter that ended
March 31, 1888, the mine produced 39,552 tons of
ore, yielding $921,903.77 in bullion, an average of
<span class="pb" id="Page_94">94</span>
$23 30 a ton. In April (1888) there was worked a
total of 13,893 tons of ore, yielding bullion to the value
of $418,729.43. The average assay value a ton was
$36.83, and the average yield a ton was $30.13.
In May the yield was $411,173.13; in June,
$405,834.08; July, $206,672.26; August, $352,554.97;
September, $267,386.18; October, $339,814.45;
November, $220,373.74; and in December, $260,320.56.
The falling off in the month of July and thereafter
throughout the year was due to the dry season in
the summer and a phenomenally dry fall and winter.
In January, 1889, there was a fair milling stage of
water in the Carson River the greater part of the time,
and the yield of bullion rose to $267,847.51.</p>
<p>The mine has kept the Morgan and Eureka Mills
going to their full capacity whenever there was sufficient
water to run them at all. Owing to a scarcity of
water at the sources of supply in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, the Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company
have for some months been unable to furnish
water for the two California Mills in this city; to furnish
water to the Nevada Mill has been a heavy draft
on the reservoirs. With proper storage reservoirs in
the Sierras the mills on the Carson River might be
run the year round. At present eighty per cent of all
the water flows into the “sinks” and is lost.</p>
<p>More mines on the Comstock are at the present
time producing paying ore than ever before in the history
<span class="pb" id="Page_95">95</span>
of the lode. The following mines are now ore
producing: Consolidated California and Virginia,
Gould & Curry, Occidental, Ophir, Andes, Savage,
Hale & Norcross, Chollar, Potosi, Confidence, Challenge,
Yellow Jacket, Belcher, Crown Point, Alta,
Justice, Overman, Baltimore, and Kentuck. Several
other companies who own mines on the lode have
quartz that yields promising assays in the precious
metals, and are liable at any time to find paying deposits.</p>
<p>To show the rate at which some of the mines have
been paying during the past year, though handicapped
by an unusually dry season and a lack of milling facilities,
I give a few statistics, as follows: During the
quarter that ended March 31, 1888, the Chollar
Company milled 1,415 tons of ore that yielded $21,795.70
in bullion; the Confidence 1,722 tons, yielding
$42,541.72; Hale & Norcross, 7,958 tons, yielding
$236,047.32; Kentuck, 1,027 tons, yielding $13,055.50;
Potosi, 3,050 tons, yielding $56,461.16, and the
Yellow Jacket, 16,780 tons, yielding $121,027.82.</p>
<p>For the quarter ending June 30, 1888, the Hale &
Norcross yielded 18,075 tons of ore, that produced
$451,740 in bullion; the Chollar, 4,750 tons, yielding
$74,507; Confidence, 17,285 tons, yielding $401,293;
Yellow Jacket, 7,080 tons, yielding $55,022.</p>
<p>For the quarter that ended September 30, the Hale
& Norcross yielded 6,365 tons of ore, that produced
$173,941.80 in bullion; Confidence, 9,207 tons, yielding
<span class="pb" id="Page_96">96</span>
$176,064.93; Yellow Jacket, 1,370 tons, yielding
$9,932.</p>
<p>For the quarter that ended December 30, 1888, the
Chollar milled 2,835 tons that yielded $38,130.81:
Challenge, 1,875 tons, yielding $31,096.16; Confidence,
6,195 tons, yielding $105,970.59; Yellow
Jacket, 3,388 tons, yielding $25,856; Savage, 5,292
tons, yielding $66,422.75; Hale & Norcross, 4,820
tons, yielding $90,015.59, and the Alta, 946 tons,
yielding $23,330.</p>
<p>The Consolidated California and Virginia has steadily
paid $108,000 monthly in dividends. The Confidence
and Hale & Norcross also paid dividends during
1888 at the rate of from $49,000 to $50,000 a
month. And during the year the pay rolls of the several
companies have aggregated from $250,000 to over
$300,000 a month.</p>
<p>During 1888, new bodies of ore were found in the
Consolidated California and Virginia, Hale & Norcross,
Confidence, Yellow Jacket, Crown Point, Gould
& Curry, Savage, Chollar, Potosi, Best & Belcher, and
some others. Crown Point and Belcher have made
connection with the Sutro drain tunnel, and are again
working below that level. Eventually the leading
companies will get back into the deep workings now
deserted.</p>
<h3 id="c52">Vicissitudes of Fortune in Mining.</h3>
<p>The vicissitudes of fortune are probably more striking
in mining for silver than in any other kind of
<span class="pb" id="Page_97">97</span>
mining. In all silver-producing countries we are
told of mines being again and again abandoned because
it was thought their rich “bonanzas” had been
exhausted, but they have again and again been reopened
and new and rich bodies of ore discovered.
The Valenciana Mine, on the Veta Macbee (mother
vein), of Guanaguato, Mexico, was reopened in 1760,
on a part of the vein where work had been done in
the sixteenth century, and which had afterwards lain
as worthless for 200 years, and in 1768 a bonanza was
struck at a depth of only 240 feet, from which $1,500,000
was extracted annually. And from 1788 to 1810
the annual average was still $1,383,195. At a depth
of 1,200 feet the ore was considered too poor for extracting,
and the mine was allowed to fill with water.
Afterwards it was again opened and again paid immensely
by working the almost inexhaustible quantities
of low-grade ore.</p>
<p>The Veta Grande, at Zacatecas, which from 1548
to 1832 yielded $660,000,000, occurs in propalite, as
does the Comstock, and has a similar structure, the
vein branching out toward the surface, and dipping at
an angle of forty-five degrees. It is, however, much
smaller than the Comstock. It averages only about
thirty-three feet, and eighty feet is its greatest width.
In the upper part the ore was found concentrated in
chimneys, but at depth it was found to be distributed
through nearly the whole width of the vein. At first
this low grade material could not be made to pay, but
<span class="pb" id="Page_98">98</span>
since it has been profitably worked and the bullion
product has reached a high figure. Scores of such examples
may be found in all silver-producing countries,
as chronicled by Humboldt, Ward, Von Cotta, and
others.</p>
<p>Even when no more large deposits of rich ore are to
be found on the Comstock, there are immense and
almost inexhaustible areas of low-grade ore upon
which to fall back. In working these small bonanzas
are sure to be encountered—scattered plums in the
pudding—which will assist in sending up the average.
New processes for working and concentrating ores are
constantly being discovered, new methods in mining
are being introduced, and new labor-saving
machinery is almost daily being invented. Water-power,
steam, compressed air, and electricity are fast
taking the place of muscle. Each year machinery
guided by mind is lessening the work to be done by
mere power of muscle. Already the cost of milling
has been greatly reduced, as has the cost of transporting
ores and the cost of wood, lumber, and mining
timbers. Present expenses will shortly be still further
reduced.</p>
<h3 id="c53">TOWNS OF WESTERN NEVADA.</h3>
<h3 id="c54">Virginia City.</h3>
<p>Virginia City having been sufficiently well described
in connection with the Comstock Lode, it now remains
to briefly mention the other towns of Western Nevada.
These all lie near the Sierras within a space of territory
<span class="pb" id="Page_99">99</span>
forty-four miles long and twenty-five miles wide—under
the “eaves” of the mountains.</p>
<h3 id="c55">Gold Hill.</h3>
<p>The town of Gold Hill was originally about one
mile south of Virginia City—a mile south of where
silver was first struck in the Ophir Mine. Buildings
now unite the two towns. The boundary line between
the two places is on the ridge called the “Divide,”
but at that point there is no break in the rows
of buildings on the streets. Gold Hill is built along
the deep and narrow gorge that forms the head of Gold
Canyon. From the north line on the Divide it straggles
down the hill and along down the canyon for a
distance of about two miles—almost down to Silver
City indeed, the main business street following what
was formerly the channel of the ravine.</p>
<p>There were houses and settlers in Gold Hill before
there were either in Virginia City, therefore it is the
older town. Here it was that the Comstock Lode was
first struck—though not the silver ore—by “Old Virginia”
(John Bishop) and others, who were prospecting
for placer mines. The town is 6,000 feet above the
level of the sea, and, being shut in on the east and
west sides by hills, it is always two or three degrees
warmer than Virginia, 1,000 feet above on the mountain-side.</p>
<p>The first miners at Gold Hill were really at work in
a “chimney” of the Comstock, a little hill sometimes
called “Gold Hill proper,” to distinguish the hill from
<span class="pb" id="Page_100">100</span>
the town. Much gold was taken out of the top of
this chimney, and at depth it yielded many millions in
silver. Although scores of millions have been taken
out of the vein beneath the foundations of the town, it
is still yielding its millions, and still new ore bodies
are being developed in the great vein.</p>
<p>Under the town are situated the world-famous Crown
Point, Belcher, Yellow Jacket, Imperial, Kentuck,
Confidence, and other mines, while farther down the
canyon (under Lower Gold Hill) are the Overman,
Alta, Benton, Justice, and several other well-known
mines. The mining works in the town are in every
respect first-class and are lighted with electric lamps.
In the town are many fine buildings, both public and
private. There is a handsome Catholic Church, and
the High School building is one of the best buildings
of the kind in the State. The Miners’ Union have a
commodious hall on Main Street, and the other
societies and orders have fine halls. Conspicuous
among the private residences of the town is that of
U. S. Senator J. P. Jones—the “Jones mansion,” as
it is familiarly called. The town has an abundant
supply of water (from the Virginia and Gold Hill
Water Company’s works), and is well supplied with
fire hydrants; it also has electrical lights. In 1878
the population was about 8,000, but it is now less than
half that number. About the town are many handsome
private grounds. Shade and ornamental trees
begin to abound, and to the north, towering hundreds
<span class="pb" id="Page_101">101</span>
of feet above the town, are picturesque castellated piles
of bare granite rocks. The Virginia and Truckee
Railroad passes through the town.</p>
<h3 id="c56">Silver City.</h3>
<p>Silver City is situated on Gold Canyon, a short distance
below Lower Gold Hill. The two towns are
separated by a rugged ridge of porphyritic rock,
through which is a pass only three or four rods wide,
known as the Devil’s Gate. About and below Silver
City much gravel mining was done by the Johntowners
in the early days. It was at Silver City that
the first silver mill (Paul’s Pioneer) was built. It
had a newspaper—the <i>Washoe Times</i>—before a newspaper
was published in Virginia, the <i>Territorial Enterprise</i>
being then (1860) published in Carson City.
At one time it had many big silver mills and promised
to be the big town of the State; but the tide
turned and all crowded in about the big mines at Virginia
City. The town contains at present a population
of only about 600. There is a fine public-school
building, church, Miners’ Union Hall, and many
handsome and comfortable dwellings, with an adequate
supply of saloons, stores, and shops.</p>
<p>About the town are an immense number of small
veins of gold-bearing quartz that pay from the surface
down. Nearly every head of a family in the town
has his own mine, and when he wants money he
shoulders his pick, goes out to his mine, and digs it,
<span class="pb" id="Page_102">102</span>
as a farmer in the East digs a “mess” of potatoes.
