The Great Nevada Flume.

A PERILOUS RIDE.

By H. J. Ramsdell, of The N. Y. Tribune.

            A 15 mile ride in a flume down the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 35 minutes, was not one of the things contemplated on my visit to Virginia City, and it is entirely within reason to say that I shall never make the trip again.

            The flume cost, with its appurtenances, between $200,000 and $300,000. It was built by a company interested in the mines here, principally owners of the Consolidated Virginia, California, Hale & Norcross, Gould & Curry, Best & Belcher, and Utah Mines. The largest stockholders are J. C. Flood, James G. Fair, John Mackey, and W. S. O'Brien, who compose, without doubt, the wealthiest firm in the United States.

            The mines named use 1,000,000 feet of lumber per month underground, and burn 40,000 cords of wood per year. Wood here is worth from $10 to $12 a cord, and at market prices, Messrs.

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Flood & Co., would have to pay for wood alone, nearly $500,000 per year.

            Virginia City is not built in a forest. From the top of Mount Davidson, which is half a mile back from the city, there is not a tree in sight, except a few shade-trees in the city.

            Going into the mines the other day, and seeing the immense amount of timber used, I asked Mr. Mackey where all the wood and timber came from. " It comes," said he, from our lands in the Sierras, 40 or 50 miles from here. We own over 19,000 acres in the vicinity of Washoe Lake, all of which is heavily timbered."

            "How do you get it here?" I asked.

            "It comes," said he, in our flume down the mountain, 15 miles, and from our dumping grounds is brought by the Virginia & Truckee Railroad to this city, 10 miles. You ought to see this flume before you go back. It is really a wonderful thing."

            The Journey.—When, therefore, two days afterward, I was invited to accompany Mr. Flood and Mr. Fair to the head of the flume, I did not hesitate to accept their kind offer. We started at four o'clock in the morning, in two buggies, the two gentlemen named in one buggy, and Mr. Hereford, the President and Superintendent of the company (which is known as the Pacific Wood, Lumber and Flume Company) and myself in the other.

            The drive through Washoe Valley, and along the mountains, up and down for 10 miles over a road which, for picturesqueness, is without an equal in memory, can not be described. Not a tree, nor bush, nor any green vegetation was in sight. Hills and mountains, well defined and separate in character, were in every direction, Sage brush and jack rabbits were the only things in sight. That beautiful purple atmosphere or mist, which has a dreamy, sleepy effect in the landscape, overspread the mountains and extended through the valley.

            The road we traversed swung round and round the mountains, now going nearly to the summit, and now descending to their base.

            Both teams employed were of the best, and in less than an hour and a half we had accomplished the first part of our journey, 16 miles. Here we breakfasted and went to the end of the flume, a quarter of a mile distant. The men were running timber 16 inches square and 10 feet long through it. The trestle-work upon which the flume rested was about 20 feet from the ground. The velocity of the movement of the timber could scarcely be credited, for it requires from only twenty-five minutes to half an hour for it to float the entire length of the flume, 15 miles.

            The flume is shaped like the letter V, and is made of two-inch plank nailed together in the above shape. Across the top it is about two and one-half feet in width. The ends are very carefully fitted, so that where the planks go together there may be no unevenness ; for timbers going at the rate of 15 to 60 miles per hour must have a clear coast.

            In this trough the water runs from Hunter's Creek, which is situated about 20 miles from the terminus of the flume.

            Some idea of the swiftness with which the timber runs through the flume, may be had when it is stated that in the flume there floats 500,000 feet of lumber every day (about ten hours), or 500 cords of wood.

            Near the terminus an iron break is placed in the trough, slanting toward one side, so that when the timber comes rushing down, 50 or 100 pieces, one after the other, each piece is turned toward the side, and the men at the break, with a dexterous use of the crowbar, send them bounding to the ground.

            I climbed to the top of the trestle-work, before the timber began to come. It was like the rushing of a herd of buffalo on a party of hunters, and I preferred to view the flume, in active working, from a distance.

            We changed teams upon resuming our journey, taking fresh horses for the mountain ascent. Horsemen in the East who have never seen the mountains of Nevada, Colorado and California, can have no idea of the amount of work a horse can do, and of the difficult places through which he will go, and of the load he will carry or draw.

            How a pair of horses can pull a buggy and two men up a grade that seems half-way between the horizontal and the perpendicular, over stones and fallen trees, and through underbrush six feet high and very thick, is a question I can never hope to solve; at any rate, we reached the lower mill of the company, about 18 or 20 miles. This was several hours before noon.

            The mill is situated in the lower belt, of timber, and there are between 400 and 500 men at work. This number includes those engaged in cutting trees, hauling logs, and sawing the lumber. How the heavy machinery of the mills, and the engines which work them were brought from the city up the mountains and placed in position, is another mystery which I have not tried to investigate.

            The amount of lumber turned out by the owner of these mills, the upper and the lower, the former being two and one-half miles farther up the mountain, is marvellous.

