To the Mines Of Lincoln and White Pine 1867-1870

August 26, 2009

Nevada's Online State News Journal


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Nevada History:

[Except from George W. France, The Struggles for Life and Home in the North-West (1890), pp. 76-97.]

To the Mines of Lincoln and White Pine, 1867-1870.

CHAPTER V.

Leave Los Angeles for a new mining camp in Nevada. -- The stock of a train captured by Indians. -- "Death Valley." -- Eighty-seven families, stock, etc., perish. -- The surrounding region and its products. -- How teamsters are revenged. -- Comprehensive description of the mining camp. -- " Hurrah ! hurrah ! we have struck it, hurrah ! ! " -- A big Indian. -- How Mining Co. officials steal. -- Indian and white men hung. -- The mode of government and trial. -- Wages, living, business, etc. -- The geological formation of mineral lodes, veins, fissures, etc., and placer mines. -- Prospecting for and locating claims. -- The right time to sell, etc. -- Why mines are guarded with rifles. -- How stock companies operate. -- Why newspaper accounts of mines are not reliable. -- The real prices paid for mines. -- How stock, etc., is made to sell. -- One and a half year's experience.

AT Los Angeles I formed the acquaintance of an agent of a mining company ; he was forwarding by freight wagons a quartz-mill and supplies to their "rich and extensive mines" at Pah-Ranagat in south-eastern Nevada. This was a new and glowing mining district then -- at a distance, and he easily induced me to go to the mines with the train having the machinery. I was to run the engine of the mill at eight dollars a day.

Mr. Agent remained behind a few days to start and accompany an outfit of four wagons, four men, and thirty-five or forty mules and horses, with mining supplies. When on their journey, having camped for the night at an alkali spring on the desert, about 250 miles out from Los Angeles, two of the men being out with the stock, some Indians swooped in on them and run them off, to eat them ; except two that struck for camp (as is quite usual), and one that was tied to a wagon.

Then three of the party stayed with the wagons, while the other two returned and procured other animals.

" Yet happier those we name (nor name we wrong),

Who the rough seas of stormy life along

Have sailed contented ; by experience taught

Those ills to suffer, which their errors (or their fate)

had brought.

With placid hopes each torturing pang beguile,

And welcome every sorrow with a smile.''

(76J

Mining Camps. 77

We travelled a different road part of the way to San Bernardino, then took the same I have described, for about 250 miles, when we turned north for about 200 miles (wagon wheel measurement), to the mining camp of "great possibilities."

After leaving the Mormon road, we found water at from twenty-five to forty-five miles travel -- one of the stretches being thirty-five miles. Passed along the border of Death Valley, said to be below the sea level.

"THE VALLEY OF DEATH. -- A spot almost as terrible as the prophet's ' valley of dry bones ' lies just north of the old Mormon road to California - a region thirty miles long by thirty broad, and surrounded, except at two points, by inaccessible mountains. It is totally devoid of water and vegetation, and the shadow of a bird or wild beast never darkens its white, glaring sands. The Kansas Pacific railroad engineers discovered [?] it, and some papers, which show the fate of the "lost Montgomery train,'' which came south from Salt Lake in 1850, guided by a Mormon. When near Death Valley, some came to the conclusion that the Mormon knew nothing of the country, so they appointed one of their number a leader, and broke off from their party. The leader turned due west, and so, with the people and wagons and the flocks, he travelled three days and then descended into the broad valley, whose treacherous mirage promised water. They reached the center, but only the white sands, bounded by scorching peaks, met their gaze. And around the valley they wandered, and one by one the men died. And the panting flocks stretched themselves in death under the hot sun. The children, crying for water, died at their mothers' breasts, and, with swollen tongues and burning vitals, the mothers followed. Wagon after wagon was abandoned, and strong men tottered and raved and died. After a week's wandering, a dozen survivors found some water in the hollow of a mountain. It lasted but a short time, when all perished but two, who escaped out of the valley and followed the trail of their former companions. Eighty-seven families, with hundreds of animals, perished here ; and now, after twenty-two years, the wagons stand still, complete, the iron-works and tires are bright, and the shrivelled skeletons lie side by side."

This region produces many varieties of cactus ; some being a foot in diameter and about twenty feet high, and in spots like a thick forest. The dead trunks made good camp fires.

78 California to Nevada.

There is alkali and soda in extensive banks and quite pure, so that, when it rains, the water running from it looks like milk. There is also petrified wood, chalk hills, vulcano craters and lava flows, and dry lakes, five to ten miles in extent, smooth and hard as a floor.

Lizards, centipedes and Indians bask in the sunshine, each apparently contented with his lot, and sometimes there are vast swarms of grasshoppers, but they fly away.

It was said, that the freighter who brought the mill, had the faculty of tricking his men out of their wages, so that on reaching Salt Lake they stole the burrs from his wagons in revenge,

I found a mining district, and a county (Lincoln) had been organized, embracing the mountain spur, containing the mineral bearing quartz rock, -- the highest peak (which was composed of barren quartz) being some 9000 feet above the sea -- a small watered valley, fit for farming and stock raising, ten or twelve miles away, having large flowing hot sulphur springs, and enough of the adjacent country for an extensive grasshopper and lizard range, and to show big on a map.