Of late some large veins have been opened up in and
about the town—as the Oest, Hawood, and others—and
Silver City bids fair soon to become a busy mining
center. The people have lived off their home
mines for thirty years, and constitute the most thoroughly
independent mining community to be found
in Nevada.</p>
<h3 id="c57">Dayton.</h3>
<p>Dayton, the county seat of Lyon County, lies five
miles below Silver City, on the Carson River, at the
mouth of Gold Canyon. The beginning of this town
was a log building, erected as a dwelling and trading-post
by John McMarlin, in the fall of 1849. Being on
the overland wagon road passing over the Sierras by the
Placerville route, there was a good deal of trade with
incoming immigrants, as well as with the miners, who
soon began to earn from $8.00 to $12 a day in the
gravel bank and bars of Gold Canyon. In 1856,
about fifty Chinamen came over the mountains and
began mining on the lower part of the canyon, working
over the banks and bars left by the white miners.
In 1858, nearly 200 Chinamen were at work in the
canyon from its mouth up toward Johntown. These
had their shanties about McMarlin’s store, and the
place took the name of “Chinatown,” by which name
it was known at the time of the discovery of silver.</p>
<p>In 1861 an attempt was made (many whites having
then settled there) to give the place the name of “Nevada
<span class="pb" id="Page_103">103</span>
City.” This did not take, as there was already
a Nevada City in California, and for a time the town
was called “Mineral Rapids,” but this finally gave
way to the present name of Dayton. The place grew
apace, it being then expected that nearly all the ore
of the Comstock would be worked at and near the
town in mills driven by water-power. This hope was
not realized, though several fine mills were built near
the town. It had in 1878 a population of about
1,200, and has since held its own very well. Though
not a very large town, it has always been a very pleasant
and flourishing one.</p>
<p>The Carson and Colorado Railroad passes through
the town, and from this a branch built in 1888 extends
down the river to the Rock Point Mill. Here (at
Dayton) is to be the scene of the operations of the
Carson River Dredging Company, an Eastern incorporation
headed by Dr. J. H. Rae. The object is to
pump up from the bottom of the Carson River the
millions in gold and silver, amalgam, and quicksilver,
washed into the river and lost with the tailings running
from the many mills. No doubt the “millions”
found their way into the river, but whether they can
be brought out of its bottom by means of a big suction
pump remains to be seen. It is the universal wish
that the dredger may prove a success. All will be in
readiness to try it this season on a large scale.</p>
<p>Dayton contains good public buildings of all kinds
required, both county and town, has several mills, and
<span class="pb" id="Page_104">104</span>
many handsome private residences, surrounded with
gardens and fruit and shade trees. In summer the
place is completely embowered.</p>
<p>The acid works of J. M. Douglass & Co. manufacture
daily two tons of sulphuric acid. The
sulphur used is a native product of Nevada, and is
brought from the mine in Humboldt County at a cost
of $40 a ton. Dayton is surrounded with a fine
agricultural and grazing region. A narrow-gauge
railroad five miles long runs down the river from the
Douglass Mill to a large tailings reservoir.</p>
<h3 id="c58">Sutro.</h3>
<p>Sutro is a town laid off at the mouth of the Sutro
Tunnel by Adolph Sutro. Mr. Sutro claimed that
his town would kill Virginia City, as all the reduction
works would be located there, and all the miners would
reside there, passing to and from their work through
the tunnel. As there would no longer be any need of
anyone remaining in Virginia, the place would be
given up to bats and owls—coyotes would sit upon
the peak of Mount Davidson and “bay the moon.”
Believing Mr. Sutro to have got hold of the mantle of
some ancient financial prophet, many persons were
induced to flee the “wrath to come” (bats, owls and
coyotes), and settle down at the mouth of the tunnel.
There was quite a brisk little town there for a few
years, but when the tunnel was completed and the
miners discharged Sutro’s “bats and owls” came home
to roost—they found no rest for the soles of their feet
<span class="pb" id="Page_105">105</span>
at Virginia. Once the men who had been engaged in
driving the tunnel went away, there was nothing more
to make or keep up a town than at any other point
along the edge of the valley; for the big reduction
works promised by Mr. Sutro were never built.</p>
<h3 id="c59">Carson City.</h3>
<p>Carson City is the county seat of Ormsby County
and the capital of Nevada. It is situated in Eagle
Valley, immediately east of the high-timbered hills
forming the eastern base of the main range of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains. Unlike the majority of
Nevada towns, it has a dry, level plain for its site.
The city was laid out in 1858 by Major Ormsby and
others. The streets conform to the cardinal points of
the compass. There being no lack of level land, the
streets were made sixty-six and eighty feet wide. Previous
to 1858 there was no town where Carson now
stands, and only one house, which was at Eagle Ranch,
which ranch gave its name to the valley in which it
was situated. Afterwards this ranch became better
known as King’s Ranch.</p>
<p>Carson City grew rapidly from the start, for it was
not only pleasantly situated, but also occupied an advantageous
position as a center of trade. For several
years in its infancy it derived a good deal of benefit
from its trade with the great immigrant trains that
yearly rattled in across the “plains;” besides, it was a
halting-place for people rushing to the silver mines
<span class="pb" id="Page_106">106</span>
from the California side of the mountains. In nearly
all directions it is surrounded by excellent agricultural
and grazing lands. With the regular and scientific
opening of the mines Carson became the headquarters
of an enormous trade in wood, lumber, and mining
timbers, a business it still retains. The city has at
present a population of about 4,100.</p>
<p>Carson contains many fine and costly buildings,
both public and private. The pride of the city is the
State Capitol. It is the most striking structure in the
place. The building is handsome architecturally, being
well proportioned in all its parts. It also has a
very substantial appearance, as it is constructed of
stone throughout. This stone is a beautiful, fine-grained
sandstone obtained from a quarry at the State
prison, about a mile and a half east of the town. The
building was erected in 1870. The Capitol occupies
the center of a square several acres in extent. This
square is surrounded with a handsome and substantial
iron fence. The grounds are handsomely laid out
and well kept. They are well swarded and contain a
great variety of shade and ornamental trees, shrubbery,
and flowering plants. The whole is a credit to the
State.</p>
<p>The U. S. Branch Mint building is a large, substantial,
and imposing structure. It is also of stone, from
the State Prison quarry. The building was completed
in July, 1869. It has done and is still doing a great
deal of work.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_107">107</div>
<p>The State Orphans’ Home is a large and well-arranged
building with a small farm in connection therewith.
In this institution a great number of orphan
children from all sections of the State are cared for.
The home is governed in a paternal way, and the children
are well clothed, well fed, and well educated both
morally and intellectually.</p>
<p>The town contains several churches of leading denominations,
excellent school-houses, and a number of
halls of various societies, orders, and lodges. There
are half a dozen fine hotels, many large fire-proof
stores and business houses, with the usual proportion
of neat and attractive retail shops of all kinds, saloons,
and the like.</p>
<p>The buildings of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad
Company are a noticeable feature of the town. The
depot buildings are commodious and conveniently
arranged, and are always kept neatly painted and in
good repair. In the town they have an immense car
shop. The building is in large part constructed of
iron. In it are a foundry, machine shop, roundhouse,
and car manufactory.</p>
<p>Carson has a large box factory and other manufacturing
establishments of several kinds. The
place has both electrical lights and gas. It is
well supplied with pure mountain water, which is led
through all the streets under a heavy pressure. The
town site has sufficient slope to the eastward to afford
good drainage. The city supports two daily newspapers,
<span class="pb" id="Page_108">108</span>
the <i>Appeal</i> and <i>Tribune</i>, and has a good
theater.</p>
<p>A fine large brick building has this year (1889)
been erected in the town by the United States Government.
It will contain several public offices. It
fills a gap in the center of the town that long
stood as a staring vacancy—supplies a “long-felt
want.”</p>
<p>There are pleasant drives in all directions from
Carson, with smooth and level roads. A mile west
of town are Shaw’s Hot Springs, with every convenience
for either bathing or swimming. The swimming
bath is 60 by 24 feet, 4½ feet deep at one end
and 5½ at the other.</p>
<p>All visitors to the town of a scientific turn of mind
will wish to visit the State prison and grounds, situated
a mile and a half east of the place. A portion of
the building now occupied as a State prison was built
for a hotel by Col. Abe Curry (of whom the State
purchased the property), and was of stone, two stories
high, 32 feet wide, and 100 feet long. Colonel Curry
also excavated and walled up the magnificent swimming
bath now connected with the prison and fed by
warm springs.</p>
<p>In the floor of the quarry, beneath from fifteen to
twenty feet of strata of sandstone, is a stratum of fine-grained
stone that is filled with the tracks of all manner
of animals and birds, and even one set of tracks supposed
to have been made by some prehistoric giant of
<span class="pb" id="Page_109">109</span>
the human species. There are tracks of elephants,
horses, deer, lions, tigers, panthers, giant cranes, and
all manner of creatures. The tracks supposed to be
human present the appearance of having been made
by a large man wearing moccasins of the undressed
hide of some animal. All the tracks tend toward a
common point, which must have been a spring or
small lake.</p>
<p>Omnibuses run to the Hot Springs and the State
prison, and stages leave for Lake Tahoe and Genoa
on the arrival of trains.</p>
<p>There are several lumber flumes near Carson that
are worthy of inspection.</p>
<h3 id="c60">Empire City.</h3>
<p>This town is situated on the banks of the Carson
River, three and a half miles east of Carson, and on the
line of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. Empire is
pre-eminently a milling town. Here are located the
Mexican, Morgan, Brunswick, and Merrimac Mills,
all first-class silver reduction works. The town is in
Ormsby County, and contains about 700 inhabitants.
Each year thousands of cords of wood floated down
the Carson River from Alpine County, California, are
taken out here. Formerly no fewer than 150,000
cords of wood came down to this town in the drives
of a single season. On account of these wood
drives Empire was jockularly termed the “seaport”
of Nevada. The wood “drives” and the landing of
them for a time each year gave employment to a great
number of men and teams.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_110">110</div>
<p>The town contains a number of handsome residences
and a few good public buildings.</p>
<h3 id="c61">Genoa.</h3>
<p>Genoa is the oldest town in Nevada, and is the
place where the first white settlement was made.
These settlers were Mormons, and they established a
station there as early as 1848. For this reason the
place was long known as “Mormon Station.” For
several years most of the settlers in the valley and
about the town were Mormons. Genoa is the county
seat of Douglas County, and is situated in Carson
Valley, at a point about 13 miles south of Carson
City. Although in a beautiful valley it lies close in
against the Sierras, at an altitude of 4,335 feet above
the level of the sea. To the westward the main
timbered Sierra Nevada Mountain Range rises to a
great height, while above its ridge tower many bald,
granite peaks. Among these (to the southward)
Job’s Peak rises to the height of 10,639 feet.</p>
<p>The town contains a fine court-house, and other
handsome public buildings, as school-houses, churches,
and halls. There are in the place several good, substantial
stores, and business houses and shops. There
are many neat dwellings and cottages surrounded
with fine gardens and grounds. In the town is published
the Genoa <i>Courier</i>, a sprightly weekly paper
devoted to the interests of the people of the town
and county. In this town was first published (in
1859) the <i>Territorial Enterprise</i>, the pioneer newspaper
<span class="pb" id="Page_111">111</span>
of Nevada. The paper was moved to Carson
in 1860, and thence in a short time to Virginia City,
where it was soon made a daily, and where it has ever
since been published as such.</p>
<p>Fine ranches lie up and down the valley. A mile
and a half south of the town are Walley’s famous hot
springs, of which more particular mention will be
found in another place. Lake Tahoe forms part of
the western boundary of Douglas, and both Glenbrook
and Cave Rock are in the county. The Carson
River passes near Genoa and through the heart of
the county. Genoa contains about 1,000 inhabitants.</p>
<h3 id="c62">Reno.</h3>
<p>Reno, on the line of the Central Pacific Railroad,
and pleasantly situated on the banks of the beautiful
Truckee River, is the county seat of Washoe County.
