[From Eldredge's History of California vol. 4 (1915)]

 

CHAPTER V.

THE COMSTOCK LODE

 

            CALIFORNIA mature at eleven, plants a colony in 1859-60 which ripens into a new  state in 1864. Nevada is the first child of California."

            So wrote Samuel Bowles,[1] then one of the leading journalists of the country in 1865, after completing the journey from Massachusetts to San Francisco by way of Salt Lake and Virginia City, in company with Speaker Colfax of the house of representatives. Horace Greeley a still more famous editor, after making the same trip in 1859, had expressed the opinion that there were not at that time more than three hundred human habitations, mostly of logs,[2] in the whole territory that six years later was erected into a state. The great change was due largely to one of the greatest and richest ledges of gold and silver bearing ore that had ever up to that time been discovered.

            Early in 1853 two brothers named Hosea Ballou and Ethan Allen Grosh, in the course of their wanderings as prospectors, crossed the mountains into what is now Nevada. They had come to California from Pennsylvania in 1849 and had been prospecting ever since. They were hunting, as all other prospectors were at that time, for placer diggings, wet or dry, from which gold dust or nuggets might be taken in paying quantity with pick and pan. They knew something about quartz, as most prospectors did, but were not particularly interested in such deposits further than that they might indicate the presence of loose gold in their vicinity. Few people in California were doing anything at rock

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mining at that time, and the Grosh brothers had little thought of attempting work of that kind, being like other prospectors wholly unprepared for it.

            But in a gulch on the north-eastern side of the highest peak of the Washoe range, then known as Sun mountain they came upon a curious ledge that impressed them as possibly valuable. The rock was of a kind they had not often seen before, if ever. It was quite unlike that which had attracted the attention of prospectors on the Yuba in 1850, had since been traced south almost to the Merced, and was now known the world over as the mother lode; but there was a vast amount of it and the brothers appear to have determined to learn more about it, before permitting the fact that they had found it to become too generally known.

            They recrossed the Sierra Nevada to the scenes of their earlier prospecting enterprises for the winter, and during the three or four years succeeding made one or perhaps two trips to the great ledge, but always without the means of finding out what it contained. During their last visit, in the summer of 1857, one of them struck a pick through his foot and later died of blood poisoning, and the other was so badly frozen while returning to California, as to lose both his feet and then his life. Neither ever knew that they had discovered one of the richest silver mines in the world -- a deposit so rich that within twenty years it would seriously disturb the relative value of silver to gold, and produce economic changes as great, or greater than those caused by Marshall's discovery.[3]

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            Three years before the Grosh brothers had found their way into the Carson river valley, a party of eighty Mormon settlers had arrived there. Some of them had found gold in one of the little streams flowing down from Sun mountain, and the deep rent in its side through which the little rill flowed had come to be known as Gold Cañon. But the Mormon hierarchy of that time discouraged mining, and these faithful sons of the church, having satisfied their curiosity, turned to the farming and stock-raising that had been and was to be the business of their lives, took up claims in the valley and thereafter paid but little attention to prospecting. A few years later they were joined by other members of their sect and had taken up and improved a large part of the tillable land in the vicinity.

            But while they turned away from the temptation of the hills, more worldly minded people arrived who did not do so. There were other prospectors in the neighborhood when the Grosh brothers arrived there, and still others came and remained; but it was not until after the brothers were dead that the immense deposit of paying ore which had awakened their curiosity was rediscovered.

            The ore from this lode was so different from that found on the west side of the Sierra Nevada, that these early prospectors did not for a long time guess its value. Even the Grosh brothers, who were studious and observing men,[4] had been puzzled by it. Among the

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crumpled masses of it which had been worn away by the rains and winds of centuries, and had fallen into the cañon in which their prospecting was carried on, there were huge mounds of a grayish blue rock that did not seem to carry gold and yet gold was usually found in its vicinity. When the later prospectors began to use quicksilver in their cradles and sluices, this blue material took up their quicksilver and gave them nothing in return for it. Finally as they followed up the cañons and came upon the heaps of it near the northern and southern ends of the lode, they found the ground very rich, but this "blue stuff" was very much in their way. The first rich heap of this kind was found in Gold Cañon at the southern end of the lode and was called Gold Hill; the next was in Six Mile Cañon near its northern end, and from this the lead was traced to the lode itself on June 12, 1859. This was the place where the Grosh brothers had made their discovery two years earlier. It afterwards became world famous as the Ophir mine.