There were five little camps ; three being in the mountain, and two in the valley, -- one of which was the county seat and the other had wanted to be. They each having water -- both hot and cold. One of the three camps in the mountain was supplied with water from a spring, three or four miles away, at ten cents a gallon ; each of the other two had small springs.

There was some timber (pine) on the mountain, and lumber was whip-sawed for $150 a thousand feet, also a good deal of scrub-nut-pine for fuel and producing food for the Indians.

The district contained a migratory, ever changing population of about 250 men, from every quarter and station; less than a dozen women and children, and the usual complement of Indians.

These Indians are simple as children, and degraded in their habits, but as proud, patriotic and jealous of their possessions and fame, as a subject of the white Mormon secret state. Their chief had recently met the Governor of the State (Nevada), and to impress him with their equal importance,

80 California to Nevada.

addressed him thus:-- "You big chief: Me big chief too; You own Virginia City, Austin, Carson, etc., etc. : Me own all of this, that, and the other mountain, and all of these valleys, waters, etc., etc. ; You heap big son of a b -- h : Me all the same."

There were now three quartz mills in the district, with more to follow, and most everybody had "feet" in mining claims. One had sold for $50,000, and they were singing, " hurrah ! hurrah ! ! we have struck it, hurrah ! ! ! the Gentiles have struck it in southern Utah." It was at first thought to be in Utah.

Miners' wages were sis dollars a day, mechanics' eight dollars, and boss mill builders' twenty dollars. But there was not much employment to be had ; there being always an over supply of men, and the pay was mighty uncertain.

Merchants charged, on an average, about 300 per cent, profit on their goods, expecting this to be somewhat reduced by bad debts, as credit is seldom refused.

There was no smaller change than twenty-five cents, which was the price of drinks, etc. Board, fourteen dollars a week, though "baching" was the rule at an expense of about one dollar a day. Flour, thirteen dollars a hundred pounds. Sugar, butter, coffee, at seventy-five cents a pound. Boots, thirteen dollars a pair. Grain and potatoes, ten cents a pound. Hay, fifty dollars a ton. Wagon spokes and ax handles, one dollar to one dollar and a half each. Hard lumber, one dollar and a half per square foot. There were similar mining camps, 150 miles and more away ; and Mormon settlements as near as 175 miles, which sent in their produce. The Mormons like to have mining camps spring up around them, for the market they afford them. They thus got six dollars a bushel for all their surplus wheat for several years, other produce in proportion. The mines, and the California and Oregon bound emigration trains, and United States troops constituted their markets.

The Mormons never mine themselves, except for wages. The counsel of the order being against investing any money in mines; knowing, that as a business it does not begin to pay, except with other people's money.

There being no home influences or comforts in mining

Mining Camps. 81

camps, the saloons are the universal place of resort, for company, business and pleasure. Stores and saloons are frequently connected. And all men are expected, as good citizens, to contribute towards making things lively and times good for those who do not work, by spending their money for whiskey, in gambling, and at the stores. Those who would do so freely, and in advance, stood the first show for employment, -- as good as those who were secret ring brethren. An employer could thus throw money into the pockets of brethren behind the counters and tables. Men seeking employment, on going to such places, should be broke and forthwith run saloon and board bills, and let them hustle up jobs for them.

Mining superintendents get a salary of about $5000 a year, and what they can safely steal ; which is in proportion to the amount of business done and money handled. They are usually ring brethren of the chief men of the company, with no business ability or character necessary for legitimate success ; but they must be cunning in their stealing and trustworthy in dividing. Expenses incurred are largely increased in the books, this is one of their ways. I knew the bookkeeper of a management that had him add one hundred per cent, to all expenses, or so it would average that. $100,000 expended in a quartz mill, can be made to blossom into $376,911.09 in the books to the outside stock holders ; other expenses likewise.

There were state and county ring machines of government here, but they were discarded by the people for the government of the plains -- carried in every man's pocket, or swung to his belt. For example : -- an Indian having killed a white man, was, with others, captured, tried without lawbooks or lawyers, and hung ; the others being acquitted.

A white man, of considerable eminence in the states, murdered another for his money ; he was likewise given a fair, open trial and hung.

An employer undertakes to trick his men out of their money; knowing that he has it, one of them presents a pistol at his head, with the proposition to pay or die -- he pays.

A boisterous desperado undertakes to " run the town," runs against some quiet little man, who kills him in his disgust at the cowardice of the famed bullies and toughs of the camp.

82 California to Nevada.

The people were not afraid of, or prejudiced against the professional gambler and sharp, but they had no use for the mysterious midnight trickster and confidence man.

I have noticed that the more frank, generous and honorable of men, who have had experience with the different governments, prefer this government " by the people, for the people," to that of gangs of lawyers ; because secret gangs do not protect what honest industry procures.

