Part 48

There is very little difference in the character of the quartz mines and mills throughout California. Where the vein is perpendicular, or nearly so, the shaft is sunk directly through the vein; but where it lies at an angle, the shaft is sunk so as to strike the vein at a given distance from the surface. In either case, galleries, called levels, are run off from the shaft into the vein, sometimes for a long distance. At the surface, the vein may be but a few inches in thickness, but it gradually widens as it descends, so that some of the veins have a width of twenty-five feet or upwards. Along the levels the ore is brought to the shaft, and then sent, in buckets, up to daylight. In extensive operations, there are numerous shafts, galleries, and levels that connect with each other and form a subterranean network of streets and alleys. Once on the surface of the earth, the ore is sent to the mill, where it is first broken into small pieces and then reduced to powder by the action of the crushing machinery.

Various kinds of machinery have been devised for reducing the ore, the first being the stamp-mill, which consists of a row of heavy pestles, standing in troughs. These pestles or stamps are raised by steam power, and fall by their own weight. They are from four to eight in number, and sometimes there are twenty or more; they operate just as do the feet of the smiling maidens in the vineyards of France, when treading out the juices of the grape. No other mill has proved superior to this in reducing the ore; the testimony of miners and capitalists is almost unanimously in favor of the stamp-mill.

A stream of water pours into the trough where the ore is being crushed, each stamp falling from ten to eighty times a minute, and mixing the water and pulverized rock together. This runs upon blankets, which catch a portion of the gold; then it passes over a sloping surface, cut with horizontal crevices, filled with quicksilver, that catches all the gold it touches; then through a series of troughs and sluices, with occasional beds of quicksilver, and so on to a heap of wastes.

No perfect process of saving the gold has yet been invented, and much of it is still carried away in the sand or “tailing” of the mills. Rock that assays $40 or $50 to the ton will rarely yield more than half or two-thirds that amount, and sometimes falls far below it. Some of the mill owners claim to be satisfied with their present process, while others are constantly making experiments. Whoever succeeds in finding a cheap and effective means of saving all the gold in the pulverized rock, has a sure fortune before him. Many of the ores contain sulphurets of various kinds, and these are nearly always more or less refractory. Many of the mills are reserving their “tailings,” to be worked down again when some successful inventor makes his appearance. Some mill owners save the sulphurets from the ores for the purpose of selling them to the agent of an English house, who buys them for shipment to Wales.

Most of the quartz mines in California are from one hundred and fifty to six hundred feet in depth. The deepest and richest gold mine in the State is that known as Hayward’s mine, on Sutter’s Creek, Amador County. Its owner was unable to make it pay expenses for a long time, but it grew richer as it descended, and for the past twelve years or so has paid a handsome profit. Sixty tons per day are taken out and crushed; the operation goes on constantly, night and day.

The history of this mine seems to settle the question about the profitableness of deep mining, as the ore grows richer the farther it gets from the surface. The mines at Grass Valley steadily increase in richness as they descend from the surface. The owners of one mine have been pocketing a profit of $200,000 per annum.

[Sidenote: THE QUARTZ MINERS.]

All the fortunes made in California mining operations have not come from actual work upon the ledges. A great many men who never saw a mine have become rich by speculation in mining stocks; some of them have kept their money, but the majority have been unable to hold to it, in consequence of their eagerness for more. It is safe to say that more fortunes have been made by lucky sales of stock in mining companies than by holding for dividends. There have been some very large speculations in this kind of property, and at one time Montgomery street in San Francisco rivaled Wall street in New York in the magnitude of its operations. It is still a scene of financial activity, though the speculation is less than of yore.

[Sidenote: “CLEANING THEM OUT.”]

The California speculators are up to all the tricks and equal to the smartest of the Wall street men. A New York capitalist went there once with the laudable intention of “cleaning them out”. There had been a little flurry in the stock of a certain company, and it was well known who were the holders of the property. One day he received a telegram announcing that this mine had suddenly developed immense quantities of very rich ore, and the stock would consequently make an enormous advance. Other persons, who claimed to be his friends, received the same intelligence, and told him of it in the strictest confidence. The bait took, he bought all accessible stock of that company, paying a liberal price, and rejoicing at the reception of his news in advance of the market. The telegrams were all bogus; his pretended friends assisted in stacking the cards so as to win. The operators on the street used to speak of this as a very neat transaction, and declared that Wall street could not excel it.

A great deal depends upon knowing when to sell out. A friend of mine once bought fifteen feet of a mine, just opened, at ten dollars a foot, and sold it a year later at sixteen thousand dollars a foot. Three months later it could have been bought for not more than ten times the original cost. One man, who held on, is still keeping ten feet of the same mine, and is likely to do so.