            Two prospectors who were working together as partners made this second discovery, though their names are rarely mentioned in connection with it. They were Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin. They had hardly convinced themselves of the richness of their find when a ne'er-do-well fellow prospector, named Henry Thomas Paige Comstock, and generally known as "Old Pancake," who had been a teamster on every trail from the Missouri river to New Mexico and California, came along to congratulate them on their good fortune. In their simplicity O'Riley and McLaughlin showed this ex-teamster the results of their first day's

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work, and being a resourceful fellow, he immediately claimed a share in their discovery on the ground that he had once purchased the ground from one Caldwell, an earlier discoverer. This Caldwell once owned the spring whose water they had been using, he said, and had built a sluice box, some remains of which were still visible; his title, evidenced by these remains and with it his right to sell, must be undoubted, and therefore he, Henry Thomas Paige Comstock, the purchaser must in fact be the rightful owner. Finding O'Riley and McLaughlin goodnaturedly disposed to yield to his pretensions, he claimed another share for his partner, one Emanuel Penrod, known among his fellow prospectors as "Manny," and after a little time it was so settled, the two prospectors who had found the claim giving up half of it to two others who had most likely never before heard of it.

            The Washoe Indians in the neighborhood were disposed to be friendly and helpful, and by encouraging them with small presents and large promises, to do most of the heavier work these lucky gold hunters became fairly prosperous during the summer. Some days the four took out as much as $500 and $1,000 each in gold, and were throwing away several times as much in silver without knowing it; for the "blue stuff" bothered them greatly and they had as yet no hint of its value. But one day a plain farmer from the Truckee valley having heard of their good fortune, rode over to Six Mile Cañon, and after watching their operations for a little time began to make inquiry about the "blue stuff" they were finding so troublesome. They assured him it was valueless and even worse, making them no

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end of trouble and expense; nevertheless he selected a few pieces and took them across the mountains to Nevada City to be assayed. Two assayers reported practically the same result -- gold $1,595 and silver $4,791 to the ton.[5] The "blue stuff" was both a gold and silver bearing ore; it was rich in gold and at the same time carried silver of two or three times its value. There was even some silver mixed with the free gold which the miners had so far been finding in the placers; it was this that gave it its whitish color and reduced its value so far that the bankers at Placerville would pay only $13 per ounce for it, while they were readily giving $18 for that found in the placers of the American, the Yuba, and rivers further north.

            No effort was apparently made to keep the results of these first assays from becoming public, and a rush of miners and prospectors from the west to the east side of the mountains immediately followed. One or two of the most enterprising left Nevada City on the evening of the very day the news became public. Within a few days the exodus was greater than it had been during the preceding year to Fraser river. All the roads and trails leading over the mountains, and particularly that through Placerville over which the Pony express came and went, was thronged with them. Before the year 1859 closed the new lode had been explored throughout its entire length -- found to be between three and four miles -- and every foot of it located. Claims were also staked for a long distance on either side of it. The country for many miles beyond was explored, and

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although nothing so valuable as the first find was discovered, other promising prospects were found, particularly on Reese river, nearly two hundred miles further east, as well as at White Pine and in other places. Nevada, still a part of Utah, speedily became in effect a part of California, through the enterprise of the Californians who had taken possession of it, and were soon turning its wealth into their own state.

            Development of the new mines was fairly rapid considering the difficulties encountered and the inexperience of those who found them. At first the exposed part of the lode, more or less decomposed as it was by exposure to the elements, was easily removed, beaten to pieces with picks, shovels, hammers or anything the prospectors found ready to their hands, and the powdered material run through their rockers.

            As their pits deepened and the rock grew harder, rude arastras,[6] of the kind the Mexicans had long used, were constructed to grind it and prepare it for washing. A windlass with wooden buckets was brought into use to hoist the mineral out of the pit, one or two men doing the hoisting while another did the mining. As still greater depth was reached a mule was made to do the hoisting. Finally a steam engine of fifteen horse power found its way to the Ophir mine in 1860 or '61,

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the first machine of the kind in Nevada, and the precursor of many others, some of which were the most powerful that had ever been built up to that time.