While the selfish, grasping, criminal natures, who would get on by secret intrigue and the misery they make, are wedded to the lawyer gang system.

" They are never happy, except when they destroy

The comfort and blessing which others enjoy."

As to the geological formation of mineral lodes, veins or deposits, let the curious, as to this, imagine a mountain in a molten state ; then towards and at the surface it has become cool and hardened, with a seething, blubbering mass of molten quartz, mingled with mineral, shaken, settled or run together, still in a state of volcanic action underneath in the bowels of the mountain ; the volcanic action, being now more confined, becomes more violent, and the mountain above cracks open, in one or more fissures or cracks ; the seething, blubbering mass of quartz-rock and mineral boils and spurts up into the fissures or cracks, till their sides (" wall rock ") are smooth as glass ; it finally cools and hardens there into solid mineral-bearing quartz-rock. If it is pressed, spurted, or flows out at the surface of the cracks, then out-croppings are formed, and bowlders and bodies of this mineral-mixed lava are mingled with the surrounding surface of the mountain ; perhaps, in time, this is partly or completely covered with other rock, soil and vegetation. Usually it appears that nearly, or all of the mineral-bearing rock had thus flowed out and scattered about, and the fissures or cracks had then settled back or closed from beneath, or else filled up with ordinary rock or lava, which may crop out and be scattered about also. Or the fissures, cracks, may be filled with quartz, barren of mineral ; nearly so, or except in spots (called " bonanzas " or " pockets "), or except in perpendicular streaks (called "chimneys"). There are plenty of ledges, fissures, etc., in quartz and mining districts that are not loded

Mining Camps. 83

with metal. But gold and silver is usually formed or mixed with the character of rock, called quartz.

These cracks, fissures or lodes may be very deep, farther down than has ever been reached by man, (about 4000 feet). When deep, they are called true fissure veins, and trend in direction with the range of mountain - usually northerly and southerly. But they usually contract with depth, " pinch " or "peter out" at a short distance below the surface ; this is most always the case, if rich in the precious metals, otherwise they would not be precious. If there is no out-cropping to a ledge or lode, and it is covered with the country or common rock, or with ground, it is called a " blind ledge " or lode. Imagine again, that the mountain, on cooling, had many surface cracks or seams (which, when leading to or springing from a main or larger one, are called " spurs ") and also cavities, caves and pockets, and that a portion of these are filled with the flowing and rolling quartz, more or less mixed with mineral.

In lead districts, molten lead and rock seems to have flowed for many miles, filling up the holes and low places in the way. Afterwards, other flows of lava have more or less covered these deposits and formed stratas of rock over them. Afterwards, earth-quakes and the wear of water may have changed the lay of the land.

In a mineral district, the ledges or veins of quartz-rock -- either barren or containing valuable mineral, such as gold, silver, copper, lead, etc., -- also all of the bowlders, scattered bodies, filled cracks, holes, deposits, etc., showing signs of mineral, are, when discovered, each located as a mining claim and recorded. A mining claim may (in late years) embrace as much as twenty acres of ground.

The richest rock is, as a rule, found at or near the surface of the ledge ; though richer pockets may be found deeper down. The rich rock of the " bonanzas " struck deep in the great comstock, was very low grade, compared with that found at the surface of the ledge.

When one has a quartz claim and can find a man with money, who thinks the rock will improve, or that the ledge will widen out as depth is attained, sell it to him, quick.

However, if the rock will pay to work, he and his partner

84 California to Nevada.

can blast it out and sell it on the dump ; have it worked by some one of the mills that are already, or will be, built, if there is a prospect of much pay rock anywhere around. Or, if it is rock that is not difficult to work, they can put up an erasta, hitch their horses to it, and work a ton or two of rock a day themselves. But a claim that has really good prospects in sight, can be sold, for more than it is worth to work, to some gang of mining sharps who will work it off for a yet larger sum, with a " half interest " or stock game, to " raise money to develop or work it," etc. A good mine, or a good prospect even, does not need to be advertised or puffed in newspapers to find a customer. It would he foolish to put up ten dollars on anything that might he written in a newspaper about a mine. If it is a big bargain, do not think that the owner will hunt up strangers to favor with it, or permit them to enjoy it at all.

If a mine is really rich and is to be honestly worked, it is to the interest of the owners, in various ways, to keep its value hid as much as possible, and they never fail to do so.

Persons that have never owned enticing property, have no idea of the midnight conspiracies, that set to work to rob the owner of such properties. The gang conspires to have the courts in the hands of secret brethren, with whom they can secretly and safely deal, and then, by hook or crook, some little technical error (?), done for the purpose to get the property in the hands of the courts. Or the gang may "jump " it, when, if they are not killed, the court comes to their assistance, by taking and keeping the case in court until the mine is worked out -- twenty or thirty years, if necessary. For example, a clerical error (?) of, I believe, but a single word, done in the patent to McGarahan, was excuse enough for the courts to take his mine, give it to some brethren, and keep it in court as long as the owner lived -- about thirty-five years. Besides, taking all the means he could raise meanwhile. So that it is necessary to defend such property with rifles and shotguns, which is often expensive. And there are other reasons, as can be imagined, why rich strikes are concealed and not advertised.

