Since
I desire,
in
this
chapter,
to
say
an
instructive
word
or
two
about
the
silver
mines,
the
reader
may
take
this
fair
warning
and
skip,
if
he
chooses.
The
year
1863
was
perhaps
the
very
top
blossom
and
culmination
of
the
"flush times."
Virginia
swarmed
with
men
and
vehicles
to
that
degree
that
the
place
looked
like
a
very
hive—that
is
when
one's
vision
could
pierce
through
the
thick
fog
of
alkali
dust
that
was
generally blowing
in
summer. I
will
say, concerning
this
dust,
that
if
you
drove
ten
miles
through
it,
you
and
your
horses
would
be
coated
with
it
a
sixteenth
of
an
inch
thick
and
present
an
outside
appearance
that
was
a uniform
pale
yellow
color,
and
your
buggy
would
have
three
inches
of
dust
in
it, thrown
there
by
the
wheels.
The
delicate
scales used
by
the
assayers
were
inclosed
in
glass
cases
intended
to
be
air-tight,
and
yet
some
of
this
dust
was
so
impalpable
and
so
invisibly
fine
that
it
would
get
in, somehow,
and
impair
the
accuracy
of
those
scales.
Speculation
ran
riot,
and
yet
there
was
a
world
of
substantial
business
going on, too.
All
freights
were
brought
over
the
mountains
from
California
(150 miles)
by
pack-train partly,
and
partly
in
huge
wagons
drawn
by
such
long
mule
teams
that
each
team
amounted
to
a procession,
and
it
did
seem, sometimes,
that
the
grand
combined
procession
of
animals stretched
unbroken
from
Virginia
to
California.
Its
long
route
was
traceable clear
across
the
deserts
of
the
Territory
by
the
writhing
serpent
of
dust
it
lifted up.
By
these
wagons,
freights
over
that
hundred
and
fifty
miles
were
$200 a ton
for
small
lots
(same
price
for
all
express
matter
brought
by
stage),
and
$100 a ton
for
full
loads.
One
Virginia
firm
received
one
hundred
tons
of
freight
a month,
and
paid $10,000 a
month
freightage.
In
the
winter
the
freights
were
much
higher.
All
the
bullion
was
shipped
in
bars
by
stage
to
San Francisco (a
bar
was
usually
about
twice
the
size
of
a
pig
of
lead
and
contained
from
$1,500
to
$3,000 according
to
the
amount
of
gold
mixed
with
the
silver),
and
the
freight
on
it
(when
the
shipment
was
large)
was
one
and
a
quarter
per
cent.
of
its
intrinsic
value. So,
the
freight
on
these
bars
probably averaged
something
more
than
$25 each. Small shippers paid
two
per
cent.
There
were
three
stages
a day,
each
way,
and
I
have
seen
the
out-going
stages
carry
away
a
third
of
a ton
of
bullion
each,
and
more
than
once
I
saw
them
divide
a two-ton
lot
and
take
it
off. However,
these
were
extraordinary
events. [Mr. Valentine,
Wells
Fargo's agent, has
handled
all
the
bullion
shipped
through
the
Virginia
office
for
many
a month.
To
his
memory—which
is
excellent—we
are
indebted
for
the
following
exhibit
of
the
company's
business
in
the
Virginia
office
since
the
first
of
January, 1862:
From
January
1st
to
April
1st,
about
$270,000
worth
of
bullion
passed
through
that
office,
during
the
next
quarter, $570,000;
next
quarter, $800,000;
next
quarter, $956,000;
next
quarter, $1,275,000;
and
for
the
quarter
ending
on
the
30th
of
last
June,
about
$1,600,000.
Thus
in
a
year
and
a half,
the
Virginia
office
only
shipped
$5,330,000
in
bullion.
During
the
year
1862
they
shipped
$2,615,000,
so
we
perceive
the
average shipments
have
more
than
doubled
in
the
last
six
months.