            Every stroke of the pick on the wonderful lode increased confidence in its wealth, and the effect on California soon began to be exhibited in many ways. The miners who hurried across the mountains in greater numbers than they had ever before gone to new and promising regions, required to be fed, clothed, and furnished with the tools and implements of their craft. Lumber would be required in immense quantity to build homes for them and timber the mines as they should be developed. New and improved machinery would be needed, in ever increasing quantity, to lift the ore from deepening shafts and extract the gold and silver from it. Machinists and artisans to erect mills, scientific men to determine so far as they might from the surface indications the trend of the lode -- its deviation from a perpendicular line in either direction -- to invent means for supporting the rock and earth when the mineral should be removed from beneath it, and better methods of reducing the ore when brought to the surface; men to provide means for developing the mines until they should pay their own expenses, as well as men to work with pick and shovel and men to direct them, would all be necessary; and with them all the multifarious craftsmen and tradesmen who would supply the wants of those who were otherwise profitably employed, would find opportunity for profit.

            The first and most urgent need would be for food. The Mormon farmers and stock raisers had been recalled to Salt Lake in 1857, and obedient to the call they had

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abandoned their farms and farm buildings, carrying only so much of their property as was portable. Supplies for thousands must be sent over the mountains and roads must be made before they could be sent by other means than pack animals. Tools, clothing and other supplies could go up the river from San Francisco to Sacramento by boat, thence by the Sacramento valley railroad to or near Folsom. Beyond Placerville there was some sort of road; some of the immigrants had been coming over it since 1849 and Mr. Greeley had come that way by stage in 1859, worrying much during the early part of the journey lest he should not arrive at Placerville in time to keep a lecture engagement, and more during the latter part lest he might arrive, if he arrived at all, much earlier than its people would be looking for him. This road was soon made well nigh impassable by grinding wheels, and the hurrying feet of men and animals that were crowding to get over it. The winter of 1859-60 had been unusually severe, and even "Snow Shoe" Thompson, one of the famous parcel carriers for Wells, Fargo, & Company, could hardly make his way over the range with news that the store of supplies of the miners was gradually failing, and there was no hope for relief for them but from California. Stores of flour, bacon, beans, sugar, and coffee were sent forward in February as far as pack mules could flounder through the snow with them, and men worked and struggled as bravely as others had thirteen years earlier to relieve the gaunt and famishing remnant of the Donner party. Finally blankets were spread on the yielding snow and the loaded animals led for many miles over them until the summit was passed.

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            J. Ross Browne made a trip to the new mines early in 1860, and wrote entertainingly of his own experience, and that of others who like himself were determined to be among the first to get through.[7] He found Placerville crowded with miners who were unable to find transportation for themselves or their goods. The road which had been partly graded as far as Strawberry Flat near the summit, had been so cut up by the melting snows and early rains as to be impassable for wheeled vehicles; saddle horses and pack animals could hardly pick their way over it in places. All the stores and warehouses, and even the streets were piled with goods awaiting transportation. Horses and mules were bespoken for days in advance; and so like many others Browne set off to make the journey on foot. He was six days on his way to Carson City. All along the way he found loaded wagons with broken wheels, poles, or axles, often half buried in mud, and abandoned by their drivers. Trains of pack animals picked their way from one dry spot to another, or floundered in the mud. Other trains of horses with empty saddles, or mules carrying bags of ore, were met coming from the other direction; and when the meeting occurred on a narrow part of the trail some were crowded over steep places into the cañon.

            One of the first and most urgent needs of the time was to make this road passable, and this was speedily done. Later as the mines were developed and the need for supplying them with heavy machinery, as well as with more certain and rapid communication with the sources of supply became apparent, competent engi-

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neers were employed to reduce the grade to a minimum, to increase its width, provide turn outs and turning points, and where necessary wall them up with stone; and finally to macadamize the surface so that the heaviest loads might pass over them with the least resistance. Bridges of substantial character were built where necessary, and finally the whole road was frequently watered in summer, and kept clear of snow in winter -- all at the expense of the builders who collected toll from everything that went over it. It was over this road that trains of two and three broad tired wagons, drawn by twelve, fourteen, and sixteen mules, and loaded with the stamps, drills, pumps, engines and other heavy machinery, followed each other continually. Over it went also men on foot and on horseback, men with wheelbarrows transporting their own outfits, men in light or heavy carriages of their own, farmers with their produce and droves of sheep, hogs, and cattle, as well as those famous stages of the Pioneer line, drawn by six of the finest horses procurable, and driven by the Hank Monks, Curly Dans, and Curly Bills who could turn the six at a gallop in a city street, and bring the coach to a stop with its door in front of the steps of the stage office.[8]