In prospecting a new locality for quartz mines, one rides through the gulches and ravines, looks for pieces of quartz or "float'' rock, which may have been washed by the elements

Mining Camps. 85

from ledges or other bodies of it above. If any promising pieces of rock are found, the hills and mountains above where it was found are carefully looked over, to find where or what the " float " was detached from. The distance it has travelled is judged by the amount it is worn.

Frequently the out-croppings, bowlders and other surface quartz, as heretofore described, have decomposed and been washed, with their gold, down into the gulches and streams, with gravel, and other dirt washed over -- thus forming the Placer mines.

There were, perhaps, one thousand mining claims located and recorded in the Pah-Ranagat district. I had first seen specimens from some of them at Salt Lake ; they were highly colored, and enticing to look at. This is one way of advertising a mining camp and particular mines : I mean, to exhibit rich pieces of ore.

But the ore in this district was base ; that is, it contained besides silver, sulphur, antimony, copper, iron, lead, etc.; it being therefore refractory and costly to mill, separate and work. It was also very hard to drill and blast. Then it was a low grade ore, say ten dollars to thirty dollars in silver to the ton of rock. Pieces could be selected that would assay very high, while much of it was quite barren.

There is generally one principal or main ledge in a mining district, and one only ; the rest being smaller cracks, spurs, bowlders and other little bunches of quartz. The principal ledge in this district cropped out boldly, ten or fifteen feet high in places, was two to ten feet thick, and was traced more than half a mile in length, certainly a fine prospect for a true fissure vein ; but it did not prove to be so. The country or common rock was limestone, in which formation I believe there is hardly, if ever, any true fissure veins. Granite is the most favorable formation, it being composed, in part, of quartz. Still this ledge had depth enough to produce a great deal of ore, and so had various others. But the distance to water, to which the ore and wood had to be hauled, the high price of freight and labor, and the incompetent and swindling management would not allow such rock to be worked at a profit.

The discoverer of the main ledge secured the greater part of it, and sold it to a stock company for $50,000, which did

86 California to Nevada.

the usual thing in expending perhaps $1,000 a day, for two years, in salaries, etc., building mills and furnaces, blasting tunnels and shafts, producing a few hundred dollars in bullion and selling stock. Suppose the management sold three and a half tons of stock to outsiders for $1,500,000, and their actual expenditure to have been $500,000, then they made $1,000,000 in two years. Moreover, had they developed a valuable mine, or struck it rich, they would have shut down just the same so as to buy the three and a half tons of stock back for about the cost of the paper and printing, and would not allow the mine to pay until this was accomplished. This done, the "bonanza" would be uncovered, bullion produced, and so magnified and advertised as to re-sell the stock for ten times the real value of the bonanza. Think not, that they would sell the stock or mine or any portion of it at a good bargain to strangers ! Much less that they would spend money like water in advertising and hunting up strangers to favor thus.

A smaller claim (400 feet long), supposed to be of the same vein, was discovered to a man by an Indian for about fifty dollars, who sold it for one hundred and fifty dollars, which then went into a stock or share company. Don't know, how many "ten thousand" dollars were written in the deed, nor does a seller care. Another claim, located as an extension to this, was sold by an intelligent and practical miner for a saddle horse ; which claim also went into an eastern stock or share company, with its big-salaried officers -- ignorant as Indians as to legitimate business and management. They each bought mills, etc., the first thing, as though their rock would pay to work and their saddle horse claims had been developed into true fissure veins. One of them produced three or four hundred dollars in bullion.

How much these masons made by selling stock, shares, "half, quarter or tenth interest," depended on how many idiots of outsiders they found willing to trust their money to secret gentry of a charitable (?) order, thus leaping into the dark, -- and how well they were fixed with money.

It was the agent of one of these latter companies that I met at Los Angeles, and one or the other of them I worked for the greater part of my stay of about a year and a half in the district.

Mining Camps. 87

I and another man had a contract to furnish the greater part of the timber and joice for the building of their quartz- mills and furnaces. It had to be sawed or squared with whip- saws. The price was one hundred dollars per 1000 feet in the woods. We could saw about 300 feet a day. Gave a man with three yoke of oxen thirty dollars a day to snake the logs together.

Then I worked in the mines at six dollars a day, and for two or three months was night watchman at the mill, etc., at seven dollars a night.

The mills, etc., being completed, spoiled the sale of stock, as the rock would not pay to work, and the companies, being in debt for labor and supplies, let the property go, and the agents skipped out. They owed me about one thousand dollars, for which I had their notes, which I placed in the hands of an ex-Chief Justice of Utah for collection from the company in New York. I also corresponded with its president and agent ; got some encouragement for several years, but never got any money.

There were other companies besides those noted, that operated, more or less, on other ledges in this district ; but what I have given is a fair illustration of the others and of quartz mining generally in the many other quartz districts.