Reno began to be a town in 1868, and under the influence
of the Central Pacific Railroad, it grew very
rapidly. The town at once became the shipping-point
of all goods, machinery, and supplies destined
for the Comstock Mines, and for all parts of Storey,
Lyon, Ormsby, and Douglas Counties; also for Susanville,
Honey Lake Valley, and a great scope of
country to the northward. In the days before the
completion of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad,
Reno was filled with teams and stage coaches. The
place was a sort of teamsters’ paradise. This was
good for the town, but it could not be expected to
last forever. The present ambition of the place is to
<span class="pb" id="Page_112">112</span>
become a railroad and manufacturing center. It has
the Virginia and Truckee Road leading southward,
while to the northward the Nevada and California is
fast advancing to completion.</p>
<p>Reno is the center of one of the finest agricultural
and grazing sections in the State, and is a point for
the shipment to California of immense numbers of
beef cattle. Although there are in the town large and
fine reduction works for smelting refractory ores, and
two flouring mills, it may be said that hardly a commencement
has been made toward the utilization of
the immense water-power afforded by the Truckee
River at and near the town.</p>
<p>Here is located the Nevada Insane Asylum, the
building and grounds of which do credit to the town
and State. The State University is also now located
at Reno (having been removed from Elko), and is in
a more flourishing condition than ever before. The
buildings, and grounds, and teachers are all that
could be desired. This institution has recently been
made an Agricultural Experiment Station. Here is
located Bishop Whitakers’ excellent school for young
ladies, and also a similar school, first-class, in charge
of the Sisters of Charity. There are, besides, five
public schools. The town is well supplied with
churches and public buildings of all kinds adequate
to present requirements.</p>
<p>The town contains many first-class fire-proof business
houses, five depots and railroad buildings, many
<span class="pb" id="Page_113">113</span>
attractive retail stores and shops, excellent and commodious
hotels, “palatial” saloons, and handsome
and comfortable private residences. It is lighted with
electrical lamps, has good water works, and almost
everything else that its public-spirited citizens have
thought it necessary to provide. It has two excellent
daily newspapers, the <i>Gazette</i> and <i>Journal</i>, and a
first-class theater. This spring (1889) there has been
in the place a boom in town property, and much
building is in progress. Not only is the town
on the highway of the nations of the world leading
East and West, but is on the highway of the Pacific
Coast leading North and South, along the great range
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, from Oregon to Arizona.
The present population is estimated at 5,000
souls.</p>
<h3 id="c63">OTHER TOWNS IN WASHOE COUNTY.</h3>
<p>It may be worth while for the satisfaction of persons
traveling southward from Reno on the Virginia
and Truckee, to mention some once promising towns
in Washoe County that now only exist as sleepy
hamlets:—</p>
<h4 id="c64"><span class="sc">Washoe City.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Washoe City.</span>—This place is situated at the North
end of Washoe Valley, sixteen miles south of Reno.
It was formerly the county seat of Washoe County,
and contained about seven hundred inhabitants.
There was in the town a substantial brick courthouse,
Masonic and Odd Fellows’ Hall, Methodist
Church, public school building, good hotels, and
many stores, shops, and saloons.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_114">114</div>
<h4 id="c65"><span class="sc">Ophir.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Ophir.</span>—This town, three miles south of Washoe
City, on the west side of Washoe Lake, at one time
contained two or three hundred inhabitants. Here
was situated a big seventy-stamp mill erected by the
Ophir Mining Company at a cost of over $500,000.
To reach this mill with ores from the Ophir Mine a
bridge a mile in length was built across the north end
of Washoe Lake, at a cost of $75,000. The ores
were amalgamated by the barrel or Freyburg process,
and everything was on a grand scale, the buildings
covering over an acre of ground.</p>
<h4 id="c66"><span class="sc">Franktown.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Franktown.</span>—This town, one mile south of Ophir,
was originally settled by Mormons (about the same
time of the settlement at Genoa). Mormon fashion,
it was laid off in four-acre lots, and small streams of
water ran through all the streets. Here John Dall
had a thirty-stamp water mill, and there were several
other mills on Franktown Creek. The town had over
two hundred inhabitants in 1869.</p>
<p>At one time there were in operation in Washoe
County ten mills (four or five near Washoe City),
having an aggregate of 281 stamps, but the completion
of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the
Carson River was sudden death to all the mills, and
killed all the towns. All the ore went to the river.</p>
<h4 id="c67"><span class="sc">Wadsworth.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Wadsworth</span>, on the Central Pacific, thirty-four
miles east of Reno, is a bright and growing little
town. It is situated at the “Big Bend” of the
Truckee River, a place well known to those who
<span class="pb" id="Page_115">115</span>
toiled across the plains in the early days. The place
contains about 600 inhabitants. In it are the machine
shops, round-house, and freight depot of the Central
Pacific, and many good and substantial buildings,
both public and private. Before the Carson and
Colorado Railroad was built, Wadsworth was a shipping-point
for many mining towns and camps to the
southward. It still has a very fair trade.</p>
<h4 id="c68"><span class="sc">Verdi.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Verdi</span>, eleven miles west of Reno, on the Central
Pacific, is a pleasant little lumbering town on the
Truckee River, at the eastern base of the Sierras.
It is a town of saw-mills and of manufactories of
articles made of wood. In the way of mills and
machinery Verdi contains a large amount of valuable
property.</p>
<h3 id="c69">LAKE TAHOE.</h3>
<h3>Surrounding Objects of Interest.</h3>
<p>All visitors to the Pacific Coast who are lovers of
the beautiful and picturesque in natural scenery, will
endeavor to spend some time at Lake Tahoe. Taking
into consideration the surroundings, there is
nowhere in the world a more grandly beautiful mountain
lake. The lake lies between the eastern and
western summit ridges of the main ridge of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, at an elevation of 6,247 feet
above the level of the sea. Its length is a little over
twenty-one miles, and its width about twelve miles.
Roughly it has the form of a parallelogram, lying
nearly north and south, about one-third in Nevada
<span class="pb" id="Page_116">116</span>
and the remainder in California. It has an area of
204 square miles, as is shown by measurements made
in four places across its width, and longitudinally
(north and south) in three places. Its greatest depth
is 1,800 feet.</p>
<p>It is shut in and surrounded on all sides by mountains
that rise to a height of from 2,000 to 5,000 feet
above its surface. The lake evidently occupies an
extinct volcanic crater of great size. Soundings show
in the bottom a deep channel or crevice which extends
nearly the whole length of the lake in a north
and south direction. In this the depth is everywhere
from 1,500 to 1,700 feet. The deepest spot (1,800
feet) is toward the south end of the lake, in front of
Mount Tallac. The water is of great purity and
crystal clearness, and never freezes.</p>
<p>The lake receives the waters of fifty-one creeks and
brooks, the largest of which is the Upper Truckee,
which falls in at the south end. It also receives the
aqueous contributions of almost innumerable ravines,
gorges, and canyons. It drains an area of over 500
square miles, composed largely of lofty mountains on
which the snow falls to a depth of many feet, and by
the melting of which the numerous streams are fed.
There are also many living springs on the sides of
the surrounding mountains, with a great number
(both hot and cold) along the shores of the lake, and
doubtless a much larger number deep beneath its
surface. The only outlet of the lake is the Truckee
<span class="pb" id="Page_117">117</span>
River, at its northwest corner. This outlet, which
forms the head of the Truckee River, is fifty feet in
width, has an average depth of five feet, and a velocity
of six feet a second, making the discharge 123,120,000
cubic feet in twenty-four hours, in early spring
when the snow in the mountains is rapidly melting.</p>
<p>Since it was first seen by white men the lake has
been given several different names. Tahoe is popularly
supposed to be a Washoe Indian word, that
means “big water.” Some say the word means
“deep water,” “clear water,” “elevated water,” or
“bright water.” The Washoe Indians themselves
say they know nothing about the word. Fremont
saw it in 1844, and simply called it “Mountain
Lake.” It was once mapped as “Lake Bonpland,”
and in 1859 was mapped by Dr. Henry De Groot as
“Lake De Groot.” It was also once known as “Lake
Bigler,” being so named by some in honor of a Democratic
Governor of California, and the name is still
used by some of the strait-laced among the Democracy.
Tahoe, whatever it may mean, is a name now
so universally acknowledged and so firmly fixed that
it is not likely that it will ever be supplanted by any
other.</p>
<p>Lake Tahoe is surrounded on all sides by mountains
that have an elevation of from 3,000 to 5,000
feet above its surface. Mount Tallac towers to a
height of 11,000 feet above the level of the sea;
Pyramid Peak, 10,000; Monument Peak, 10,000;
<span class="pb" id="Page_118">118</span>
Rubicon Peaks, fifteen miles west of the lake, 9,284;
Job’s Peak, 10,637; Sand Mountain, back of Rowland’s,
8,747 feet; and Bald Mountain, Mount Pluto,
Mount Anderson, Old Hat, Mount Ellis, Barker’s
Peak, Table Mountain, the Cliffs, the Needles, and
many other peaks, rise to a height of over 8,000 feet.
On all sides great old peaks stand about gazing down
forever upon their reflected images in the lake below.
It is a grand convocation of mountains, a convention
of granite peaks, gray and ancient. In a circle about
the lake stand pine-clad mountains, snow-clad mountains,
and unclad mountains that are merely stupendous
piles of granite—granite cathedrals piled up by
nature for the delectation of those of her votaries that
ever gladly worship at her shrine.</p>
<p>In places towering rocks stand quite near the water,
and around the shores are so many bays and inlets,
so many jutting points and tongues of land, that
there is a constant change of views—an endless succession
of either grand or picturesque effects. A
single cliff—as Shakespeare Rock—seen from different
points and distances, takes a dozen different shapes,
and so of all prominent capes and caves. The distance
round the shores of the lake is 144 miles, and
may be said to represent that many miles of landscape
panorama of unrivaled beauty and grandeur.
Volumes have already been written descriptive of the
wonders and the beauties of Lake Tahoe, and innumerable
volumes will still be written as the ages pass,
<span class="pb" id="Page_119">119</span>
yet to comprehend the place it must be seen and
<i>felt</i>.</p>
<p>It speaks well for Lake Tahoe that its beauties are
appreciated and prized by persons living near by in
California and Nevada, and that it is a favorite place
of summer resort with the people everywhere on the
Pacific Coast. In the Bible it is said: “A prophet is
not without honor, save in his own country and in his
own house,” and the same may generally be said of
celebrated natural objects, but it is different in the
case of Tahoe—the grand and picturesque scenery of
the lake is admired and esteemed at home. It is not
only looked upon as being a great sanitarium of the
Pacific Coast, but also as a grand store-house of all
the delights of mountain scenery. In Tahoe the
careworn and debilitated find a cure for both mind
and body.</p>
<p>The water of the lake is as cold and pure as that
of the best living springs, and it possesses wonderful
charms—almost the transparency of the atmosphere.