Copper mining has been prosecuted to a considerable extent in California, and at one time was very profitable, owing to the war between Spain and Chili, which excluded the latter country from the copper market. The principal copper mines in California are at Copperopolis, in the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevadas, about forty miles from Stockton. The ore is extracted in the form of sulphurets, from a vein about twenty feet in width, which has reached a depth of more than six hundred feet. In consequence of the expense of smelting works, and the cost of fuel, it has been found more economical to send the ore to England, and to the Atlantic coast, for reduction. The sulphur is driven off by heat, and, after undergoing various manipulations to rid it of foreign matter, the fine copper remains. There are several mines at Copperopolis, all of them on the same vein. The most profitable of them employed at one time more than twenty ships in freighting its ore to the places where it was smelted. The net profit to the owners of the mine for one year, during the Chilian war, exceeded half a million dollars, but it fell off greatly with the return of peace.

[Sidenote: COPPER AND SILVER MINES.]

The ore contains an average of twenty to twenty-five per cent. of copper, the balance being sulphur and other chemicals, in combination with such earthy substances as are ordinarily encountered in sulphate veins. The richest copper mines of the coast are in Arizona, very near the California line. Specimens from a mine on “Bill Williams’ Fork,” eight miles from steamboat navigation, on the Colorado River, assayed from sixty to seventy per cent. of copper. The ore from these mines ought to yield from forty to fifty per cent. pure copper, and the miners are confident of a richer return than this as they descend into the earth.

Arizona is also rich in silver and gold, particularly the former, but the climate is so unhealthy, and the Indians have such a persistent habit of killing white men on frequent occasions, that a residence there is not as desirable as a home on the banks of the Hudson, or the Ohio. But as we are always ready to go wherever there is a prospect of money-making, this out-of-the-way territory bids fair to become peopled before many years have passed away. Steamboats are running on the Colorado, and the Southern Pacific Railway taps the country, so that the mines near it have a good prospect of development. Some of the companies now in operation in Arizona sell their ore to speculators, while the balance ship theirs to England for reduction.

The want of good coal mines is severely felt in California. Coal has been discovered, and is being taken out in considerable quantities at Mount Diabolo, thirty miles from San Francisco, but it is of inferior quality, and unfit for many purposes where coal is used. The same is the case with the coal from Bellingham Bay, British Columbia, and from nearly all other points on the Pacific coast where mines have been opened. The river steamers burn the California coal. Some of the founders use it, as well as all the establishments on land where the making of steam is the only object. It is said that ocean steamers cannot burn it, in consequence of its tendency to spontaneous combustion, when kept in the hold of a ship for any considerable time. Coal is taken there from the Atlantic seaboard, and from Sydney, New South Wales. If a mine, favorably located anywhere on the Pacific coast, furnishing a good quality of coal, could be found, it would yield a fortune to its owners.

[Sidenote: CALIFORNIA QUICKSILVER.]

I have spoken of gold, silver, and copper among the minerals, but there is another metal which is an important product of the coast, though the area of its production is somewhat limited. I allude to quicksilver, which exists in quantities worthy of note, only in Spain, California, and Peru. For a very long time the Almaden quicksilver mine in Spain was the only one known, and it held a rigid monopoly of the trade. The discoveries in Peru opened a new field, but, though it reduced the price for a time, it did not seriously affect it. The discovery in California threw such a quantity into the market, that the whole quicksilver trade of the world is now ruled by it.

The great mine is at New Almaden, sixty miles south from San Francisco. The ore is taken from a mine in the hills on the inside of the Coast Range of mountains, and is found in chambers, instead of veins. Some of the earthquakes that occasionally disturb San Francisco, put money in the pockets of the New Almaden owners, as they open up new and very rich chambers, not previously discovered. The ore from which the quicksilver is taken is about the color of a well-burned brick, and looks, when piled up for use, much like a heap of broken granite and bricks. The ore is placed in furnaces, a wood fire is built beneath, the quicksilver flies off in vapor, and is caught and condensed in air-tight rooms, partly filled with water. After condensation, it is bottled up in flasks containing 76-1/2 pounds, each of these being the same as the weight used at the Almaden mine in Spain.

This mine has been the subject of much litigation, as indeed has nearly everything valuable in California. The product in one year was 47,194 flasks, worth about $50 per flask, or a total value of $2,359,700. The cost of producing this result was about $800,000, leaving a very fair margin of profit. The ore averages from twelve to eighteen per cent. of quicksilver, and frequently exceeds the latter figure. A piece of the ore which I picked up at the mine, lies before me as I write. It is a deep red color, heavy, like a lump of lead, and is said to contain about twenty per cent. of quicksilver.