A few other persons besides those alluded to, made some money by selling their claims, and some others got away with a few hundred dollars, made by working for wages or on contracts. But the most of the money, made by selling claims, working for wages, or otherwise, that was not spend for whiskey, etc., was squandered in prospecting, in one way or another, as I did.

There were prospecting parties out for hundreds of miles in all directions all the time, in some of which I was always interested. One of these went into Death Valley and beyond, thinking that it ought to contain lots of mineral, if it was "very good" for anything, as it lacked in everything else but sunshine and sand. They found but slight prospects and returned, riding and packing the shadows of death. If artesian water can be got, and it is not salt, this valley can be made very productive, there being plenty of sand and climate.

88 California to Nevada.

The Pah-Ranagat mining camps were entirely deserted (the population going to White Pine), and the county organization was abandoned, when the taxable properties would no longer sell for the salaries. It was never of any use to the people. The little watered valley now supports a small Mormon settlement.

Yet there is much silver-bearing quartz in the mountain, which, with improved facilities in working the ore and in transportation, with honest and intelligent management, will pay to work, as a legitimate business, and pay well.

This is a fair sample and example of many other districts with which I became acquainted ; so to describe them would be but to substantially repeat, what I have written as to this one. But as White Pine was " heap big " c-h-i-e-f, as to fame, excitement, population, richness of its ore, big swindles, fond hopes and regret, and as I was there from its rise till it tumbled down, I will give my information and experience briefly, concerning the same.

CHAPTER VI.

The mines, continued. -- Exciting reports from a distant mountain. -- Outfit one of a party to go. -- What he wrote me. -- "Ho ! for "White Pine ! " -- The richest silver mine ever discovered. -- The sure stuff. -- I go, too. -- Visit another camp on the way. -- My horse and saddle "borrowed." -- A big camp ablaze with excitement. -- Belief that the stuff could be found anywhere by digging. -- The many thousand "mines," -- "Brilliant schemes." -- Blubbering investors from the states. -- Life: gambling, drinking, business and damnation. -- Making big sales, etc.; the outcome. -- Another year and a half of lively practical experience in the mines. -- The many smaller camps in the surrounding region. -- Virginia City and Gold Hill. -- The great Comstock lode. -- The Bonanza and other great stock gambling mines that we read of.

When stories, that the since famous Eberhardt mine (then, and yet declared, and perhaps truly, to be, and to have been the richest in silver ever discovered in the world) had been struck at White Pine, I outfitted one of a party to go and prospect the mountain in its vicinity.

It succeeded in locating a claim as near as one hundred feet of the Eberhardt itself, besides others, as enticing ; and with glowing prospects or faith, forthwith blasted a hole forty feet deep into the former. Somehow it was believed, that the stuff could be struck, as lead is often found, with little or no surface indications, most anywhere in that vicinity.

My partner embraced an opportunity to send me a letter ; he wrote, "We have one first-rate lead and continue to work on our shaft. Shall know this week whether we are in or out of luck. They are striking it all around us. If we do raise the color it will be rich, sure."

On my way to White Pine -- 150 or 200 miles distant -- I stopped a few days in "Grant district," with a prospecting party, with whom I was likewise interested. They had formed this district. Had discovered and were prospecting some quartz ledges, and the prospects and outlook were such, as to induce parties owning a ten-stamp quartz mill to contract to move it there, set it up, and give and take a half interest in each. The mill was then on the way, one of our party having gone out on the trackless desert to meet the train and pilot

(89)

90 The Mines of Nevada.

them into the mines. The rock, however, was refractory to work and not rich enough to pay at that time -- or so it was made to appear. But some years afterwards I read that these mines were being worked. I was riding a horse and saddle, for which I had paid $150, (having other animals with prospecting parties) and on approaching White Pine left them in the care of an old friendly acquaintance, who was then keeping a horse ranch, -- that is, herding horses for the miners and others who were stopping up in the mountains, where there was no grass or water -- where the winds beat against the bleak and barren cliffs, and the birds never sing. I told him, as a friend, to use my outfit as his own, on any needful occasion. He afterwards did so ; having sold out, he rode it out of the country -- not even calling around or sending word to thank me, or say good-bye.

Found White Pine ablaze with excitement. The hills and mountains (9000 feet high), quite thronged with men, eagerly and confidently at work with pick and drill, hunting for the precious ore.

The Eberhardt mine was at its best, turning out, with common rock, nearly pure virgin and horn silver by the ton. Bowlders of which one could bore an auger through. A guard of several men, armed with rifles, guarded the mine at ten dollars a night each, to keep it out of the courts.

A Governor of Colorado was killed by mistake, by his own men, who were thus guarding a mine of his. And Uncle Sam likewise guards his silver at the treasury, and with grape and canister, wherein he decides not to be robbed -- having no confidence in his own courts. I note these only as prominent examples of a common custom and necessity, to stand ready to kill men in defence of mere property. Why should not other classes of robbers, those who pillage by secret intrigue and treason, be likewise killed in the act ?