Near the shore, when shallow, it is of an emerald
green here; in deep water, in the sunshine, it is of
an ultramarine tinge, and in the shade an indigo blue.
Tossing, distant, deep water in certain lights assumes
tints of purple and violet, with beautiful flashes of
ruby. Seated in a boat on the lake in a calm, one
may see the stones and pebbles at the bottom, with
trout cruising about, where the sounding line shows
seventy-five feet of water. The whole dome of the
sky, with every fleecy cloud, is there perfectly reflected.
<span class="pb" id="Page_120">120</span>
We are midway between the heavens above and the
heavens below, gently rocking upon the waving veil of
blue that separates the two firmaments.</p>
<p>It is difficult to swim in the lake. Some have supposed
this to be on account of the great elevation
and reduced atmospheric pressure on the water, rendering
the lake less buoyant than bodies of fresh
water at sea level. This, however, is a mistake.
Water is only very slightly compressible. The great
purity of the water of course renders it less dense than
that of lakes holding minerals in solution, but it is the
coldness of the water and the variety of the atmosphere
that render swimming difficult and laborious.</p>
<p>The bodies of persons drowned in the lake (unless
very near shore) are never again seen. The bodies of
no fewer than ten or twelve white men are known to
lie at the bottom of the lake; and no doubt among
them lie the skeletons of not a few Indians. The
lake is in some respects treacherous and dangerous.
It is subject to sudden and heavy squalls. Fierce
gusts of wind at times rush down the big canyons,
and, striking the water, cause it to boil like a pot.
These squalls are liable to capsize a sail-boat. Unless
an experienced boatman be of the party, it is best
to have the sail in hand, that it may be let go in a
moment. The squalls generally plunge down the
canyons and gorges on the west side of the lake.</p>
<p>The route of the passenger steamers round the lake
is near the shores. These are in some places rocky
<span class="pb" id="Page_121">121</span>
and in others level. In the mountain gorges and on
the ridges are pines and various other evergreen trees,
but down near the edge of the water are small groves
of quaking asp, willow, and other trees of deciduous
foliage.</p>
<p>At the Hot Springs is a good hotel, bathing houses,
and other accommodations. At Tahoe City will also
be found good hotels, boats, fishing tackle, and all
such little sporting supplies as the visitor is likely to
require. McKinney’s, at Sugar Pine Point, on the
west side of the lake, is a popular place of resort and
possesses many attractions. At Glenbrook, on the
east side of the lake, are good hotel accommodations,
and there may also be had boats, fishing tackle, and
all ordinary supplies. In many charming nooks and
valleys around the shores are hotels and cottages for
the accommodation of visitors.</p>
<h4 id="c70"><span class="sc">Emerald Bay.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Emerald Bay.</span>—One of the most beautiful spots
about Lake Tahoe is Emerald Bay. It is the gem of
the place. The bay is situated at the south end of the
lake. It is 2½ miles long and 1¼ wide, nearly as
large as Donner Lake. The entrance to it is through
a channel less than 200 yards in width, but containing
a depth of water sufficient to float a man-of-war.
Emerald Bay is surrounded by grand and picturesque
mountains, the peaks of which are 9,000 feet above
the level of the sea, and some of which rise precipitously
to a height of 4,000 feet above the surface of
the bay. The water is nearly always of a beautiful
<span class="pb" id="Page_122">122</span>
emerald green. In the bay is a rocky and romantic
little island of about three acres, on which is a handsome
little cottage. On the island is a tomb excavated
in the rock by an old boatman known as “Captain
Dick.” Captain Dick fondly hoped that this
tomb would be his last resting-place, but his body
lies at the bottom of the lake. In October, 1873,
his boat was capsized in a furious squall, and Captain
Dick was never seen again.</p>
<p>Emerald Bay, with 519 acres of surrounding land,
belongs to the estate of the late Dr. P. T. Kirby, of
Virginia City, who at the time of his death was
about to build a fine and commodious hotel. Before
his death, however, he had built over a dozen neat
cottages. Heretofore, owing to lack of accommodations
there, many tourists have failed to visit this bay,
the most beautiful nook about the lake, but it will
now at once become a favorite haunt of all lovers of
the grand, picturesque, and beautiful. The island is
a little gem, and has about it a style that gives it almost
the appearance of being a toy constructed by a
landscape gardener. It has been very appropriately
named “Coquette Island.” It rises to a height of
about 200 feet above the surface of the bay. At the
south end of the bay are the “Lovers’ Falls.” These
falls are high up on the side of a steep and rocky
mountain. They are on a small creek which makes
many leaps down perpendicular terraces of rock.
The falls are supposed to have been the favorite tryst
of a Digger chief and his Washoe lady-love.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_123">123</div>
<h4 id="c71"><span class="sc">Fallen Leaf Lake.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Fallen Leaf Lake.</span>—This lake lies one mile south
of Lake Tahoe, and about three miles south of Emerald
Bay. It is a beautiful sheet of water two miles in
length and a mile in width. It has an outlet into
Lake Tahoe.</p>
<h4 id="c72"><span class="sc">Silver Lake.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Silver Lake.</span>—Silver Lake is a perfect little beauty
in its way, but is seldom visited; as it lies high on the
side of a mountain which is covered with chaparral.
It is about half as large as Fallen Leaf Lake, from
which it is distant two miles in a northwest direction.</p>
<h4 id="c73"><span class="sc">Cornelian Bay.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Cornelian Bay.</span>—This bay lies north of Tahoe
City, and has a smooth, pebbly beach, where are found
agates, cornelians, and jasper of several colors. To
sail along the shore the distance from Tahoe City
is seven miles.</p>
<h4 id="c74"><span class="sc">Agate Bay.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Agate Bay.</span>—Agate Bay is a place similar to that
just described. It lies a short distance west of the
Hot Springs.</p>
<h4 id="c75"><span class="sc">Crystal Bay.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Crystal Bay.</span>—This beautiful cove forms the extreme
north end of Lake Tahoe. It lies northeast of
Hot Springs.</p>
<h4 id="c76"><span class="sc">Shakespeare Rock.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Shakespeare Rock.</span>—In sailing round the lake
from Tahoe City to Glenbrook several picturesque
rocky points, studded with stately pines, will be seen,
also Shakespeare Rock, which is a cliff towering high
above the level of the lake. On the face of this cliff
are seen ridges, fissures, and patches of color which at
a distance resolve themselves into the likeness of the
face of the immortal dramatist.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_124">124</div>
<h4 id="c77"><span class="sc">Cave Rock.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Cave Rock</span> is passed before reaching Glenbrook.
It is about 300 feet in height and seen from the deck
of the steamer, towers upward like the castle of some
“Blue Beard” giant of the Sierras. It has in its face
a yawning cavern some 80 feet in depth. In this
dark cave one might suppose the giant to live.</p>
<h4 id="c78"><span class="sc">Glenbrook.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Glenbrook</span> is on the east side of the lake near a
large cave. Here are several large saw-mills, owned
by Yerington, Bliss & Co., which manufacture an
immense quantity of all kinds of lumber. The mills
are furnished with electrical lights. The mill company
have here a narrow-gauge railroad nine miles
in length, which carries their lumber and timber to
the flumes at the top of the mountain (Eastern Summit),
whence it is floated down to the valley near
Carson City.</p>
<h4 id="c79"><span class="sc">Cascade Mountain.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Cascade Mountain</span>, at the south end of the lake,
is 9,500 feet in height. Near it are beautiful cascades,
and from the top are to be seen a number of small
lakes, and much wild and grand mountain scenery.</p>
<h4 id="c80"><span class="sc">Rubicon Springs.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Rubicon Springs</span>, which lie just over the Western
Summit of the Sierras, are easily reached by a good
stage road from McKinneys’. Here, on the headwaters
of the Rubicon River, is some of the most
charming scenery to be found anywhere in the
mountains. There are innumerable nooks, in which
the disposition and proportions of water, foliage, and
rugged granite rocks is such that all would seem to
have been arranged for the special delectation of the
<span class="pb" id="Page_125">125</span>
artist and the lover of nature. The water of the
springs at this place possesses wonderful curative powers.
No invalid ever left them with a feeling of disappointment,
however highly they might have been
recommended to him.</p>
<p>Besides the places named there are scores of nooks
and corners, cliffs, streams, fountains, canyons, and
gorges that are not even honored with a name, which
in almost any other part of the world would be lauded
to the skies, and which would attract swarms of visitors
from great distances. There is not a spot about the
lake that would not astound the dweller in the prairies
of the West were he placed before it.</p>
<h3 id="c81">Routes to Lake Tahoe.</h3>
<h3 class="inline" id="c82"><span class="smaller">THE ROUTE FROM TRUCKEE.</span></h3>
<p>Persons in California, or tourists bound East, who
wish to visit Tahoe will leave the Central Pacific at
Truckee. The distance to the lake is but fourteen
miles, over a good stage-road, which passes along up
the Truckee River, amid grand and beautiful scenery.