            The schedule time from Sacramento to Virginia City -- one hundred and sixty-two miles -- was three days in

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1860, says Mr. Shinn, but by 1863 it had been reduced to eighteen hours, and passengers could go through, if they wished, without stopping. One party was driven over the line in twelve hours and twenty-three minutes, but this was by a special arrangement. The stage company kept six hundred horses, and according to the Sacramento "Union" there were employed on the line in 1863, 2,772 teams with a total of 14,652 animals. It was estimated that eighty-eight million pounds of freight went over the road in a single year.

            In time other roads were opened, but this long remained the principal artery of supply for the Washoe district. The promoters of the Central Pacific railroad early began to open a way from Dutch Flat to Virginia City, and after the railroad reached the former point, a large part of the trade was diverted to that route. Still another ran by way of Nevada through Henness pass, and there were others leading into one or the other of these, by which farmers, fruit growers, and producers of various sorts could send their products or their wares to Virginia and Carson cities. There was not an industry in middle California that did not feel a strong quickening impulse from the development of the great lode, and even those in its remoter parts got some benefit from the increased demand for what they could supply.

            The original claimants sold out their prospects to the first speculators to arrive, and usually for very small amounts. McLaughlin is said to have got $3,500, Penrod $8,500, Comstock $11,000 and O'Riley $40,000. All spent their money freely and were soon as poor as they had ever been. Comstock managed, with his

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usual bluster to convince some that he was the discoverer of the lode, and so to attach his name to it, and as a town grew or began to grow up on it, it was named for one of his cronies known as "Old Virginia," but about whose lawful patronymic there will always be some doubt. It was in these early days, also, that the name of Sun mountain was changed, becoming Mount Davidson, in honor of a San Francisco banker and agent for the Rothschilds.

            Of the thousands of claims located only about twenty ever became mines, and some of these never paid dividends. The famous few that produced ore in fabulous quantities were located on the outcroppings of the lode. From these selected ore was at first sent to San Francisco where it was reduced at some profit, although the cost of shipping the first forty tons was $24,000. As rapidly as possible stamps, settling pans, engines, boilers, and other machinery were sent over the mountains. Between June 12th and August 11, 1860, twenty-four stamps were in operation. Three days later another mill with nine stamps was started, and by the end of 1861 seventy-six mills with eleven hundred and fifty-three stamps were in operation. These mills were enlarged and others added from time to time until they were capable of crushing and treating more than fifty-seven thousand tons of ore per month, and their engines, with those employed at the mines, had a combined capacity of twenty-one thousand horse power.

            As development of the lode progressed four principal needs became apparent -- for wood, water, lumber, and improved machinery. In the whole Washoe region there was little wood and less water. As the miners

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sunk their shafts deeper and deeper on the lode, and extended their drifts and cross-cuts on the various levels, the need for stronger timbers to retain the walls and support the immense weight of earth and rock above them increased. There had been much need of lumber to build houses when the first rush of miners came, and there was greater need now that mills and shaft houses were to be built. The early saw mills had cut away most of the nut pines growing in the cañons and ravines, and had there been more of them, they would no longer have served in places where the demand was largest and most urgent. A time came when eighty million feet of lumber went annually into the chambers and drifts of the lode, besides hundreds of thousands more that were required for buildings above ground; and two hundred and fifty thousand cords of wood were burned under the boilers that supplied the power to keep mines and mills in operation. This vast supply could not be hauled over the mountains in wagons -- though where particularly strong timbers were procured from Oregon and Puget Sound they were transported in that way. There was good timber on the eastern wall of the Sierra Nevada, and this was cut and hauled to the mills near the mines for a time, but the process was too expensive. The cost of road making was enormous and the winter rains made the cost of repair and rebuilding almost as great, so fluming was resorted to. A "V" shaped trough, deep enough to carry logs of considerable size, and in one case fifteen miles long, was built along the mountain side by a more or less regular incline; so that when filled with water from a mountain stream, whatever was put into it, whether

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logs, lumber, or cord wood, went flying through it to the lower end, where it was landed without much damage; thence it was hauled to the mines in wagons. There were ten of these flumes in operation in 1880, with a total length of eighty miles. Two million feet of lumber had been used in constructing one of them, and thirty-three million feet, besides one hundred and seventy-one thousand cords of wood had passed through them that year.