            In five minutes' time, a log from two to four feet in diameter is reduced to lumber, planks, scantling, boards, and square timber, perhaps all from the same log, for it is cut in the most advantageous manner. Sometimes one log will give three or four different kinds of lumber. The lower mill is kept running night and day, and has a capacity of 50,000 feet per day of small stuff, and of 70,000 feet when working on large timber.

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            The upper mill has less than half the capacity, being smaller, and being worked only 19 hours a day.

            The Flume.—The flume is a wonderful piece of engineering work. It is built wholly upon trestle-work, and stringers ; there is not a cut in the whole distance, and the grade is so heavy that there is little danger of a jam.

            The trestle-work is very substantial, and is undoubtedly strong enough to support a narrow gauge railway. It runs over foot hills, through valleys, around mountains, and across canons.

            In one place it is 70 feet high. The highest point of the flume from the plain, is 3,700 feet, and on an air line, from beginning to end, the distance is eight miles, the course thus taking up seven miles in twists and turns. The trestlework is thoroughly braced, longitudinally and across, so that no break can extend farther than a single box, which is 16 feet ; all the main supports, which are five feet apart, are firmly set in mud-sills, and the boxes or troughs rest in brackets four feet apart.. These again rest upon substantial stringers. The grade of the flume is between 1,600 and 2,000 feet from the top to lower end, a distance of 15 miles.

            The sharpest fall is three feet in six. There are two reservoirs from which the flume is fed. One is 1,100 feet long, and the other 600 feet. A ditch, nearly two miles long, takes the water to the first reservoir, whence it is conveyed 3 1-4 miles to the flume through a feeder capable of carrying 450 inches of water.

            The whole flume was built in 10 weeks. In that time all the trestle-work, stringers and boxes were put in place. About 900 men were employed on it at one time, being divided into four gangs. It required 2,000,000 feet of lumber, but the item which astonished me most was that there were 28 tons, or 56,000 pounds of nails, used in the construction of this flume.

            To the lower mill, as the road goes, it is about 40 miles from Virginia City. Although I had already ridden this distance, yet I mounted a horse and rode two or three miles to the top of the mountain, where I had one of the finest valley views that come to the lot of man. Miles and miles below, the valley was spread out with spots and squares of green crops growing, and barren wastes of sand and sage brush reaching in a long stretch to the base of another spur of the Sierras. The City of Reno occupied a little spot on the plain—from my mountain it seemed like a city of toy houses built on Nature's carpet.

            A Ride in the Flume.—Upon my return I found that Mr. Flood and Mr. Fair had arranged for a ride in the flume, and was challenged to go with them. Indeed, the proposition was put in the, form of a challenge—they dared me to go.

            I thought that if men worth $25,000,000 or $30,000,000 apiece, could afford to risk their lives, I could afford to risk mine, which was not worth half as much.

            So I accepted the challenge and two boats were ordered. These were nothing more than pig-troughs, with one end knocked out. The "boat" is built, like the flume, V shaped, and fits into the flume. It is composed of three pieces of wood—two two-inch planks, 16 feet long, and an end board which is nailed about two and one-half feet across the top.

            The forward end of the boat was left open, the rear end closed with a board—against which was to come the current of water to propel us. Two narrow boards were placed in the boat for seats, and everything was made ready. Mr. Fair and myself were to go in the first boat, and Mr. Flood and Mr. Hereford in the other.

            Mr. Fair thought that we had better take a third man with us who knew something about the flume. There were probably 50 men from the mill standing in the vicinity waiting to see us off, and when it was proposed to take a third man, the question was asked of them if anybody was willing to go.

            Only one man, a red-faced carpenter, who takes more kindly to whisky than his bench, volunteered to go. Finally, everything was arranged. Two or three stout men held the boat over the flume, and told us to jump into it the minute it touched the water, and to "hang on to our hats."

            The signal of "all ready " was given, the boat was launched, and we jumped into it as best we could, which was not very well, and away we went like the wind.

            One man who helped to launch the boat, fell into it just as the water struck it, but he scampered out on the trestle, and whether he was hurt or not, we could not wait to see.  The grade of the flume at the mill is very heavy, and the water rushes through it at railroad speed. The terrors of that ride can never be blotted from the memory of one of that party. To ride upon the cow-catcher of an engine down a steep grade is simply exhilarating, for you know there is a wide track, regularly laid upon a firm foundation, that there are wheels grooved and fitted to the track, that there are trusty men at the brakes, and better than all, you know that the power that impels the train can be rendered powerless in an instant by the driver's light touch upon his lever. But a flume has no element of safety. In the first place the grade can not be regulated as it can on a railroad ; you can not go fast or slow at pleasure; you are wholly at the mercy of the water. You can not stop ; you can not lessen your speed; you have nothing to hold to; you have only to sit still, shut your eyes, say your prayers, take all the water that comes — filling your boat, wetting your feet, drenching you like a plunge through the surf,—and wait for eternity. It is all there is to hope for after you are launched in a flume-boat. I

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can not give the reader a better idea of a flume ride than to compare it to riding down an old fashioned cave-trough at an angle of 45°, hanging in midair without support of roof or house, and thus shot a distance of 15 miles.