[Sidenote: QUICKSILVER.]

A large quantity of quicksilver is used in gold and silver mining on the Pacific coast, and the balance goes to various parts of the world. Of the production of the year I mentioned, fourteen thousand flasks were sent to China, ten thousand to London, five thousand to Peru, two thousand to Chili, seven thousand to New York, two thousand to Mexico, and two hundred to Australia.

XLIV.

RAPID TRANSIT IN NEW YORK.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY SCHEMES.—ELEVATED RAILWAY LINES.—THE WEST SIDE RAILWAY.—TRAVELLING ON LAMP POSTS.—ADVANTAGES OF A SECOND STORY ROAD.—ADVENTURES WITH THIEVES.—PERILS OF THE MODERN STREET CAR.—ARTISTIC PACKING OF PASSENGERS.—THE PNEUMATIC RAILWAY.—VANDERBILT’S SCHEME.—AN UNCOMFORTABLE JOURNEY.—SHOT FROM A GUN.

For several years the people of New York city have been agitated on the subject of rapid transit from one end of Manhattan Island to the other. In one respect, New York is unlike any other city on the globe. Nearly all its business is conducted at one end of the island on which it stands, while nearly all the residences are at the other end. Consequently, a large part of the population must be transported in the morning from the upper part of Manhattan Island to the lower end, and transported back again in the afternoon and evening. All the lines of street railway and the stages are densely crowded at these times. There is not a street car or an omnibus that is not packed to its fullest capacity, in the morning, with people going down town, and packed in a similar way, about sunset, with people going up town.

Travel at these times in the direction indicated is accompanied with many annoyances. On some of the lines of street railway, the passengers are stowed away very much like sardines in a can, or like negroes in the hold of a slave ship. Comfort is not at all considered. Every man is anxious to reach his destination as speedily as possible, and if the seats are all taken, he is willing to stand. Very often passengers are wedged so closely that the movement of one affects nearly all the rest, and a person near the middle of the car finds it hard work to get out. Straps are suspended from horizontal bars running fore and aft the car; and the standing passengers suspend themselves from these straps.

[Sidenote: AN INGENIOUS DEVICE.]

An ingenious individual has devised a plan whereby the space above the heads of the standing passengers may be utilized. He proposes some additional straps, on which a few passengers can be suspended horizontally, very much as dried fish in a museum are hung up against the wall. The position would be uncomfortable, but comfort is a secondary or tertiary consideration altogether.

The ordinary street car is designed to seat thirty-two passengers, but very often as many as a hundred passengers are crowded on a single vehicle. The front and rear platforms are occupied down to the very edge of the steps. It is uncomfortable enough when the passengers are sober and well-behaved; but when, as often happens, half of them are drunk, and fifty per cent. of the drunken ones are quarrelsome, the position becomes serious. A man who travels late at night on a main line of street railway will have his love for sport fully gratified. He may expect a broken rib every week or two, and, as the noble and manly art prevails among the drunken gentlemen, he can be accommodated with a fight whenever he wishes it, and very often when he doesn’t.

The modern science of pocket-picking is very much in fashion in New York, and a goodly portion of the inhabitants seem to be engaged in an effort to make an honest living by robbing the rest. On a densely crowded car, one can frequently see gangs of pickpockets, varying from two to half a dozen persons, and unless he is very attentive, they will go through him without his knowing it. They are skilful operators, and the rules of the profession forbid the practice of the science until the artist is able to pick away a man’s eye-winkers without his feeling it. I always look with pleasure on a man who boasts that no pickpocket can rob _him_. His confidence begets carelessness, and the result is, that he is generally robbed more than any other man.

[Sidenote: SKILL OF PICKPOCKETS.]

With a long experience on street railways, it has been my pleasure to suffer the depredations of pickpockets several times; and I will do them the credit to say that their robberies were almost always committed when I was on the lookout for them, and was quite confident they could do me no harm. They never took my watch or pocket-book, but on two occasions they have taken a letter case out of the inside pocket of my coat, and once invaded my trousers, and carried off a card case which had no cards in it. They have gone through my overcoat, and relieved it of kerchiefs, and gloves, and such trifles, and I was in blissful ignorance of their operations until some time afterwards, when I happened to put a hand in my pocket, and found that my property had gone.