High, rocky, and picturesque mountains wall in the
gorge through which winds the river and the road,
and on all sides are groves of stately pines. In places
where the walls recede from the stream are charming
little nooks, valleys, and meadows. Indeed, at every
turn in road and river new beauties are disclosed.</p>
<p>There are fresh surprises on every furlong of the
road from Truckee to Tahoe City, which town is
situated at the outlet of the lake which forms the
<span class="pb" id="Page_126">126</span>
Truckee River. At Tahoe City will be found good
hotels and accommodations of all kinds. Here, too,
will be found in waiting a steamer to carry the visitor
round the lake to Glenbrook, passing near the principal
points of interest on the way, or to make the
circuit of the lake. While to follow every projection
and indentation of the shore-line would require a sail
of 144 miles, a circuit of about 75 miles carries the
visitor sufficiently near for a satisfactory view of the
more charming and picturesque points.</p>
<p>Below are given the distances from Tahoe City to
the principal points around the lake on the route
usually taken by the steamers:—</p>
<h3 id="c83"><span class="ss">Distances from Tahoe City.</span></h3>
<table class="center">
<tr class="th"><th> </th><th><span class="sc smaller">Miles.</span></th></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Tahoe City to McKinney’s </td><td class="r">7</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Sugar-Pine Point </td><td class="r">9</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Emerald Bay </td><td class="r">16</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Tallac Mountain and Hotel </td><td class="r">20</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Rowlands </td><td class="r">24</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Glenbrook <i>via</i> Rowlands </td><td class="r">34</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Glenbrook, direct </td><td class="r">14</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Cornelian Bay </td><td class="r">7½</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Observatory </td><td class="r">2½</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Hot Springs </td><td class="r">10</td></tr>
<tr><td class="l">Round the lake </td><td class="r">75</td></tr>
</table>
<p>On his arrival at Glenbrook, the tourist that came
<i>via</i> Truckee will find stages in waiting to carry him
to Carson City, where he will take the Virginia and
Truckee Railroad to the Central Pacific at Reno.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_127">127</div>
<h3 id="c84">The Route from Reno.</h3>
<p>The traveler from the East who wishes to view the
wonders of Tahoe in passing across the continent, or
to see the Comstock Silver Mines, will leave the
Central Pacific at Reno, allowing his baggage to go
on to his point of destination in California. The
Virginia and Truckee will then take him to Carson
City, a distance of thirty-one miles to the southward,
passing through an interesting region all the way.</p>
<p>At Carson stages for Lake Tahoe will be found in
waiting. The distance from Carson to Tahoe is
fourteen miles. The road is fine, and the mountain
scenery wild and beautiful. In passing up Clear
Creek Canyon, the tourist will travel for a considerable
distance alongside the big lumber flume of the
Carson and Tahoe Lumber Company. This flume
is in the shape of the letter V. It has a length of
twenty-one miles. Through it runs a small stream
of water, and a stick of timber, billet of wood, or
piece of lumber dropped into the V-shaped trough
at the summit at once darts away at race-horse speed,
and very shortly thereafter is dumped at the wood
and lumber yard at Carson. In one day may thus
be sent down the flume 700 cords of wood, or 500,000
feet of mining timbers. Hank Monk, the famous
stage-driver who for a long time drove over this piece
of road, and who once “hurled” Horace Greeley
from the summit of the Sierras down into Placerville,
is now dead, and lies buried at Carson City.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_128">128</div>
<p>On arriving at Glenbrook, the traveler will find
ready a steamer which will take him round Lake
Tahoe to Tahoe City, whence he will take a stagecoach
fourteen miles down the Truckee River to the
Central Pacific, at the town of Truckee.</p>
<h3 id="c85">The Town of Truckee.</h3>
<p>Truckee is situated in a heavily-timbered basin,
lying between the two ridges, or summits, of the
Sierras. In this basin is contained an area of over
250 square miles of as fine pine forest as is to be
found in the mountains. The town is the center of
a great and flourishing lumbering industry, and immense
quantities of ice are each winter harvested and
stored in the immediate vicinity. In 1883 it was
estimated that the forests of Truckee Basin contained
5,000,000,000 feet of lumber, and that 50,000,000
feet might be cut every year for 100 years. The
town has an elevation of 5,866 feet, or over a mile
above the level of the sea, yet for eight months of
the year the climate is pleasant. Where the town
now stands was formerly “Coburn’s Station,” on the
old Dutch Flat wagon-road. The place was named
Truckee, and began to build up in 1865, with the
construction of the Central Pacific Railroad at that
point. It is a brisk and thriving place, and, besides
its lumber and ice industries, has a good trade with
an extensive farming and grazing region. It is wonderful
that so large a town exists as is now seen, in
view of the fact that since 1868 it has seven times
<span class="pb" id="Page_129">129</span>
been swept by terrible fires, and by two or three of
these it was, in different years, almost wiped out of
existence.</p>
<h3 id="c86">Donner Lake.</h3>
<p>This beautiful little sheet of water is but three miles
from the town of Truckee, and is reached by a delightful
drive over a smooth and level road. Donner
Lake is about three miles long and from a mile to a
mile and a half wide. It is about 200 feet in depth
in the deepest place, and lies at an elevation of 5,938
feet above the level of the sea. It has for feeders
several sparkling trout-brooks, and has an outlet called
Donner Creek, which is an affluent of the Truckee
River. The lake is full of trout of the same species
as are found in Lake Tahoe, with minnows of several
kinds, known as “chubs” and “white fish.” It is a
safe and beautiful lake on which to row or sail. As
regards the matter of safety it may be set down as the
“family lake” of the mountains—is as reliable and
devoid of tantrums as the old “family mare.” The
lake is surrounded with grand old mountains. Lake
Ridge, to the southward, rises to the height of 8,234
feet, and its lower part is covered with pine and other
evergreen trees. To the west rise huge, bare granite
mountains. The track of the Central Pacific Railroad
runs along the side of the ridge to the southward,
and presently disappears in a tunnel under the bald
mountains in the west. Owing to the track being
covered with snow-sheds, passengers get only occasional
glimpses of the lake.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_130">130</div>
<p>At the upper and lower ends of the lake are patches
of meadow land, groves of pine and tamarack, and
handsome clumps of willow and quaking asp. Donner
is a favorite place of resort for camping parties
from Nevada and California. There are grand
views in all directions. Artists here find constant
use for their sketching tools. A fine picture of the
lake was painted by Bierstadt in 1872. He chose
the month of August for his picture.</p>
<h4 id="c87"><span class="sc">The Donner Disaster.</span></h4>
<p>At the foot of the lake
is the scene of the sufferings of the Donner party.
The spot is marked by a tall wooden cross. At this
little mountain-begirt lake, in October, 1846, arrived
a party of emigrants (mostly from Illinois), under the
leadership of George Donner. There were with the
train seventy-six men, women, and children. That
winter the snow fell a month earlier than usual, and in a
single night the party found themselves overwhelmed,
caught in a <i>cul-de-sac</i>. It was impossible to attempt
the mountains when the snow in the lower ground
about the lake was so deep that the wagons could not
be moved; besides, it snowed without ceasing. In
one night, when their cattle were scattered about,
snow fell to such a depth as to completely cover and
hide them from sight. It was then decided to build
cabins and winter on the spot. Being short of provisions,
they at once killed all the cattle they could
find, using the hides to roof the cabins. In December
all provisions were exhausted, and parties were
<span class="pb" id="Page_131">131</span>
sent out one after another to reach California and
there make known the condition of those left in the
camp. Most of those thus sent out perished, but
finally one or two persons reached Sutter’s Fort, at
Sacramento. The first relief parties failed, and it was
not until February that a party reached the starving
people of the camp. These, meantime, had been reduced
to such extremity as to cook and eat the raw
hides covering their cabins and the bones thrown away
earlier in the season. Toward the last there was at least
one instance of cannibalism. Of the seventy-six persons
but forty survived, some perishing in the mountains
(where the snow was thirty feet deep) in trying
to get through to California, and others dying in the
cabins. Those found in the cabins were mere skeletons.
A thick volume would be required to give a full
account of all the sufferings and trials of the ill-fated
Donner party. It was a disaster that shocked all California
for years, and which created a profound sensation
of horror and pity throughout the whole United
States. The history of what occurred at Donner
Lake that winter has never been fully written, and
never will be, as there were happenings that the survivors
were never willing to talk about.</p>
<h4 id="c88"><span class="sc">Surrounding Points of Interest.</span></h4>
<p>Donner Peak,
to the west of the lake, a towering pile of granite,
rises to a height of 8,154 feet above the level of the
sea, and Glacial Point, in the same direction, is 7,708
feet in height. Fremont’s Peak—sometimes called
<span class="pb" id="Page_132">132</span>
Castle Peak, or Mount Stanford—towers in the northwest
to the height of 9,237 feet above sea level. It is
seen about four miles north of Summit Station. At
this peak heads Pioneer Creek. From its granite
pinnacle, on a clear day may be seen the Downieville
Buttes, Marysville Buttes, the Coast Range, and many
mountains and valleys in California; and looking
eastward, Mount Davidson, the sinks of the Carson
and Humboldt, are seen, with many other mountains
and deserts. Near Summit are about a dozen small
lakes, some of them charming both in themselves and
in their surroundings of rocks and trees.</p>
<h3 id="c89">Independence Lake.</h3>
<p>This beautiful lake is nineteen miles distant from
Truckee, and is reached by stage or carriage. It is
three miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide.
The lake was named by Lola Montez (when a resident
of Grass Valley, California) on the occasion of
a visit to it on a picnic excursion, July 4, 1853. It
is held up toward the heavens to a height of 7,000
feet by a circle of grand old peaks. It is very deep,
and in places has never been fathomed. Owing to
its great depth, the lake is supposed to occupy an
extinct volcanic crater, whereas Donner Lake was
formed by a moraine deposited across the valley by a
glacier. The lake is alive with trout of a peculiar
species, a good deal resembling brook trout, and for
which they are often sold. The surrounding scenery
is as wildly beautiful as the imagination can picture.
<span class="pb" id="Page_133">133</span>
From the peak of Mount Lola, 4 miles north of the
lake and 11,000 feet high, can be seen Mount Shasta,
distant 180 miles to the northward; Mount Diablo,
140 miles distant; all Sacramento Valley, and scores
of peaks of note in all directions. There is a hotel
at the lake and good accommodations of all kinds.
Bear, deer, and grouse are to be found in the chaparral,
mountain glades, and pine forests. The lake
has an outlet which is the head of one of the principal
branches of the Little Truckee.</p>
<h3 id="c90">Webber Lake.</h3>
<p>This lake lies twenty-five miles north of Truckee,
and is reached by stage over a road bordered with
charming scenery. The lake is circular in form and
about a mile in diameter. It is 6,925 feet above sea-level.
It is surrounded with mountains of graceful
outline, nearly all of which are wooded to their tops.
The deepest spot to be found measures only 80 feet.
The lake is of glacial origin. It abounds in trout—a
very game variety, introduced nearly thirty years
ago. About the lake are numerous attractions.
About a mile south from the lake, on a tributary
creek, are falls over 100 feet in height; a mile north
is a little gem of a lake, with an area of 50 acres,
which is called the Lake of the Woods, and which is
7,500 feet (nearly a mile and a half) above the level
of the sea; near at hand is Prospect Peak, from the
top of which, in a clear day, mountain peaks distant
300 miles may be made out, while all about are other
<span class="pb" id="Page_134">134</span>
tall peaks and objects of interest. Small mountain
game is plentiful near the lake. Bear may be found
by those anxious to see them by taking a tramp in the
chaparral thickets of the higher peaks. There is a
good hotel at the lake, yet it is a great place of resort
for campers. Where the greatest depth of water is
only 80 feet, no one is afraid of drowning. The lake
has an outlet, which is one of the affluents of the
Little Truckee.</p>
<h3 id="c91">Pyramid Lake.</h3>
<p>We have now to speak of a few Nevada lakes not
mentioned in connection with the rivers of the State.
The greatest of these, and the largest lake between
the Sierra Nevada Range and the Rocky Mountains,
except Great Salt Lake, Utah, is Pyramid Lake. It
is fed by the Truckee, the course of which river has
already been traced, and the head of which has been
particularly described as the outlet of Lake Tahoe.
Pyramid Lake lies in Washoe County, on the west
line of Humboldt County. The lake is nearly 40
miles long by from 15 to 20 miles in width, and has
an elevation of 4,000 feet above the level of the sea.
It has no outlet. It is the most picturesque sheet of
water in all the Great Basin region, owing to its numerous
rocky islands. As it lies off the usual lines
of travel and traffic it is seldom visited, yet it is well
worthy of the attention of the tourist. Pyramid Lake
lies about 25 miles north of Wadsworth, a brisk and
thriving town on the Central Pacific Railroad. It is
<span class="pb" id="Page_135">135</span>
at Wadsworth that the traveler by rail from the East
first reaches the Truckee River, and is where the
traveler from California takes his leave of the stream.
At Wadsworth the river turns abruptly to the north,
which course it holds to the lake.</p>
<p>A vehicle for a trip to the lake can always be found
at Wadsworth. The road lies down along the timbered
banks of the river, and here and there will be
seen the cabins of the Indians of the Pyramid Reservation.