            At the start, we went at the rate of about 20 miles an hour, which is a little less than the average speed of a railroad train. The reader can have no idea of the speed we made, until he compares it to a railroad. The average time we made was 30 miles per hour—a mile in two minutes for the entire distance. This is greater than the average running time of railroads.

            Incidents of the Ride.—The red-faced carpenter sat in front of our boat on the bottom, as best he could. Mr. Fair sat on a seat behind him, and I sat behind Mr. Fair in the stern, and was of great service to him in keeping the water, which broke over the end-board, from his back.

            There was a great deal of water also shipped in the bows of the hog-trough, and I know Mr. Fair's broad shoulders kept me from many a wetting; in that memorable trip.  At the heaviest grade the water came in so furiously in front, that it was impossible to see where we were going, or what was ahead of us ; but, when the grade was light, and we were going at a three or four-minute pace, the vision was very delightful, although it was terrible.  In this ride, which fails me to describe, I was perched up in a boat no wider than a chair, sometimes 20 feet high in the air, and with the ever varying altitude of the flume, often 70 feet high. When the water would enable me to look ahead, I would see this trestle here and there for miles, so small and narrow, and apparently so fragile, that I could only compare it to a chalk-mark, upon which, high in the air, I was running at a rate unknown upon railroads.

            One circumstance during the trip did more to show me the terrible rapidity with which we dashed through the flume, than anything else. We had been rushing down at a pretty lively rate of speed, when the boat suddenly struck something in the bow—a nail, or lodged stick of wood, which ought not to have been there. What was the result? The red-faced carpenter was sent whirling into the flume, 10 feet ahead. Fair was precipitated on his face, and I found a soft lodgment on Fair's back.

            It seemed to me that in a second's time, Fair, himself a powerful man, had the carpenter by the scruff of the neck, and had pulled him into the boat. I did not know that, at this time, Fair had his fingers crushed between the boat and the flume.

            But we sped along ; minutes seemed hours. It seemed an hour before we arrived at the worst place in the flume, and yet Hereford tells me it was less than 10 minutes. The flume at the point alluded to must have very near 45° inclination.

            In looking out before we reached it, I thought the only way to get to the bottom was to fall. How our boat kept in the track is more than I know. The wind, the steamboat, the railroad never went so fast. I have been where the wind blew at the rate of 80 miles an hour, and yet my breath was not taken away. In the flume, in the bad places, it seemed as it I would suffocate.

            The first bad place that we reached, and if I remember right, it was the worst, I got close against Fair. I did not know that I would survive the journey, but I wanted to see how fast we were going. So I lay close to him and placed my head between his shoulders. The water was coming into his face, like the breakers of the ocean. When we went slow, the breakers came in on my back, but when the heavy grades were reached, the breakers were in front. In one ease Fair shielded me, and in the other, I shielded Fair.

            In this particularly bad place I allude to, my desire was to form some judgment of the speed we were making. If the truth must be spoken, I was really scared almost out of reason; but if I was on the way to eternity, I wanted to know exactly how fast I went; so I huddled close to Fair, and turned my eyes toward the hills. Every object I placed my eye on was gone, before could clearly see what it was. Mountains passed like visions and shadows. It was with difficulty that I could get my breath. I felt that I did not weigh an hundred pounds, although I knew, in the sharpness of intellect which one has at such a moment, that the scales turned at two hundred.

            Mr. Flood and Mr. Hereford, although they started several minutes later than we, were close upon us. They were not so heavily loaded, and they had the full sweep of the water, while we had it rather at second hand. Their boat finally struck ours with a terrible crash.

            Mr. Flood was thrown upon his face, and the waters flowed over him, leaving not a dry thread upon him. What became of Hereford I do not know, except that when he reached the terminus of the flume, he was as wet as any of us.

            This only remains to be said. We made the entire distance in less time than a railroad train would ordinarily make, and a portion of the time we went faster than a railroad train ever went.

            Fair said we went at least a mile a minute. Flood said we went at the rate of 100 miles an hour, and my deliberate belief is that we went at a rate that annihilated time and space. We were a wet lot when we reached the terminus of the flume. Flood said he would not make the trip again, for the whole Consolidated Virginia Mine.

            Fair said that he should never again place himself on an equality with timber and wood, and Hereford said he was sorry that he ever built the flume. As for myself, I told the millionaire that

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I had accepted my last challenge. When we left we were more dead than alive.

            We had yet 16 miles to drive to Virginia City. How we reached home, the reader will never know. I asked Flood what I was to do with my spoiled suit of English clothes.  He bade me good night, with the remark that my clothes were good enough to give away.  The next day, neither Flood nor Fair were able to leave their bed.  For myself, I only had strength enough left to say, " I have had enough of flumes."