            Water to supply the city was also brought from the Sierra Nevada, much of the way in an open flume, though at one place a valley nearly seven miles wide and seventeen hundred and twenty feet deep had to be crossed, requiring an inverted siphon of steel pipe that could withstand a pressure of eight hundred pounds to the square inch at the deepest part. This was devised, and by it the valley was crossed successfully.

            There were eighteen paying mines on the lode from which the ore was hoisted through perpendicular shafts, or in places through inclines that followed its dip ; and as they sunk deeper and deeper with their shafts, cross- cuts, and tunnels extending for many miles, the difficulties of miners and managers increased. The lode was wider than any with which mining engineers of the time were acquainted -- in some places nearly a thousand feet. Not all of the mass between the walls was paying ore, but much of it that did not pay required to be removed. In all, or nearly all the mines, bonanzas were found -- masses of very high grade ore of lenticular shape, hundreds of feet in length, by two or three hundred feet wide at the broadest part and five or six hundred deep. This ore was generally so soft that pillars of it could not be left to support the mountain mass above it.

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            The utmost cunning of the ablest engineers was required to devise means, even with the strongest timbers, to prevent the walls and roof from closing in as these great masses were removed -- to replace them when they were crushed by the enormous pressure, and to guard them from fire. At the same time another and equally persistent obstacle was to be contended with. Water, of which there was a dearth at the surface, was super-abundant in the lower levels. It seeped through the walls on all sides, and sometimes burst into the tunnels in floods when some miner, unconscious of his danger, struck his pick through the wall of a hidden reservoir. Worst of all, this water was hot, and grew hotter as greater depth was reached. It could only be got rid of by pumping, and pumps of increased power were continually in demand. The little engine of fifteen horse power that had first been sufficient for all purposes in the Ophir mine near the north end of the lode, was in no very great while replaced by one of forty-five, and that in turn by others until machines of two hundred, five hundred, and even one thousand horse power are in use in the mines.

            Many of these powerful pumps and engines, as well as other appliances used on the Comstock, were invented to meet its needs, and the building of them gave employment to large numbers of men. It also gave an immense impetus to the growth of the machine shops of San Francisco and the cities of the interior, many of which had profitable part in it.

            It was early seen that a time must come, if the bottom of the lode was not reached, when pumps could no longer relieve the mines of water; and a man not

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then supposed to know much about mines or mining proposed to build a tunnel nearly four miles long, from the floor of the Carson valley to strike the lode some eighteen hundred feet below the surface. This man was Adolph Sutro, and his tunnel was not only to drain the mines, but permit the ore to be taken, out through it. The mine owners at first approved his plan, and made contracts agreeing to pay him two dollars per ton royalty on all the ore mined. With these contracts Sutro, who then had no capital of his own, set to work to raise the $4,000,0000 or $5,000,000 that the tunnel would cost. A company was organized and authority procured from the state of Nevada, and the national government, to proceed with the work. All seemed to be proceeding favorably until those in control of the mines suddenly changed their minds, revoked their contracts and determined to oppose the undertaking.

            Sutro was now left alone to proceed with his work, and he must thenceforth encounter opposition where he had expected assistance. The capitalists in New York and elsewhere, with whom he had opened negotiations, refused to consider the matter further. He applied to congress for a loan or to guarantee his bonds and for a time seemed likely to succeed, but other matters prevented favorable action. He went to Europe to consult bankers who were favorably inclined toward American investments, but for a long time found more opposition than encouragement. Finally he returned to Virginia City and appealed to the miners who worked in the drifts and tunnels, telling them how much his tunnel would lessen the terrible heat in which they were compelled to work, and the

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dangers to which they were exposed. The miners raised $50,000 by small contributions to be paid regularly from their wages, and with this Sutro began work in October, 1865. Later he was able to secure $1,450,000 from some English investors and work was pushed more vigorously. It had been planned to sink four shafts along the line of the tunnel and to push the work in both directions from each of these as well as from the outer end; but so much water came into the two nearest the lode that no pump could keep them clear of it and they had to be abandoned; and the other two were often rendered useless by the same cause. New means were invented to expedite the work and during 1875 and 1876 a monthly average progress of over three hundred feet was made.