Most of the groves seen are of cottonwood
and willow trees. The Truckee River has two
mouths, one of which empties into Pyramid Lake
and the other into Winnemucca Lake. The branch
which feeds Pyramid Lake is only about one mile in
length, whereas the more meandering branch, which
is the feeder of Winnemucca Lake, has a length of
six miles.</p>
<p>Pyramid Lake contains several islands. Some of
these, near the middle of the lake, are pyramidal in
shape, and gray in color. They rise to a height of
several hundred feet above the surface of the water,
and it is from these natural pyramids that the lake
takes its name. Far away toward the north end of
the lake is seen a tall, slender pyramid that is perfectly
white. Some of the isolated rocks seen are
egg-shaped, and 300 to 400 feet high. Fremont’s
Pyramid is the name borne by one of the taller of
the pyramidal rocks near the head of the lake. One
of the largest islands contains large flocks of goats,
<span class="pb" id="Page_136">136</span>
the progeny of a few pairs of the animals turned loose
there many years ago. The island has an area of
about five square miles, and is well covered with
vegetation, being less precipitous and rocky than the
others. The only picturesque addition needed to
this island is a “Crusoe” and his hut.</p>
<p>One small, rocky island is wholly given up to rattlesnakes.
It is the home of thousands of the venomous
reptiles. They have their dens in the rocks, and live
upon the eggs and young of water-fowl, and such
small fish as are cast ashore.</p>
<p>Pyramid Lake is of immense depth. No one
knows its depth in the deepest part. At the last
attempt to sound it, 600 fathoms (3,600 feet) of line
were run out without finding bottom. Where it
enters the lake the water of the Truckee River is as
pure and sweet as where it leaves Lake Tahoe, yet
the water of Pyramid Lake is slightly brackish.
However, myriads of trout are found in Pyramid
Lake. The Piute Indians of the Reservation every
year catch and sell thousands of tons of trout, deriving
a snug sum from this source. The lake never
freezes, and is generally very rough. The Indian
fishermen, however, navigate its waters at all times
quite fearlessly, even when seated astride of a bundle
of tules.</p>
<h3 id="c92">Winnemucca Lake.</h3>
<p>This lake lies to the east of, and parallel with, Pyramid
Lake, from which it is separated by only a single
<span class="pb" id="Page_137">137</span>
ridge of gray rock and sand. It lies principally in
Humboldt County, though a part reaches south into
Churchill County. The lake is now about sixty miles
long, with an average width of twelve miles. Of late
years it has been rapidly increasing in size, as more
water has been flowing through its feeder than formerly.
It has on the east side a high rocky ridge,
like that which separates it from Pyramid, therefore
it lies in a trough between two ranges of hills.
Though so near to each other, the surface of the
water in Winnemucca Lake is forty feet lower than
that in Pyramid. The Piutes remember a time when
all was one lake. Were the waters of these twin lakes
now united they would make a lake quite as large as
the great Salt Lake of Utah. The inlet to Winnemucca
Lake contains several old rafts of drift-wood,
which prevent a free flow of water through it. Some
years ago a freshet lifted these rafts from the bed of
the stream, and the water found a channel beneath
them. Since that occurred Winnemucca Lake has
been steadily increasing in size. There are many
Indian traditions connected with these lakes, one of
which is in regard to immense animals that once
herded in the neighborhood. This seems to be a
tradition of the elephant or mastodon. All this
region was once covered by an inland sea of fresh
water, over 200 miles in length, and 80 or 90 miles in
width.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_138">138</div>
<h3 id="c93">Washoe Lake.</h3>
<p>Washoe Lake is situated in Washoe Valley, and is
seen in going by rail from Reno to Carson. The
lake proper is about four miles long, and from a mile
to a mile and a half wide. On the west and north
extend large tule marshes, which at times contain a
considerable depth of water. The lake is fed by
small streams from the Sierras, and it has an outlet
into Steamboat Creek. The lake is filled with perch
and catfish, planted a few years ago; also contains
swarms of native fish of the “chub” species. It is
a favorite resort for anglers from Carson and the
towns of the Comstock. At certain seasons the lake
is visited by great numbers of ducks, geese, and other
water-fowl. It is shallow, and having a muddy bottom,
it is not a suitable sheet of water for either brook
or lake trout. Carp, however, would flourish in its
muddy depths and tule shallows.</p>
<h3 id="c94">Thermal and Medicinal Springs.</h3>
<p>The hot springs of Nevada are numbered by thousands
and tens of thousands, and scores of them in all
parts of the State possess more or less medicinal value.
Hot springs are found from the Oregon and Idaho
lines southward to the Colorado River, and from the
eastern base of the Sierras across the whole breadth
of the State. No one has ever attempted to number
the many warm and hot springs, and they are literally
innumerable. Springs which would attract great attention
in the Atlantic States, and which would be
<span class="pb" id="Page_139">139</span>
worth fortunes, here pass unknown, unnamed, “unhonored
and unsung.” All the hot springs possess
curative properties in the case of rheumatic and various
skin diseases. Not one in a thousand of the
springs on this side of the Sierras has been analyzed,
for which reason the waters of only a few are used internally.</p>
<h3 id="c95">Steamboat Springs.</h3>
<p>The most noted hot springs in the western part of
Nevada are those known as the Steamboat Springs.
They were so named by the first white men who visited
them, on account of the puffing sound some of
them then emitted, and because of the tall columns
of steam they sent up. These springs are in Steamboat
Valley, ten miles south of Reno. The Virginia
and Truckee Railroad passes close alongside the
springs. They are situated at the eastern base of a low
range of basaltic hills, and occupy the top of a flat ridge
that is over a mile in length and has a north and south
course. This ridge is about half a mile in width and
is composed of a whitish silicious material evidently
deposited by the waters of the many springs.</p>
<p>The temperature of the principal springs is 204 degrees,
which is as hot as water can be made at that altitude
(5,000 feet above the level of the sea). Some
of the springs rise through circular openings from a
foot to three feet in diameter and are surrounded by
conical mounds of silicious matters deposited by the
waters, whereas others flow from fissures, which are
<span class="pb" id="Page_140">140</span>
evidently rents formed by earthquakes. Out of some
of these fissures rush great volumes of hot gases that
have a strong odor of sulphur. These fissures are
perfectly dry, and the jets of hot air are invisible.
From other dry crevices issue great clouds of very
hot steam. Steam rises in great volumes from all the
boiling springs, and of mornings when the air is cool
and calm from 60 to 80 tall pillars of steam may be
counted, rising to a height of 100 feet or more above
the low, bare ridge. The air everywhere about the
springs is strongly charged with sulphurous vapors
in gases. The crevices have the same course as the
great quartz veins of the country, <i>i. e.</i>, northeast and
southwest. Here is no doubt a huge metallic vein in
process of formation; indeed, various minerals are
deposited by the gases, notably cinnabar. Some of
the fissures may be traced from 1,000 to 3,000 feet,
and have a width of from 16 inches to 3 feet. In
places where nothing is seen to issue from these
fissures at the surface, indications of tremendous subterranean
activity are distinctly audible. Far down
in under-ground regions are heard thunderous surgings
and lashings as of huge volumes of water dashed
to and fro in vast hollow, resounding caverns. In
other places are heard fearful (dry) thumpings and
poundings, as though at some flaming forge below a
band of sweating Cyclops were at work at hammering
out thunder-bolts for old Jove.</p>
<p>Small springs in places send jets of hot water into
<span class="pb" id="Page_141">141</span>
the air to the height of two or three feet, with a hissing
and sputtering sound, but for some years past
none of them have thrown water to any great distance
above the surface. In 1860, and for a few years
thereafter, two or three of the springs rivaled the
geysers of Yellowstone Park, sending columns of water
a yard in diameter to a height of sixty or eighty feet
once in from six to eight hours. Some springs sent
columns of water from three to six inches in diameter
to a still greater height. Even now the water is seen
to rise and fall in some of the fissures in a threatening
manner. At the springs is a fine and commodious
hotel, bathing-houses for vapor baths, and every desirable
accommodation. The springs are very beneficial
to persons afflicted with rheumatic complaints,
and are also useful in some cases of cutaneous diseases.</p>
<h3 id="c96">Shaw’s Springs.</h3>
<p>These springs are situated about a mile west of
Carson City. They are also much frequented by
persons afflicted with rheumatism and kindred complaints,
though more well than sick persons use
the baths, as connected with them is a large swimming
pool, 60 by 24 feet and from 4½ to 5½ feet
deep. One of these springs is what is called a
“chicken-soup” spring. By adding pepper and salt
to the water it acquires the taste of thin chicken soup.</p>
<h3 id="c97">State Prison Warm Springs.</h3>
<p>About a mile east of Carson City, at the Nevada
State prison, is a warm spring of great volume.
<span class="pb" id="Page_142">142</span>
Here Col. Abe Curry, who owned the property before
it was acquired by the State, constructed the first
swimming bath to be found on the Pacific Coast.
It is 160 feet long by 38 feet wide, and is walled up
with stone, and over it is erected a building, also of
stone, of which there is a fine quarry on the spot.
The water in the pool is from three to five feet deep,
and is of about blood heat. This bath is not now
open to the “world at large,” but is kept for a little
world that is “not at large.”</p>
<h3 id="c98">Walley’s Springs.</h3>
<p>There are in hundreds of places along the eastern
base of the Sierras groups of hot springs of more or less
celebrity, but none of which are more highly esteemed
for their curative properties, or as a more popular
place of resort for the afflicted, than Walley’s Springs,
a mile and a half south of Genoa. Persons who are
troubled with rheumatism, or are afflicted with scrofula
and like disorders, are much benefited by the baths at
these springs. Here are also excellent mud baths, the
hot, mineral-impregnated mud being found very efficacious
in many cases of chronic rheumatic complaints.
In the vicinity are many objects of interest, and near
at hand may be found good hunting and fishing.
There is a fine hotel, and the best of accommodations
of every kind for both sound and sick, at the springs.
The springs are fourteen and a half miles south of Carson
and may be reached either by stage or private
conveyance. The road lies through Carson Valley,
and is fine and smooth.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_143">143</div>
<h3 id="c99">Other Springs.</h3>
<p>Near Elko are several hot springs, with fine springs
of cold water in their immediate vicinity. Here, too,
is a “chicken-soup” spring. The springs are situated
to the northwest of the town, and a bathing-house
has been erected for the accommodation of the rheumatic
public.</p>
<p>At Golconda are some very large hot springs, near
which are others of ordinary temperature. Some of
the hot springs are occasionally utilized for scalding
hogs. In the cool pools connected with the flow from
the hot springs, carp and some other kinds of fish
have been planted. It is said that the carp grown in
the ponds often venture upon darting through places
where water almost boiling hot is bubbling up.
These springs are near the Central Pacific Railroad
station. Also half a mile south of the track of the
Central Pacific road there are, at Hot Springs Station,
near the sink of the Humboldt, several springs that
send up columns of steam.</p>
<p>There are only a few of the hot springs that are situated
near main lines of travel. In Thousand Spring Valley,
on the Upper Humboldt, there are literally thousands
of springs, some of which send out whole brooks
of water. The majority of these, however, are cold.
In Churchill County, north of the Sand Springs salt
marsh, are hot springs which are 50, 80, and even 100
feet in diameter. They are on the edge of a desert at
the foot of a range of rocky hills burnt to a brick-red
<span class="pb" id="Page_144">144</span>
by volcanic fires. Here, too, are seen thick veins of
pure native sulphur. There are hot springs and
scalding pools and brooks in every county in the State.
In Nye County there are many hot springs in Hot
Creek Valley, in Big Smoky Valley, and Lone Valley.