This
gives
us
room
to
promise
for
the
Virginia
office
$500,000 a
month
for
the
year
1863 (though perhaps,
judging
by
the
steady increase
in
the
business,
we
are
under
estimating, somewhat).
This
gives
us
$6,000,000
for
the
year.
Gold
Hill
and
Silver
City
together
can
beat us—we
will
give
them
$10,000,000.
To
Dayton,
Empire
City, Ophir
and
Carson City,
we
will
allow
an
aggregate
of
$8,000,000,
which
is
not
over
the
mark, perhaps,
and
may
possibly
be
a
little
under
it.
To
Esmeralda
we
give
$4,000,000.
To
Reese
River
and
Humboldt $2,000,000,
which
is
liberal now,
but
may
not
be
before
the
year
is
out.
So
we
prognosticate
that
the
yield
of
bullion
this
year
will
be
about
$30,000,000.
Placing
the
number
of
mills
in
the
Territory
at
one
hundred,
this
gives
to
each
the
labor
of
producing $300,000
in
bullion
during
the
twelve
months.
Allowing
them
to
run
three
hundred
days
in
the
year
(which
none
of
them
more
than
do),
this
makes
their
work
average $1,000 a day.
Say
the
mills average
twenty
tons
of
rock a
day
and
this
rock
worth
$50
as
a
general
thing,
and
you
have
the
actual
work
of
our
one
hundred
mills
figured
down
"to a spot"—$1,000 a
day
each,
and
$30,000,000 a
year
in
the
aggregate.—Enterprise. [A
considerable
over
estimate—M. T.]]
Two
tons
of
silver
bullion
would
be
in
the
neighborhood
of
forty
bars,
and
the
freight
on
it
over
$1,000.
Each
coach
always
carried a
deal
of
ordinary
express
matter
beside,
and
also
from
fifteen
to
twenty
passengers
at
from
$25
to
$30 a head.
With
six
stages
going
all
the
time, Wells, Fargo
and
Co.'s
Virginia
City
business
was
important
and
lucrative.
All
along
under
the
centre
of
Virginia
and
Gold
Hill,
for
a
couple
of
miles,
ran
the
great
Comstock
silver
lode—a
vein
of
ore
from
fifty
to
eighty
feet
thick
between
its
solid
walls
of
rock—a
vein
as
wide
as
some
of
New
York's streets. I
will
remind
the
reader
that
in
Pennsylvania
a
coal
vein
only
eight
feet
wide
is
considered
ample.
Virginia
was
a
busy
city
of
streets
and
houses
above
ground.
Under
it
was
another
busy
city,
down
in
the
bowels
of
the
earth,
where
a
great
population
of
men thronged
in
and
out
among
an
intricate
maze
of
tunnels
and
drifts,
flitting
hither
and
thither
under
a
winking
sparkle
of
lights,
and
over
their
heads
towered
a
vast
web
of
interlocking
timbers
that
held
the
walls
of
the
gutted
Comstock apart.
These
timbers
were
as
large
as
a man's body,
and
the
framework stretched
upward
so
far
that
no
eye
could
pierce
to
its
top
through
the
closing gloom.
It
was
like
peering
up
through
the
clean-picked
ribs
and
bones
of
some
colossal
skeleton.
Imagine
such
a framework
two
miles
long,
sixty
feet wide,
and
higher
than
any
church spire
in
America.
Imagine
this
stately lattice-
work
stretching
down
Broadway,
from
the
St.
Nicholas
to
Wall
street,
and
a
Fourth
of
July
procession,
reduced
to
pigmies,
parading
on
top
of
it
and
flaunting
their
flags, high
above
the
pinnacle
of
Trinity
steeple.
One
can
imagine
that,
but
he
cannot
well
imagine
what
that
forest
of
timbers
cost,
from
the
time
they
were
felled
in
the
pineries
beyond
Washoe Lake, hauled
up
and
around
Mount
Davidson
at
atrocious
rates
of
freightage,
then
squared,
let
down
into
the
deep
maw
of
the
mine
and
built
up
there.