            Meantime men in the mines were suffering more and more from increasing heat, and the cost of pumping steadily advanced. New inbursts of water sometimes flooded the lower levels exposing the miners to greater dangers; occasionally a pump broke down and the rising flood drove them from their work while the increased heat made the air stifling. Tons of ice were sent into the mines daily. In some of the leads men could work only for a few minutes at a time; frequently one or another would be overcome by the heat when they would be carried by their companions to places of safety.

            In the tunnel conditions were almost equally trying. As the work neared completion the temperature rose to 114° at the end nearest the mines. At last the men deep down in the lowest levels began to hear the blasts by which the rock was blown down in the tunnel ; then

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they could hear the drills at work, and finally on July 8, 1878, a way was opened into the mines through which Sutro himself was first to pass.

            The great work was at last finished after nearly nine years of persistent effort. The mine owners still insisted that they had no need for and would not use it; but a few days later a great pump in one of the mines broke down and the whole lode seemed about to be flooded. Hundreds of men were set to work to turn the water into the tunnel, but Sutro quickly erected a bulkhead and stopped them. Nature was now working on the side of the tunnel builder and his victory was speedily won. A compromise was effected and the tunnel began to perform the work for which it had been created.

            The early prospectors of claims on the Comstock sold interests in them to later arrivals at steadily advancing prices. The rules made by the prospectors themselves had fixed the size of claims at fifty feet square. Speculators bought a number of these claims, consolidated them under new names and sold them by the foot measured on the lode. Gould, one of the early owners of Gould and Curry, which later yielded more than $15,000,000, sold his interest for $450, and boasted that he had got the best of the San Francisco speculators. He lived to see the property selling for more per inch than he had received for his half interest. Speculation in feet and inches soon became so active and exciting in Virginia City that it went on night and day. Ross Browne, who had secured accommodations at the principal hotel on arriving -- the accommodation consisting of space enough on the floor of a saloon to wrap himself in his own blankets -- found himself unable to sleep

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because of the noisy buyers and sellers, and betook himself to a prospect hole in the side of Mount Davidson where there was less noise and the bed equally soft. As the speculating went on, men were at work on the lode in ever increasing numbers, and all they did increased confidence in its richness. Its fame spread rapidly and people who had no desire to visit it began to seek opportunity to share in its prospective wealth. There were at the time a few brokers in San Francisco who dealt in city scrip, steamboat, railroad, wharf, and gas stocks ; and sometimes a customer would apply to one of them for a few feet in some mining property. They had as yet no regular place for trading, but when one of them got an order to buy he hunted among other brokers' offices until he found some one who wanted to sell.[9] Customers for interests in the Comstock soon became so numerous that the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board was organized on September 11, 1862, with forty members. Two other boards were organized later, but the Exchange board became and remained for several years one of the famous institutions of the country. For a time its members continued to buy and sell mines by the foot, but as mining companies were one after another incorporated, interests in them were bought and sold by shares only. When the mines began to pay dividends confidence in their shares increased, people of all classes began to trade in them, and the business of the board ran into millions every month. Other properties than mines continued to be dealt in, though mining shares were chiefly bought and

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sold. Everything bought was paid for in gold or silver, and during the years when greenbacks were at a discount, and the Gold board in New York became famous, the San Francisco board sometimes bought and sold greenbacks.

            When the telegraph lines reached Virginia City and were finally completed across the continent in 1861, news from the Comstock was received almost continually and sometimes it greatly affected the prices of stocks. When a bonanza was struck in any mine the price of its stock went up rapidly and that of others in its neighborhood was generally improved. When adverse news came it naturally had a depressing effect and those who had bought at high prices lost money; but even those who lost most heavily usually did not give up speculating as long as they could find money enough for a new venture.