There is also in this county the Cabezon Valley Hot
Spring, which is medicinal. On the Rio Virgin, in
Lincoln County, is one of the finest purgative springs
on the Pacific Coast. With other ingredients amounting
to 311 grains of solid matter to the gallon, it contains
67 grains of sulphate of soda, 54 grains of sulphate
of magnesia, and 3 grains of sulphate of
potassa.</p>
<h3 id="c100">Railroads in Nevada.</h3>
<p>Although Nevada would appear at a first glance a
difficult region in which to construct railroads, the
fact is that it is quite the contrary. Between the parallel
ranges of mountains running north and south, there
are long level valleys, tracts of desert land, requiring very
little grading. These valleys and deserts are linked together
and connected by plains from the northern to
the southern boundary of the State. As these valleys
and deserts once formed the beds and connecting
channels of chains of lakes now extinct, it is evident
that in following their course a line of railroad might
be very cheaply constructed. In many places for
miles on miles there would be little to do but put
down the ties and rails. In many places, too, there
are remarkable passages leading east and west from
<span class="pb" id="Page_145">145</span>
valley to valley, called “gates.” There are clean level
east and west cuts through ranges of mountains running
north and south. The only difficulty to be encountered
in railroad building in Nevada is in running
roads to special points (as to mines) high above the
general level of the country, as in the case of the
Virginia to Truckee when it leaves the valley region
to climb the Mount Davidson Range to the Comstock
Lode. The whole plateau through which was upheaved
the north and south ranges of mountains has
a mean elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the
sea in all central Nevada; to the southward it gradually
slopes downward, until at the south line of the
State, on the Colorado River, the altitude above sea-level
is only 800 feet.</p>
<h3 id="c101">The Central Pacific.</h3>
<p>The largest stretch of railroad in Nevada is the
Central Pacific. Its length within the boundaries of
the State, from where it enters, near Verdi, to where
it passes out, near Tecoma, is a little over 450 miles.
Though this is an east and west road (the course
across the interior parallel mountain ranges), yet no
great difficulties were encountered in crossing the
State. The road enters Nevada from California along
the course of the Truckee River, which stream it follows
as far east as Wadsworth. Leaving Wadsworth
the road traverses a level, sandy plain till the Humboldt
River is reached. The road then follows the
course of the Humboldt to Cedar Pass, not far from
the Utah line.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_146">146</div>
<h3 id="c102">The Virginia and Truckee.</h3>
<p>Having already given a description of this road, it
will not be necessary in this place to do more than to
mention the distance from point to point between
Reno and Virginia City. Soon after leaving Reno
the dumps of the flumes that bring wood and lumber
down from the pine forests of the Sierras will be seen
to the right of the road. The first of these is four
miles from Reno; three miles farther on, near Huffaker’s
Station, is another, and at Brown’s is a third.
Others will be seen about Washoe Valley and Franktown.
They are from ten to twenty miles in length,
and of the same <span class="ssn">V</span>-shape as that at Carson City.
Steamboat Springs Station is eleven miles from Reno;
Washoe, sixteen miles; Franktown, twenty-one miles;
Carson City, thirty-one miles; Carson to Empire, three
miles; Mexican Mill, three and one-fourth; Morgan
Mill, four; Brunswick, five; Merrimac, five and one-half;
Vivian, six; Santiago Mill, seven miles; Mound
House, ten; Silver Switch, twelve and three-fourths;
Scales, sixteen and one-half; Baltic Switch, seventeen
and one-half; Crown Point, eighteen; Gold Hill,
nineteen; Virginia City, twenty-one miles from Carson
and fifty-two from Reno.</p>
<h3 id="c103">Carson and Colorado.</h3>
<p>At Mound House, ten miles from Carson City, the
Carson and Colorado Narrow Gauge Railroad connects
with the Virginia and Truckee. This road runs
<span class="pb" id="Page_147">147</span>
southeasterly through Lyon and Esmeralda Counties,
in Nevada, then, turning more south, passes through a
corner of Mono County, California, and enters Inyo
County in the same State. It has a total length of
293 miles, and its present southern terminus is at
Keeler, at the south end of Owen’s Lake, Inyo
County. The road passes through regions of very
diverse products and industries. Agricultural and
grazing sections alternate with those in which the
ruling pursuit is mining for the precious metals, and
these with others where are immense salt, soda, and
borax marshes.</p>
<p>Six miles from Mound House is Dayton, on the
Carson River. It is a milling town with agricultural
surroundings. The road runs eastward near the
course of the Carson River through a fine agricultural
and grazing country, then turns southward through
Churchill Canyon to the town of Wabuska, thirty-eight
miles.</p>
<h4 id="c104"><span class="sc">Wabuska.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Wabuska</span> is a thriving little place at the edge of
Mason Valley, one of the finest agricultural and
grazing regions in the State, the Walker River affording
excellent facilities for irrigation. After leaving
Wabuska, Walker Lake is soon reached. The road
passes along the eastern shore of the lake nearly its
whole length, affording many fine and picturesque
views. It is a beautiful sheet of water, but lacks trees
and vegetation, hardly a green thing being seen on
its shores, except at the upper end, at and about the
mouth of the Walker River.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_148">148</div>
<h4 id="c105"><span class="sc">Hawthorne.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Hawthorne</span>, 100 miles from Mound House, is
situated about 3½ miles beyond the foot of the lake.
Although only a little more than eight years old, the
town is beginning to present a comfortable appearance.
It stands on a plain the soil of which at the
time the town was laid out seemed to be nothing
better than pure sand, yet on such a foundation has
been conjured an oasis of shady groves, blooming
grounds, and productive gardens. The town has a
population of about 600. There are many small
veins of gold and silver-bearing quartz in the surrounding
mountains that are rich and easily worked.
Here stages leave for Aurora, 26, and Bodie, 37
miles to the southward. Much freight is taken by
team from Hawthorne to the two mining towns
named. The Walker Lake <i>Bulletin</i>, a good local
paper, is published weekly in the town.</p>
<h4 id="c106"><span class="sc">Luning.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Luning</span>, 125 miles from Mound House, is in the
midst of a mining region the veins of which have
about the same characteristics as those about Hawthorne.
Stages and teams leave the town for Downieville,
Grantsville, and Belmont.</p>
<h4 id="c107"><span class="sc">Belleville.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Belleville</span>, 150 miles from Mound House, is a
thriving mining and milling town.</p>
<h4 id="c108"><span class="sc">Candelaria.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Candelaria</span>, 158 miles from Mound House, is a
brisk mining town of about 600 inhabitants. It contains
several mines of note, and has yielded great
quantities of bullion. The Mt. Diablo Mine is at the
present time the leading bullion producer. The town
<span class="pb" id="Page_149">149</span>
has several mills, some good buildings, and a good
system of water works. Stages leave the town for
Columbus, Silver Peak, Montezuma, Alida Valley,
and Gold Mountain.</p>
<p>Leaving Candelaria, the road soon passes into California,
striking down into Independence Valley near
the White Mountains, the highest peak of which
stands 12,000 feet above the level of the sea. The
line runs through a rich agricultural and grazing
region, with high mountain ranges on either hand, in
which are found many veins rich in the precious
metals.</p>
<h4 id="c109"><span class="sc">Benton.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Benton</span>, in Mono County, California, is 193 miles
from Mound House. It is situated in a rich section
of Independence Valley and is a fine fruit-growing
region. In the neighborhood of the town, which
contains about 200 inhabitants, are many good farms,
orchards, and vineyards.</p>
<h4 id="c110"><span class="sc">Bishop Creek.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Bishop Creek</span> is a flourishing agricultural settlement,
224 miles from Mound House. It is in Inyo
County. The lands and surroundings are much the
same as those of Benton. The hamlet constituting
the trading-post at the railroad, and the farms in the
neighborhood, have a population of about 250.</p>
<h4 id="c111"><span class="sc">Independence.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Independence</span>, 267 miles from Mound House,
with the farms in its immediate neighborhood, has a
population of about 400. The town stands in the
midst of a fine farming, grazing, and fruit-growing region.
Bordering the valley are mountains in which
<span class="pb" id="Page_150">150</span>
are many good mines of the precious metals, though
these have been but little worked and many have not
been opened at all, the settlers in the valleys who discovered
them being devoted to agricultural pursuits.
Here is published weekly the <i>Inyo Independent</i>, an
excellent local paper.</p>
<h4 id="c112"><span class="sc">Keeler.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Keeler</span>, the present terminus of the Carson and
Colorado Railroad, is 293 miles from Mound House.
The town is situated on the east side of Owens Lake
and near its south end. It is a new place and contains
only about 200 inhabitants. Stages leave the
town for Cerro Gordo, Darwin, and Panamint.</p>
<h3 id="c113">Owens Lake.</h3>
<p>Owens Lake, which is the “sink” of Owens River,
has an area of about 110 square miles. Its waters
are heavily charged with salt and alkaline minerals.
One United States standard gallon (8⅓ pounds, or
231 cubic inches) of the lake water contains 4,422.25
grains of solid matter, sodium carbonate and sodium
chloride predominating and aggregating 2,561.83
grains.</p>
<p>The water of the lake contains only a trace of
borax. It is evaporated on a large scale near Keeler,
for the valuable alkaline minerals it holds in solution.
The water of Owens Lake contains a much greater
quantity of mineral matter than that of the Dead Sea.
In Dead Sea water there is only 1,680 grains of solid
matter to the United States gallon. Dead Sea water
is evidently less salt than that of many of the lakes of
the Great Basin region, as fish are found in it at and
<span class="pb" id="Page_151">151</span>
near the mouths of tributary streams, and in places
along its shores shell-fish are to be seen.</p>
<h3 id="c114">Mono Lake.</h3>
<p>Mono Lake,
about 100 miles north of Owens Lake, in Mono
County, has an area of 85 square miles. Its water is
almost precisely similar in every respect to that of
Owens Lake.</p>
<p>Owens River, over 100 miles in length, flows
through the valley nearly its whole course, and, with its
many tributary creeks, affords water sufficient to irrigate
a great area of land. The whole region is rapidly
being taken by settlers. The soil is exceedingly
fertile and the climate very fine. To the west of the
chain of valleys the snow-clad Sierras tower to a vast
height. Above all surrounding peaks Mount Whitney
rises to a height of 15,000 feet. The Carson
and Colorado road will eventually be extended southward
to a connection with the railroad system of
Southern California.</p>
<h3 id="c115">Eureka and Palisade.</h3>
<p>This railroad is ninety miles in length. It is a
narrow gauge and connects Eureka with the Central
Pacific at Palisade. It was constructed to transport
machinery and supplies to the mines and town of
Eureka, and to carry out the products of the smelting
furnaces.</p>
<h4 id="c116"><span class="sc">Palisade.</span></h4>
<p>Palisade contains about 250 inhabitants.</p>
<h4 id="c117"><span class="sc">Eureka.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Eureka</span> is a town of smelting furnaces. It is situated
in the midst of a region in which very rich
smelting ores are mined. The mines at Eureka were
discovered in 1864, but not much was done with
<span class="pb" id="Page_152">152</span>
them until, two years later, and in 1869 the place began
to boom and the yield of the mines soon became
from one to three millions of dollars annually. Like
other mining towns, Eureka has its ebbs and flows of
fortune. For a year or two it was in “barrasca,” but
since the beginning of 1888 it has been again getting
into “bonanza.” It is the county seat of Eureka
County, and has a population of about 2,500. In
1880 it had a population of 4,207, but in 1886-87 it
lost inhabitants. Now it is once more gaining. It is
the point from which many interior mining towns and
camps receive their supplies. There are many fine
and substantial public and private buildings in the
town, and a good system of water works. In the
<i>Sentinel</i>, published weekly, the place has a good local
paper. Eureka is the Pittsburg of Nevada. In all
directions its furnace chimneys vomit volumes of
black, sulphurous smoke—when Government officials
do not “pester” the people on account of their cutting
scrub timber.</p>
<h3 id="c118">Nevada Central.</h3>
<p>This road is a narrow gauge, 93 miles in length,
and connects Austin with the Central Pacific at Battle
Mountain. From Battle Mountain the road runs
nearly south up the valley of the Reese River. There
are many good farms in Reese River Valley, and good
grazing ranges on the higher ground.</p>
<h4 id="c119"><span class="sc">Battle Mountain.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Battle Mountain</span> is a town of about 500 inhabitants,
situated very pleasantly, and cheaply supplied with
<span class="pb" id="Page_153">153</span>
water by means of artesian wells of trifling depth. Its
business is derived from the surrounding farming and
grazing regions, from the Central Pacific Railroad, and
from the several mining sections with which it has
communication. It contains many good public and
private buildings, and handsome cottages are numerous.