Twenty
ample
fortunes
would
not
timber
one
of
the
greatest
of
those
silver
mines.
The
Spanish
proverb
says
it
requires
a
gold
mine
to
"run" a
silver
one,
and
it
is
true. A beggar
with
a
silver
mine
is
a
pitiable
pauper
indeed
if
he
cannot sell. I
spoke
of
the
underground
Virginia
as
a city.
The
Gould
and
Curry
is
only
one
single
mine
under
there,
among
a
great
many
others;
yet
the
Gould
and
Curry's
streets
of
dismal
drifts
and
tunnels
were
five
miles
in
extent, altogether,
and
its
population
five
hundred
miners. Taken
as
a whole,
the
underground
city
had
some
thirty
miles
of
streets
and
a
population
of
five
or
six
thousand.
In
this
present
day
some
of
those
populations
are
at
work
from
twelve
to
sixteen
hundred
feet
under
Virginia
and
Gold
Hill,
and
the
signal-bells
that
tell
them
what
the
superintendent
above
ground
desires
them
to
do
are
struck
by
telegraph
as
we
strike a
fire
alarm. Sometimes men
fall
down
a shaft, there, a
thousand
feet deep.
In
such
cases,
the
usual
plan
is
to
hold
an
inquest.
If
you
wish
to
visit
one
of
those
mines,
you
may
walk
through
a tunnel
about
half
a
mile
long
if
you
prefer
it,
or
you
may
take
the
quicker
plan
of
shooting
like
a dart
down
a shaft,
on
a small platform.
It
is
like
tumbling
down
through
an
empty steeple, feet first.
When
you
reach
the
bottom,
you
take
a
candle
and
tramp
through
drifts
and
tunnels
where
throngs
of
men
are
digging
and
blasting;
you
watch
them
send
up
tubs
full
of
great
lumps
of
stone—silver ore;
you
select
choice
specimens
from
the
mass,
as
souvenirs;
you
admire
the
world
of
skeleton
timbering;
you
reflect
frequently
that
you
are
buried
under
a mountain, a
thousand
feet
below
daylight; being
in
the
bottom
of
the
mine
you
climb
from
"gallery"
to
"gallery,"
up
endless
ladders
that
stand
straight
up
and
down;
when
your
legs
fail
you
at
last,
you
lie
down
in
a small box-car
in
a
cramped
"incline"
like
a half-up-ended sewer
and
are
dragged
up
to
daylight feeling
as
if
you
are
crawling
through
a
coffin
that
has
no
end
to
it.
Arrived
at
the
top,
you
find a
busy
crowd
of
men
receiving
the
ascending
cars
and
tubs
and
dumping
the
ore
from
an
elevation
into
long
rows
of
bins
capable
of
holding
half
a
dozen
tons each;
under
the
bins
are
rows
of
wagons
loading
from
chutes
and
trap-doors
in
the
bins,
and
down
the
long
street
is
a
procession
of
these
wagons
wending
toward
the
silver
mills
with
their
rich
freight.
It
is
all
"done," now,
and
there
you
are.
You
need
never
go
down
again,
for
you
have
seen
it
all.
If
you
have
forgotten
the
process
of
reducing
the
ore
in
the
mill
and
making
the
silver
bars,
you
can
go
back
and
find
it
again
in
my Esmeralda
chapters
if
so
disposed.
Of
course
these
mines
cave
in,
in
places, occasionally,
and
then
it
is
worth
one's
while
to
take
the
risk
of
descending
into
them
and
observing
the
crushing power
exerted
by
the
pressing
weight
of
a
settling
mountain. I
published
such
an
experience
in
the
Enterprise, once,
and
from
it
I
will
take
an
extract:
During
the
great
flush
year
of
1863,
Nevada
[claims
to
have] produced $25,000,000
in
bullion—almost,
if
not
quite, a round
million
to
each
thousand
inhabitants,
which
is
very
well,
considering
that
she
was
without
agriculture
and
manufactures.
Silver
mining
was
her
sole
productive
industry.