Deposits or bodies of ore, more or less rich in silver, were found in various places, some of which lay flat like coal. This, with the magnified flaming stories and rich strikes, that were continually flying in the air, increased the excitement to such a pitch, and as the Eberhardt itself was but an irregular body of ore at or near the surface, that it was the general im-

Thrilling Experience in the Mines. 91

pression that this district was nature's freak, so that silver could be found for a mile or two of the Eberhardt, as readily as lead is found in galena districts; and that it was "rich, sure."

Moreover, there were many small lead deposits in the "base mettle range," in the district close by, which always carried silver. There were also many well defined ledges of quartz (but which were prospected in vain). So tunnels and square holes were being blasted by the hundred. In many cases without any surface indications whatever, or other prospects, except that had by some other claim in the vicinity.

Shafts were so thick on "Chloride Flat," and in the vicinity of the Eberhardt, that the flying rock, from the numerous blasts in the lime-stone, made it dangerous to be about them ; this with labor at five dollars coin a day, or by contract at twenty dollars per foot.

Thousands of such claims were located by private parties and companies such as ours, who would largely bond and sell to speculating mining sharps, who are expert business men. As " great successful lawyers " win with their secret power in packing juries and buying judges, so the expert business miner effects his sales by selling stock and buying other experts and agents. They making the most of the far reaching, wide spread excitement ; newspaper articles, (often in editorials, as though the editor was a practical man, had made a personal examination, had written the thing himself and was telling the truth) and in various devices of the profession, often succeeded in effecting fabulous sales to the good people in the states and in Europe.

As it is easier to get a big swindle through Congress or a legislature than a little one, so it is easier to sell a worthless mine for a big sum, than a small sum, as enough is thus afforded to buy the thing through, and leave a surplus.

Such were the " mines," in which so many, at a distance, hopefully invested (and so did we who were there). Sometimes mining companies, forming at a distance, would not bother about the little matter of any claim at all, except in the mind, as not needing them in their business ; to the great surprise of an occasional troublesome investor, who happened to come out to visit the famed (at a distance) " silver king," etc., the idol of

92 The Mines of Nevada.

his heart and purse, and could not find or even hear of it in the district.

These men made a great deal of trouble now, since they could travel mostly by rail ; when in former times they were just as useful in "developing the country " and were not in the way. I was told of such imaginary claims, and others of mere bowlders or holes in the limestone, that were stocked for from $500,000 to $2,500,000, and that by working famed and titled gentlemen's names as directors, etc., and have them and editors puff up the scheme, the stock would sell at a " discount " so as to leave a large surplus.

If the expert business men in Nevada and their brethren in the big cities had had their way, these meddlesome, wailing lambs would have been snatched up and buried in prison, a censorship placed over their correspondence, and the railroad ripped up.

But they were somewhat off-set and put down by other visitors, such as a famous "select party of Chicago merchants." They travelled in a special train and stage coaches, were met with a brazen band ; made enticing, flaming reports as to the general richness of the mines, predicted that " the world would be amazed at the wonderful and immense streams of silver that would flow from White Pine to enrich the people of the earth," and, no doubt, made money in the business.

Of course, the entire press in the U. S. would gladly publish, unquestioned, the reports from such " good authority " and attend them with flattering editorials ; when they would spurn to notice, except to kick and condemn, the stories of the bankrupt, "blubbering, revengeful investors, who would make trouble and injure gentlemen in their business." Yet somehow they would get in their work, so that foreign capital had to be invited, and even it got too shy and expensive to leave any profit.

Besides quartz-mills, furnaces, etc., that were building, there was Shermantown, Treasure City and Hamilton, populous mining towns, that were springing up rapidly, with lumber $400 or $500 per 1000 feet, etc., carpenter wages eight dollars a day, (board fourteen dollars a week), and lots selling for four, five and six thousand dollars, and often with titles badly clouded.

Thrilling Experience in the Mines. 93

Men were pouring in from every camp, section, state and clime. Every store included a bar, to graciously assist men in their joy at selling a claim or town lot, and in their many disappointments and sorrows -- for two bits (twenty-five cents) a drink. Spacious gambling houses, etc., with all sorts of games and enticing coin stacked high on the tables, to accommodate the lucky and the luckless in breaking them both. Rich strikes and big sales were daily reported, most everybody was in high spirits and expectations, many being wild and some crazed with the flaming excitement with which the very air seemed charged.

Many who had sold claims were wildly spending the money, always expecting to sell others for a stake to go away with and keep. One who was a card-sharp, gambled off $30,000 in a little while.

The mine recorder and assistants were kept busy filing the 15,000 or more claims that were recorded, and business generally went on the jump. Yet hundreds were hunting for employment or to borrow a few dollars. Two or three daily and weekly papers were soon being published. All the water at Treasure City and the mines cost ten cents a gallon, while works were being constructed to bring it up from a small stream three miles away, at a cost of $250,000, only to be abandoned or torn up soon after its completion.

In about a year and a half all this faith, bustle, business and surging wave of eager men had changed to disappointment, disgust and desertion. The prevailing question was now, how to get out of the country and where to go to, as this state was now blistered by the light of the outside world, and a railroad was running as near as 120 miles, and wires were stretched into the camp.