            In June, 1864, the Bank of California was organized with a capital of $5,000,000 and with William C. Ralston its cashier and principal executive officer. Soon afterwards William Sharon went to Virginia City as its representative and opened a branch office there. Money had been loaned up to that time to the mining and milling companies at an average rate of three per cent a month, but Sharon offered it in large sums at one and one-half and soon took the larger part of the business. Then he began to acquire stamp mills, some by purchase and some by the failure of their owners to repay advances he had made to them-- and in time organized the Union Mill and Mining Company which reduced a large part of the ore produced by the largest mines. He also acquired the city water works and

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built the Virginia and Truckee railroad, connecting Virginia City with the Central Pacific at Reno. Backed as he was naturally believed to be by the bank and its numerous wealthy patrons, he became the most powerful factor in the development and exploitation of the great lode. His control of mills and reduction works brought him into close relations with the mines, and gave him unequalled facilities for finding out at the earliest moment any change in their prospects. He had been a member of the stock board in San Francisco and this information he well knew how to use. Brokers and other people interested in the rise and fall of stocks -- and these at one time comprised nearly all the people in San Francisco and central California -- knew this, and watched as eagerly for every circumstance that might give some indication of what he or those associated with him were doing in the market, as for any news that might come direct from the furthest working in the mines. When the bank crowd -- as Sharon and those who usually operated with him came to be known -- were found to be buying the stock of some property, it was assumed that they would seek to control, and | that meant that it was worth controlling, or would be, and those who made the discovery would buy. But those who did so did not always win. There was a contest for Hale and Norcross in 1868, when the property was still sold by the foot, and the price rose from $2,825 to $7,100 in a single week; a month later the price had fallen to $2,900. At that time, says Mr. King, the saying that "when giants are striving for the mastery it is wiser for small fry to stand on one

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side," passed into a proverb among the stock speculators. There was a similar contest for Ophir in 1874 and in various other mines at other times.

            Bonanzas had been found in several of the mines during the first ten years after active operations began on the lode, but none had been found in Crown Point. John P. Jones, afterwards senator from Nevada, was superintendent of this mine, and its principal owner was Alvinza Hayward, who was his relative. Jones had had some mining experience in northern California, and Hayward had made a fortune by persistently following a lead in Amador county, long after everybody else had declared it could never by any possibility prove to be a thing of value. Some paying ore had been found in Crown Point when it was opened but later its drifts and tunnels ran mainly in barren rock. Dividends ceased and assessments followed. The stock became almost unsalable, and notwithstanding the fact that the machinery in the mine had cost $140,000 the total value of the stock was only $24,000. But late in 1870 a cross-cut on the 1,100 foot level entered a soft gray quartz that proved to be very rich. It was struck again by a cross-cut one hundred feet lower, and eventually proved to be the richest of all the bonanzas so far found. The stock that had been so little sought advanced to $1,825 per share, and by May, 1877, the mine had yielded nearly $25,000,000.

            But the greatest of all the bonanzas was not yet discovered. Twelve so far had been found, some of them vastly rich, but one still remained hidden in the lode that was to eclipse them all -- to yield nearly one- third of its total product.

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            Among the miners who had crossed the Sierra Nevada soon after the wonderful richness of the Comstock had been reported were two who would make the most of the opportunities the lode had to offer. They were John W. Mackay and James G. Fair. Neither had any money, or at least not much. They were merely practical mining men, so far as men had found opportunity to become practical at that time, when quartz mining was but little understood in California or elsewhere. They worked with other miners in the shafts and tunnels, but kept their eyes open for indications that would be of value in leading to the discovery of richer ore; saved something from their wages and bought stock in such mines as seemed to be most promising. Their employment and their acquaintance among other miners gave them opportunity to find out much about all the mines and they knew how to make the information valuable to themselves and their associates.

            Interested with them then or later were James C. Flood and William S. O'Brien, who then owned and kept a saloon in San Francisco, but had an inclination to speculate in mining stocks, and knew the value of having reliable information to guide them in making their ventures. As time progressed the firm, as it was known, bought and sold with profit and owned considerable interests in some of the most profitable properties.

            Previous to 1872 there was a part of the lode 1,310 feet long lying between mines that had paid well, both north and south of it, and on which considerable money had been spent by various owners without finding any- thing of much value. Fair and Mackay bought up this property and organized with it the Consolidated

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Virginia Mining Company. They had a tunnel driven from the Gould and Curry mine through the Best and Belcher -- which they and Flood and O'Brien controlled -- into this property at a depth of 1,167 feet, and found in it a body of surprisingly rich ore. Without making their discovery known they divided the property into two companies, the Consolidated Virginia and California, with 108,000 shares each. They sunk a shaft to meet their tunnel from the Gould and Curry and at a depth of 1,500 feet encountered the ore body, which a cross-cut showed to be growing wider, while some of the ore assayed $630 per ton.