<i>The Central Nevadan</i>, a sprightly weekly paper,
is published in the town.</p>
<h4 id="c120"><span class="sc">Austin.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">Austin</span> is the oldest town in Eastern Nevada, and
the mother of mining in that part of the State. It is
the county seat of Lander County. Austin was laid
out in February, 1863. It is situated nearly upon the
summit of the Toyabee Range of mountains, about
six miles from Reese River, and is nearly in the geographical
center of the State. It contains many good,
substantial public and private buildings of brick and
stone. Before the completion of the Central Pacific
the overland stages passed through the town, when it
had about 5,000 inhabitants, as it was also then the
center of a rich mining region. The mines at and
about Austin have produced many millions in gold
and silver bullion. Like all other mining towns, Austin
has had her periods of elevation and depression—her
“streaks of fat and streaks of lean”—and this
year (1889) seems to be getting out of a lean streak
into a streak that shows a considerable amount of
“fatty” matter. August 18, 1874, the town was
nearly ruined by a cloud-burst which tore up the
roadway and sidewalks of the main street, flooded
<span class="pb" id="Page_154">154</span>
buildings, and filled them with mud and sand to the
depth of several feet. The damage done was estimated
at $100,000. As the people had warning of
what was coming, no lives were lost. In this the
Austinites were more fortunate than were the people
of Eureka in the month of July, in the same year,
as there a cloud-burst not only did immense damage
to the town, but also drowned fifteen persons. An
excellent daily paper, the <i>Reese River Reveille</i>, is published
at Austin.</p>
<h3 id="c121">Nevada and California.</h3>
<p>This narrow-gauge railroad starts at Reno and runs
northward into Lassen County, California. It has now
attained a length of about eighty miles, and is still in
process of construction. It is penetrating a region of
country containing vast forests of pine timber, good
mines, and many fine mountain valleys. Eventually
it will be run northward into the interior of Oregon.
It will presently bring to Reno great quantities of
lumber and timber to be shipped eastward into the
timberless regions of the Great Basin country.</p>
<h3 id="c122">Proposed Railroads.</h3>
<p>A section of railroad of narrow gauge has been constructed
through the Beckworth Pass westward. It
connects with the Nevada and California road at
Moran, and is called the Sierra Valley and Mohawk
Railroad. After rails had been laid through the pass
and a short distance down the western slope of the
<span class="pb" id="Page_155">155</span>
Sierras, work was discontinued. It is supposed that
the section of road was laid in the interest of some
one of the great Eastern roads now heading toward
the Pacific Ocean in order to hold the pass. The
Beckworth Pass is nearly 2,000 feet lower than that
through which the Central Pacific Railroad is laid.</p>
<h4 id="c123"><span class="sc">The Salt Lake and Los Angeles.</span></h4>
<p><span class="sc">The Salt Lake and Los Angeles</span> is a proposed
railroad on which surveying parties have been engaged
for nearly a year. It is intended to start at Milford,
on the Utah Central, pass through Lincoln County,
Nevada, and connect with the railroad system of
Southern California at Barstow. This road would
tap a rich mining and a fine agricultural and grazing
region in Southern Nevada. It would give life to an
immense region of country that has long lain as
dead.</p>
<h4 id="c124"><span class="sc">Nevada, Central, and Idaho</span></h4>
<p>Another proposed road is an extension of the Nevada
Central from Battle Mountain northward into
Idaho.</p>
<h3 id="c125">Nevada a Land of Great Possibilities.</h3>
<p>Notwithstanding its sterile and forbidding appearance,
Nevada is capable of supporting an immense
population. The soil, which to the eyes of strangers
appears so poor and barren, is one of the strongest
and richest in America. It is formed of decomposed
lava and various kinds of volcanic rocks, and contains
large quantities of all the various mineral constituents
necessary to a strong and healthy growth of every kind
of farm produce known to the temperate zone. All
<span class="pb" id="Page_156">156</span>
that is required to produce a rank growth of vegetation
of every kind is a supply of water; all other life-giving
agents are contained in the soil. On the
mountain slopes and the bench-lands, which look so
arid and worthless, the soil is even stronger and more
kindly than in the valleys. With water all the mountain-sides
may be made veritable hanging gardens.
Until within the past year agriculture (as regards irrigation)
has been left to take care of itself. It has
been left to individuals, each working after a plan of
his own. There has been no established system of
irrigation, and, save in one or two instances, no attempt
at storing water in order to maintain a large
and regular supply. The water used is taken as it
flows from the mountains, as the snow banks deposited
in winter melt away in the early spring and first
summer months. Then, in average seasons, there are
for a month or two floods of water pouring down all
the rivers, creeks, and canyons. This great rush of
water passes down into the interior lakes and “sinks”
without being utilized for any purpose, and is lost.
Were this water caught up in storage reservoirs ten
times the area of land at present irrigated could be
brought under cultivation.</p>
<p>At last a movement has been made toward the systematic
reclamation of the arid lands of Nevada, and
the proper storage and utilization of all the available
water in the State. In November, 1888, a corps of
U. S. Engineers began a hydrographic survey on the
<span class="pb" id="Page_157">157</span>
headwaters of the Truckee, Carson and Walker Rivers.
This survey—interrupted by the cold weather of winter—will
be completed this year. Already a survey
of 800 square miles has been completed. Major
Powell says Lake Tahoe constitutes an immense natural
storage reservoir of almost incalculable value.
He estimates that in it may be stored sufficient water
(with a four-foot dam) to irrigate 500,000 acres of
land. If this be true, then Donner Lake may be made
to contain water sufficient to irrigate from 150,000 to
200,000 acres. On the headwaters of the Carson and
Walker Rivers are many lakes and basins of extinct
lakes that may be turned into vast storage reservoirs
at small cost.</p>
<p>Among the mountain ranges of the interior of the
State many reservoirs may be profitably constructed.
Also in the interior valleys and basins artesian wells
will be of great value. Already there are in the State
110 flowing wells. Though the flow from some of
these is strong it is trifling to what might be obtained
at greater depth, the present wells being only from 100
to 300 feet deep. Artesian water has been found to
exist everywhere in the valleys lying between the
mountain ranges of the interior.</p>
<p>Last winter the State government for the first time
took hold of the irrigation question and made a move
toward the establishment of a system of reservoirs and
other works, appropriating $100,000 therefor.</p>
<p>To the southward of the line of the Central Pacific
<span class="pb" id="Page_158">158</span>
lies a region of country large enough to make half a
dozen New England States, that is almost unoccupied.
There tens of thousands of families might find homes.
Lack of transportation facilities at present prevents
settlers from going into that portion of the State, but
the building of the Salt Lake and Los Angeles, or any
other of the proposed railroads, would cause a rush to
its semi-tropical valleys.</p>
<p>A beginning having been made, the time is not distant
when Nevada will no longer be branded as a land
whose soil is only capable of supporting the jackrabbit,
the lizard, and the horned-toad.</p>
<hr class="dwide" />
<h2 id="c126"><span class="small">A HISTORY OF THE COMSTOCK SILVER LODE & MINES</span> <br/>By Dan De Quille</h2>
<p>At a time when most mining companies
and maverick prospectors had fanned out
from California in pursuit of richer gold
claims, three uneducated miners accidentally
stumbled upon the world’s richest
silver deposit in Nevada. The year was
1859 and it marked the beginning of the
West’s most exciting era in mining history.
De Quille’s account of this startling discovery
(on what was subsequently to be
called the Comstock Lode) and his eyewitness
report on Virginia City in the
heydays of the 1880’s is one of the most
fascinating and detailed to be found on
the subject.</p>
<p>After describing the events surrounding
the initial discovery, the author traces the
rapid development of the earliest makeshift
towns and mills that were erected on
the site. Most notable during this period
are the years between 1860 and 1863 when
Virginia City emerged and grew uncontrollably
in wealth and population as
thousands of miners from California, the
Atlantic seaboard and Canada converged
on the city to labor for the highest wages
paid on the American continent. Other key
events, such as The Great Fire of 1875
which wiped out a large section of the city,
and its miraculous rebuilding in 60 days
are covered as well.</p>
<p>The major portion of the book, however,
is devoted to the author’s first-hand experience
in Virginia City during its biggest
boom period of the 1880’s. The vivid
composite he creates of the manners and
habits of this society is surpassed only by
the astounding wealth of facts and figures
<span class="pb" id="Page_160">160</span>
he provides on the mining companies’
record-breaking profits, the lengths and
depths of the Comstock veins, and the
multitude of methods utilized for extracting
and refining crude silver. Reliable information
such as this, and in such bulk,
was even scarce in its day.</p>
<p>A general description of the major towns
of Nevada, the physical characteristics of
the State and its mineral and agricultural
resources rounds out the text.</p>
<h3 id="c127">ABOUT THE SERIES</h3>
<p>No other nation has ever expanded as
rapidly as the United States between the
years 1820 and 1860. Marching onto immense
stretches of territory belonging to
Mexico, the Indians and foreign powers,
America’s pioneers brought with them a
new language, new religions and new concepts
of society. Within the brief span of
40 years they had spread political unity
and cultural uniformity over this vast new
land.</p>
<p>Few will deny that the pioneers who subdued
that last, great West between the
Rockies and the Pacific braved a more hostile
country, endured more gruelling hardships
and faced greater dangers than did
any other settlers in the three-century-long
conquest of the continent.</p>
<p><i>America’s Pioneer Heritage</i> is comprised
of scarce and long out-of-print books that
detail our western saga. Among the works
included in the series are eyewitness
accounts, journals, letters and other primary
source materials which are so crucial
to an understanding of the American
character.</p>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="larger ss">PROMONTORY PRESS</span></p>
<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<ul>
<li>Silently corrected a few typos.</li>
<li>Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.</li>
<li>In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.</li>
<li>Collated Table of Contents against chapter headings; added chapter headings or TOC entries to correspond.</li>
</ul>
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