Not a single extensive paying mine or fissure vein of ore had been discovered, and but a few small paying deposits, not any containing a fortune, except the cause of all the flattering tales, rush and conflict of men, -- the Eberhardt. And it was now virtually worked out, sold, and incorporated to sell again and again to Englishmen, by its fame.

Shermantown, from a population of 4000, Treasure City of 7000, besides the many hundreds of outside cabins and small

94. The Mines of Nevada.

camps for many miles around, were now, in a few months, almost entirely deserted. But Hamilton with its 5000 inhabitants, being the county seat and capital of a region extensive enough for a state, held on to a few hundred. This district and the surrounding regions are strangely marked with numerous deserted quartz mills, roasting and smelting furnaces, shafts, tunnels and habitations, -- lasting monuments of ill-spent time and wealth.

Still there is a great deal of mineral-bearing rock in the mountains of Nevada, that will be worked in the future.

Having acquired interests in different claims at White Pine, some of which appeared quite promising, which were bonded to sell for various large sums (the poorest one -- near the Eberhardt -- for enough to make us each a fortune) and being still at work in prospecting others, I felt, like so many others, greatly encouraged as to the outcome.

Once a telegram came from San Francisco that a big sale had been accomplished, and our money would be deposited that day. But it transpired that in a succession of agents, experts, etc., sent by different members of the company formed to buy, there was one, and only one, and the last one to report, that was not convinced by those in charge of the business at the mine. His unexpected adverse telegram meanwhile, was a fatal blister on the mine and sale.

If he had given them any warning, they could have cut the wire and secured the coin. And as the reaction and collapse of the camp came almost as sudden as the blaze was kindled, none of our big sales were effected. I therefore shared with the thousands of others in the general disappointment. Way back in the wild, cannibal infested, fever-stricken jungles of South America or Africa, is the best place to locate gold and silver mines.

However, I made some money by small sales, by sinking shafts and running tunnels at twenty dollars a foot. In one claim we had a body of ore that appeared to be quite extensive, it being solid ore fifteen feet deep, as far as we sunk in it. But on having a few tons of it milled, it produced but about thirty dollars a ton, which would not pay at that time. Some of it

Thrilling Experience in the Mines. 95

assayed at the rate of one hundred dollars a ton. As it had not the appearance of a regular vein we abandoned it. Doubtless it was afterwards worked out by others. This was the "Union Standard," at the base of a high rock bluff, about three-quarters of a mile north of the Eberhardt.

Virginia City and Gold Hill were built up during a similar excitement ten years before White Pine. But there proved to be there one mammoth, true fissure vein -- 400 or 500 feet thick and more than two miles long -- the Comstock lode.

In this are the "Bonanza" and other famous stock gambling mines of Nevada, some of which are being or have been prospected to a depth of 3,500 feet, and to drain it to about 1900 feet down, the Sutro tunnel was run 20,178 feet.

But even in this great fissure lode -- the greatest gold and silver vein in the world -- there are many mines that have never payed to work as a legitimate business. One of these has expended millions of dollars in prospecting, without finding any pay rock. I believe it has never produced a dollars worth of bullion, though "Bullion" is its name.

"Record of Assessments and Dividends of the Comstock Mines.

Fifty mines have each collected [1881] more than $100,000 in assessments, and eighteen more together have collected $735,000. In this estimate is not included the assessment by companies which have been dissolved or incorporated in others. These fifty mines have levied $58,723,000- in assessments. Of these Yellow Jacket leads off with $1,878,000; Savage with $4,809,000 ; Sierra Nevada, $4,200,000 ; Bullion, $3,850,000 ; Hale and Norcross, $3,409,000; Belcher, $2,208,000; Ophir, $2,988,000; Gould and Curry, $3,206,000; Crown Point, $2,423,000; and so on through the list, there being seventeen mines which have gathered in over $1,000,000 in assessments.

Of the seventy-one mines on the Comstock, seventy have levied assessments, amounting in all to $59,458,000, and only

96 The Mines of Nevada.

fourteen have paid any dividends. These fourteen are as follows, with their dividends :

Con. Virginia, $42,930,000

California, 30,950,000

Belcher, 15,307,200

Crown Point, 11,688,000

Savage, 4,460,000

Gould and Curry, 3,825,000

Yellow Jacket, 2,184,000

Hale and Norcross, 1,598,000

Ophir, 1,594,000

Kentuck, 1,252,000

Con. Imperial, 1,125,000

Sierra Nevada, 102,200

Confidence, 78,000

Darney, 57,000

Succor, 22,800

_______________________________________________________

Total, $117,173,200

An examination of this list will show, that only six mines have paid their stockholders more than they have taken from them. These are Belcher, California, Consolidated Virginia, Crown Point, Gould and Curry, and Kentuck. One who is familiar with the Comstock, will see at a glance that all these mines have been largely owned and controlled by the Bonanza firm. So, when you say Consolidated Virginia, California and Belcher have paid $89,277,200 in dividends, you may also add, that three- quarters of this amount has gone directly into the pockets of Flood, Mackay and Fair. The outside investors have always come in just as the dividends ceased, and have invariably been on hand to pay assessments. California never levied an assessment. Consolidated Virginia only $411,000. The bulk of this stock has always been held by the Bonanza firm, and its $74,000,000 of dividends represent a good part of their colossal wealth, gained in the last ten years.