Quite often I have seen the pickpockets “working” a car, and have admired the effectual and artistic manner in which they perform their duty. A few days before writing this description, I travelled with five of these individuals on my way down town, and saw them go from one end of the car to the other,—the vehicle was very much crowded,—and after taking what watches and pocket-books they could find, they left from the rear platform. The cry of robbers was raised a little too late, and when the first announcement was made that valuables had disappeared, they were off the car and three or four blocks away. Two pocket-books and four watches were the result of that evening’s enterprise—a very fair compensation for five minutes’ work.

The omnibuses are somewhat better in character than the street cars, though they do not afford accommodations for standing, especially if the passenger happens to be in the vicinity of six feet high. Many persons do stand in them, however, and revenge themselves for their discomfort by treading on the toes of the sitters at every lurch of the carriage. Intoxicated people do not ride in the omnibuses as much as in the street cars, partly for the reason that the majority of drunkards live on the railway rather than on the omnibus routes, and partly for the reason that it is not so easy to enter an omnibus as to enter a street car. The car has a conductor, whose duty it is to assist passengers on board and collect their fares, to kick off the disorderly ones, and keep everybody on good behavior. Between the pickpockets and passengers, the conductors generally occupy a neutral position, very much like the woman in the celebrated contest between her husband and a bear. The omnibus has no conductor, and as no one is responsible for the conduct of the passengers, they generally behave much better than on board a street car. If a man misbehaves himself in the former vehicle, his fellow-passengers eject him; but in the latter conveyance, the passengers do not wish to take upon themselves the conductor’s duty, and as he is generally unwilling to perform it, it is not performed at all.

Time is an important consideration on these lines of travel. There are so many stoppages for landing and receiving passengers, so many blockades arising from vehicles in the street, and from other causes, that the journey from end to end of Manhattan Island is not a rapid one. From the City Hall to Harlem, the ordinary time required is an hour and a half, and proportionally for other distances. The omnibus is even slower than the street car, as it has not the advantage of rails on which to move, and makes frequent stoppages to wait for its passengers. The consumption of time in city travel, added to the annoyances, makes it very desirable that a more perfect system should be devised.

[Sidenote: SCHEMES OF RAPID TRANSIT.]

Consequently the question of rapid transit has been very much debated, and several schemes have been proposed. I shall not attempt to give all the systems proposed for public consideration, as they would occupy much more space than I have at my disposal. Some inventors propose an underground railway, and some propose a railway elevated sufficiently high to offer no obstacle to the passage of vehicles. There has been a great deal of talk on the rapid transit question, but up to this time comparatively little has been done. A single track has been placed in the air on iron posts something like lamp posts, and carried from the Battery through Greenwich Street, and connecting streets and avenues, as far as Thirtieth Street. It is very doubtful if it ever gets any farther, or if anything more than a single track is built. The enterprise thus far has not met the expectations of its projectors. It has swallowed up a great deal of money, and secured very little travel. It carries passengers at a fair speed, but it has had two or three accidents that have rendered the public distrustful of its accomplishments.

[Sidenote: HOW TO STUDY PRIVATE LIFE.]

It possesses one advantage—that of enabling strangers to study the private life of the people on second story floors along its route; and for this reason I presume distinguished foreigners, who come to New York, are generally invited to make a journey over this railway. By no other means now known can so good a knowledge of the domestic habits of New York be obtained. A gentleman who made a journey in one of the cars of this road soon after its opening, stated that he counted ninety-seven families at breakfast, of whom thirty-three were eating fish, twenty-seven were eating beefsteaks or mutton-chops, while the balance were sticking to bread and vegetables in various forms, or were breakfasting on nothing at all. He saw thirteen family quarrels in various stages of progress, and observed one lady, apparently of foreign origin, discussing home affairs with a broom-handle. He obtained an intimate knowledge of wearing apparel for both sexes, and saw a great many things he had never seen before, and hardly expected to see on so short a journey.

Soon after this Elevated Railway was begun, some enterprising gentlemen undertook the construction of a railway under Broadway, on the pneumatic plan. They leased a cellar at the corner of Broadway and Warren Street, dug a tunnel under the sidewalk, and thence directly under Broadway for a distance of two hundred and fifty feet. It had been claimed that an underground railway could not be made beneath Broadway without interfering greatly with the traffic of that busy thoroughfare. The projectors of this line, known as the Beach Pneumatic Railway, contended that they could do their work without interference with travel, and they not only did it in that way, but they kept the entire public ignorant of their operations until they were ready to throw open the completed portion of their line for inspection. They were at work three or four months before any outsider obtained the least hint of what was going on, and for the last few months of their work, the public dwelt almost entirely in conjectures. It leaked out that something was being done there, but what it was, nobody could exactly tell.

[Sidenote: OPENING AN UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.]