History of the big bonanza

In the Heart of the Bonanza—Inside the Mine—Extraordinary Experiments—“Process Peddlers” and their Devices—The Value of Tailings—Neat way of making Rings—Waste of Gold and Silve...

FIREDAMP.—A MINE IN FLAMES. Yellow-Jacket Mine in a Blaze—A Scene of Horror—The Victims Subduing the Flames—The Work of Destruction—Scenes at the Mouth of the Shaft—On Fire for...

Progress of the Flames—Descending the Burning Shaft—Danger—A Cave in the Mine—Deluge of Fire—Courage of the Men—Still Burning—A Warm Comparison—The Centre of the Earth. 191

A Little Warrior in a Fix—Only a Shrimp—Piutes in Virginia City—The Lord and His Lady—How the Little Ones Came—The Early Settler—Adam and Eve—A Model Parent—An Important Occasio...

A Fuddled Pillar—Philosophical Advice—“Don’t Git Married Afferd”— Mr. Jones’s Guest—The War-hoss of the Hills—Something of a Fighter—Beating a Retreat—“Jim Carter or the Devil.”...

The bare mention of a mine of silver calls up in most minds visions of glittering wealth and a world of romantic situations and associations. All no doubt have read the story of...

Gold was first discovered in Nevada in the spring of 1850, by some Mormon emigrants. They had started for California, but so early in the season that when they arrived at the Ca...

Two young men who were mining in Gold Cañon, suspected the existence of silver-mines in the country at least five or six years before silver was actually discovered. These men w...

To return to the notions of the early miners and others, in regard to the existence of silver in Nevada. Few, it would seem, besides the Grosch brothers, and one or two of their...

In the spring of 1859, a considerable number of miners returned to Six-Mile Cañon, to work. They now made their headquarters at Gold Hill, where two or three log-houses includin...

Once Comstock got into the Ophir claim he elected himself superintendent and was the man who did all of the heavy talking. He made himself so conspicuous on every occasion that...

When news began to be received in various parts of California from the first parties of these adventurers, upon their arrival in Washoe, their reports were confirmatory of all t...

Although occupying the western portion of Utah Territory, the laws under which the people of the Comstock range were at this time living were of their own making. At a meeting h...

A short time before he sold his mining interests in Virginia City, Comstock was smitten by the tender passion and made a venture in the matrimonial time. It appears that a Mormo...

The following letter from H. T. P. Comstock was originally published in the St. Louis _Republican_, some years ago, and gives a good idea of the man and his mental condition dur...

Old Virginia used to tell of a terrible fight that took place one evening in Gold Hill. The stakes, he said, were two short bits (twenty cents). The fight lasted half an hour an...

Comstock was a believer in spirits. Mrs. L. S. Bowers—one of the early settlers at Johntown and at Gold Hill, and now known as the “Washoe Seeress,” on account of her many predi...

During the spring of ’60, two mining companies were at war about their locations, and one company threatened the other with an injunction. There had been considerable talk among...

On the Pacific Coast there is felt every spring a kind of unrest—men of all classes feel as if they should go somewhere. This feeling is particularly strong among miners, and th...

Meantime there was a grand panic in the several towns along the Comstock range. Many men, women, and children at once left for California. The night after the survivors of the f...

Owing to the breaking out of the war with the Piutes, and to the fact that the precious metals existed in solid quartz, and, in most instances, far beneath the surface, where it...

In the mines rapid advances were soon made, both in the development of the various claims and in the machinery and appliances used. Whereas, the first shafts sunk were mere roun...

The divisibility of quicksilver, and also of silver and gold, as shown by the milling operations conducted in Nevada, is incomprehensibly great, and would seem to be almost unli...

In 1862-3, with mills running in all directions and mines open and hoisting ore for a distance of a mile or more along the Comstock, Virginia City was a lively place. Where but...

Mount Davidson, of which frequent mention has been made, was originally called “Sun Peak.” This was the name given it by the early miners of Gold Cañon—Old Virginia, Comstock, O...