The army of small speculators have put their money into other mines, and have been allowed the privilege of paying for working ore, whose chief value lay in the elaborate analysis of well-paid experts.

An illustration of the methods employed on the Stock Exchange is furnished in the recent rise and decline of Alta. It was

Thrilling Experience in the Mines. 97

selling at one dollar and sixty cents, and was a comparatively dead stock. Suddenly mysterious rumors spread around, that the diamond drillings had shown a rich ore body. Soon these rumors were confirmed by the superintendent and others in control, and they privately advised their friends to buy up all the Alta they could lay hands on. Of course, this reached the street in a few hours. Alta bounded up to five dollars, then on to ten, and, within a week, twenty dollars, and afterwards to twenty dollars and fifty cents. A vast amount of stock was bought. Suddenly it was hinted, that a gigantic ' deal' had been made by the management who, in turn, tried to make it appear that the superintendent had ' salted ' the drillings and thus got good indications. Confidence was shattered ; there was a wild rout, and the stock fell rapidly from twenty dollars to three dollars and fifteen cents. When there was talk of an official investigation of the mine, the lower levels were conveniently flooded with water. This is but an example of many other swindles.

A short time before a very bad ' deal ' was made in Belcher, and it was found necessary to flood the mine, when the outsiders had all been fleeced.

There is a growing sentiment among the people, which demands that some check be placed upon the lawless schemes of those who, for years, have fleeced the credulous by swindles that would make a faro-dealer blush, and have driven thousands to suicide and crime.

'' 1882. -- We [committee] consider the management [of Bullion] recklessly extravagant and characterized by a total disregard of the rights of stockholders. With reference to the Belcher and Crown Point mines, the Belcher mine has produced from May, 1881, to December, 1882, 28,154 tons of ore, the value of which we are unable to determine [it being a ring secret]. Such evidence as we could obtain placing the value at from thirty to forty dollars per ton. This ore was sold in the mine for fifty cents per ton, and the parties [brethren] buying said ore were allowed to use the company's shaft and works to raise the ore to the surface. We find, the Crown Point mine produced from March, 1881, to December, 1882, 68,457 tons under similar conditions, and it was also sold for fifty cents per ton [to brethren]. These mines are still producing about 5000 tons per month on the terms as before stated. These two mines are managed badly and with a total disregard of the rights of stockholders.

98 The Mines of Nevada.

The proxy system enables people who do not own any stock, to control mines and run them in their own interest.

" 'Tis sad, but 'tis true. " -- 1883. -- There is something peculiarly sad about the decline of Virginia City. The story of its rise and its character in prosperous days, reads like a brilliant flight of imagination. No other city in the world was ever like it. Its business, its wealth, its prodigality, its wickedness -- each, in its way, was peculiar. And the desolation which now so contrasts with the rush and glitter of the palmy time, is a desolation the like of which has never before been seen on the American continent. Eight years ago Virginia City and Gold Hill, adjoining each other, had 35,000 population. It was the largest community between Denver and San Francisco. There were merchants doing business with a million capital. There were private houses that cost $100,000. There were stamp mills and mining structures that cost $500,000 each. There were three daily newspapers, and a hotel that cost $300,000. Among the people were a score or more men, worth from $300,000 to $30,000,000. Mackay and Fair both lived there. There were three banks, a gas company, a water company, a splendid theatre and a costly court house. Eight years have passed and the town is a wreck. The 35,000 people have dwindled to 5000. The banks have retired. The merchants have closed up and left ; the hotel is abandoned ; the gas company is bankrupt, and scores of costly residences have either been taken to pieces and moved away, or given over to bats. Real estate cannot be given away for taxes. Nothing can be sold that will cost its worth to move away. The rich men have all gone. Those who remain are the miners, their superintendents, and the saloon men and gamblers. The latter are usually the first to come to a mining town and the last to leave. The cause of this decadence, which has swallowed up millions of capital and wrecked the worldly ambition of thousands of persons, is the failure of the Comstock mines to turn out additional wealth.

Since its discovery, in 1860, there have been taken from that single vein, in a space of less than 3,000 lineal feet, no less than $285,000,000 of gold and silver, and of this about $110,000,000 came from the Bonanza mines alone. Exclude Flood, Mackay, Fair and Sharon from the list, and those who have preserved the fortunes, made on the Comstock, may be counted on one's fingers. But the millions upon millions that have been sunk in the whirlpool of speculation are almost incalculable. San Fran-

Thrilling Experiences in the Mines. 99

cisco is to-day full of financial, physical and moral wrecks, by the treachery of the great Comstock and the illusive hopes of the gambling multitude."

And the Comstock was the great gold and silver lode of the known world, having yielded, it is said, about $500,000,000 to date.