The Virginia range of mountains, of which Mount Davidson is the principal peak, is separated from the Sierra Nevada Mountains by a series of small valleys, the principal of whic...

There are always some companies in “borrasca”—out of luck; in barren rock—while others are in “bonanza”—in good luck; working large bodies of rich ore. In a year or two, those w...

When the upper line of bonanzas had been worked out, and the shafts were sunk to greater depths in search of new bodies of ore, they eventually attained such a depth as brought...

No premature explosion of blasts, crushing in of timbers, caving of earth and rock—no accident of any kind is so much feared or is more terrible than a great fire in a large min...

On the 20th of September, 1873, about 3 o’clock in the morning, a second fire and series of explosions occurred in the Yellow-Jacket mine, by which six men lost their lives and...

About 2 o’clock, on the afternoon of October 30, 1874, the air shaft of the Belcher mine took fire and was totally destroyed. The shaft was not completed at the time of the acci...

Little difficulty has ever been experienced from firedamp, in the mines along the Comstock lode. Firedamp is a gas which is more frequently generated in, and more strictly confi...

Accidents are of constant occurrence in mines in every part of the world, and the mines on the Comstock lode enjoy no immunity from what appears to be the common lot or prevalen...

Many miners are killed by thoughtlessly running cars into the main working shafts of the mines, when no cage is standing in the shaft. They probably suppose that a cage is stand...

As not much has yet been said in regard to the principal towns of the “big bonanza,” I shall now devote a few chapters to Virginia City and Gold Hill, but more particularly to r...

The Virginia and Truckee Railroad, runs from Virginia City to Reno, on the Truckee River, at which point it connects with the Central Pacific Railroad. The length of the road is...

Another work that has been of great benefit to the towns along the Comstock, and to all the mining and milling companies in and about the towns, and along the cañons below, was...

The Comstock lode may truthfully be said to be the tomb of the forests of the Sierras. Millions on millions of feet of lumber are annually buried in the mines, never-more to be...

In the spring of 1871, there sprang into existence in Virginia City, a secret organization known as “Six Hundred and One.” It was a “Vigilance Committee” similar to that organiz...

The “zephyr” is one of the peculiar institutions of Washoe, and as such is worthy of special mention. At certain seasons—generally in the fall and spring—furious gales prevail a...

As we have now been a long time among the mines, the reader will probably not object to a little more information concerning the Indians of the country, before making another pl...

At the time the war broke out between the whites and Piutes, two young Germans were engaged in prospecting at a point in the mountains east of the sink of the Humboldt. They kne...

Shortly after the so-called Indian war I took a prospecting trip into the wilderness lying to the eastward of the sinks or lakes of the Carson and Humboldt Rivers. I had with me...

It is said to be next to impossible to astonish an Indian, but on one occasion, while residing in Virginia City, I astonished, frightened, and disgusted a whole flock of the uns...

Having rambled far and wide among the Piute Indians, I shall now ask the reader to accompany me in a ramble far below the light of day, to the underground regions of the silver-...

All being clad in the uniform of the gnomes of the silver-caverns, we go out to the shaft. A cage is stopped at the top of one of the compartments of the shaft, and its platform...

In order that the reader may get a proper idea of the underground works of a mine, I shall now give a detailed description of all that is worthy of special mention. Drifts are o...

The only air-shaft on the Comstock lode worthy of the name, is that of the Belcher Mining Company. In many situations air-shafts do not seem to be required, connections with the...

In order that the reader may obtain something like a correct idea of the appearance of the interior of a first-class mine, let him imagine it hoisted out of the ground and left...

Thus far we have seen only such levels, drifts, and cross-cuts as were well-timbered and in perfect order. We will now take a trip through an old upper level, where the ore has...

Having shown the reader what is to be seen in the underground regions of the mines, I shall now proceed to show him what is to be seen in a quartz-mill, explaining the use of th...

The water and pulp discharged from the settlers runs through sluices to the lowest part of the building, where, some eight or ten feet below the level of the floor of the amalga...

As the reader has been kept for some time in the “lower levels,” and amid the roar of the machinery of the mills, I shall now give a few chapters illustrative of life in Virgini...

Out on the Divide, in the extreme southern part of Virginia City, they do much better shooting than that mentioned in the last chapter—also, much worse. Out there, one morning,...

Occasionally persons not usually found training in the ranks of the festive throng of Comstockers are out until the “wee sma’” hours, and meet with adventures quite as strange a...

As a rule the miners have no very exalted opinion of geologists, mineralogists, and other scientific persons who come into the country and claim to be able to tell all about eac...

In Virginia City, as in all other places where there is a considerable Chinese population, are found opium-dens. These are sometimes on the first floor, but are generally in a c...

During the prevalence of a big stock excitement, times are lively along the Comstock range. Virginia City then hums like a Brobdignagian beehive. All who failed to make fortunes...

When there is a grand upward movement in stocks, and all is excitement among the dealers, from the big operator worth millions, down to the little curb-stone broker whose fortun...

There are a number of places of summer resort to which all may flee for a few weeks each year during the hot weather of July and August. Most popular among these is Lake Tahoe,...

On his arrival at Truckee, the pleasure-seeker will do well to spend a few hours in the examination of the beauties of Donner Lake, a lake much resorted to by the people both of...

Now that we have had a ramble among the lakes and the valleys of the Sierras, and are rested and recuperated by reclining under the tall pines, and breathing the cool air of tha...

In the early days the roving, prospecting miners who swarmed the country were given to tricks of all kinds. Not being able to “salt” quartz veins as easily as they had salted th...

The majority of the miners at present working in the silver-mines of Nevada are honest in the true and best sense of the word, and are the most charitable men, as a class, to be...

“Curbstone brokers” and many other dabblers in stocks rely a good deal upon “points” obtained from miners, in regard to what is going on in the lower levels of the mines. It pro...

In the early days of Washoe, fights between rival claimants of mining ground were frequent, and often stubbornly contested and bloody. These fights sometimes occurred upon the s...

Silver was known to the ancients as far back in the dim and distant ages of the past as any record extends. It was undoubtedly one of the first metals mined by mankind. In writi...

What are now known as the “bonanza mines” are in great part made up of small mines that were located to the southward of the Ophir soon after the discovery of silver. The big bo...

As by this time the general reader will have heard as much as he will care to know about excitements in stocks, crashes, the tricks of the manipulators, and the troubles of the...

In the California ground the bonanza extends through to the Ophir, the next mine north, and by the cross-cuts run into it every one hundred feet, it is shown to be—as far as exp...

Although something has already been said of the ventilation of mines and of subterranean water, I shall now devote a chapter or two to these matters, else they may not be thorou...

In countries where no mining is done it is the prevalent opinion that at a certain depth the earth is full of water, and that the deeper we go the more water will abound. This i...

The Consolidated Virginia Company give employment to the following mills: Consolidated mill, sixty stamps and crushing capacity of 230 tons per day; Sacramento mill, 50 tons; Ma...

A chapter giving a few words in regard to persons prominently connected with the big bonanza and the Comstock lode may be of interest to some readers. I cannot undertake to give...

As it may be of interest to persons who have never been in the mining-regions of the Pacific Coast, I shall give an account of a prospecting trip which I took in Washoe, in 1860...

In the place where we had encamped for dinner there was on one side of the ravine, and at the height of about fifty feet above its bed, a long bench of rocks on which were piled...

As soon as we were left to ourselves we built a roaring fire, in spite of all Pike’s remonstrances. “It’s jist as good a thing as the Injuns want,” said he. “It’s jist showin’ ’...

By far the most common error was finding a comma or no punctuation at all at the end of a sentence: California[,/.] (69.5), understanding[.] (71.12), curiosity[.] (73.37), satis...