            No effort appears to have been made so far to encourage trading in the stock of either the Consolidated Virginia or California; but the fact that a body of paying ore had been struck was known, and the stock of the former advanced to $115 per share, making the value of the mine $13,570,000. One month later the stock sold at $610 per share, and that of California at $780; making the total value of both mines in the market $159,840,000.

            The ore body extended well through both mines, and was not only the largest but the richest that had been struck. The main difficulty about removing it was to find means to support the ground above it when the ore was taken out, though the work was much hampered by water, which came into the mine very hot and the miners suffered very much in consequence. Immense quantities of the heaviest timbers were used. Skilful engineers piled them in huge pyramids, in such manner as to best resist the strain, and yet there was often danger of their giving way. The work of quarrying and

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removing the ore was pushed to the utmost. Twelve thousand tons had been taken out in 1873; in 1874, 91,000; in 1875, 169,000; and in 1876, 142,000. Then the output began to lessen. During six years, however, bullion to the value of $60,732,882 had been taken from Consolidated Virginia and $43,727,831 from California; the two mines had paid in dividends $73,170,000.[10]

            Meantime all classes of people in San Francisco and many other places in California, and even beyond it, had been buying and selling stocks. At every session the stock exchange was the scene of intense activity and excitement. Men of means -- merchants, bankers, and business men in all lines -- bought largely, while clerks, laborers, teamsters, and servant girls bought what they could. A few sold while they could do so with profit, and thus secured a moderate competence, or perhaps even wealth; many refused to sell even at the highest prices. Mr. King tells of a man named Sullivan who owned a hundred shares of Consolidated Virginia which he had bought at $8 per share; one day Mr. Flood offered him $680 per share for them, which, after a night's reflection he decided to accept, saying that a check for $680,000 seemed like a pretty large one. On the other hand a coachman, who at one time held stocks to the value of more than $1,000,000 refused to sell and finally was as poor as when he began.

            During the years -- from 1861 to 1879 -- while the Comstock mines were most productive, most of them were involved in litigation. The Ophir mine at one time was plaintiff or defendant in thirty-seven suits. Yellow Jacket had thirty-two. Savage, twenty-nine,

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Gould and Curry, twenty, while other mines had from nine to seventeen. Most of these involved the title to all or considerable parts of very valuable properties.

            The early prospectors had made laws or rules, according to the custom of the time, for the government of the camp. These had fixed the size of claims and the method of marking and describing them; and a recorder had been appointed to make a record of these descriptions. But it happened that the recorder had been a very careless personage, who had been accustomed to leave his record book at the saloon he chiefly patronized, where prospectors having claims to record took such liberties with it as seemed good to them. Sometimes they changed the descriptions previously recorded, and sometimes they tore out a leaf or two if to their advantage to do so. In this way titles and descriptions became very much involved. There was conflict also between American and Spanish law, or rather custom -- for it can hardly be said that there was any law to govern the matter at the time -- as to the rights of claimants who had made locations in a true fissure vein or lode. Such veins rarely if ever stand upright, but incline to one side or the other as they descend, and this inclination is called its dip. Under the American law or custom the locator claimed the right to follow the vein wherever it led; under the Spanish law he was entitled only to such part of it as lay beneath the ground included within the limits of his claim as recorded. The first locators on the Comstock had included as much as possible of its visible outcroppings in their claims; after it had all been so

250 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA

taken up, others came who filed claims on either side of them, expecting that the vein would dip either in one direction or the other, and hoping it might dip under their locations. It did in fact dip in both directions--first to the west toward Mount Davidson, to a depth of two or three hundred feet, and then toward the east so far as it has ever been explored. It also had angles and spurs, offshoots or splinters from the main vein, and title to these was hotly contested. Some of the ablest lawyers in California[11] were employed in these suits, and in the end they were passed upon by able judges. As a result the mining laws, so far as they pertain to the kind of mining followed on the Comstock, were for the first time permanently fixed and defined.

            When systematic work on the lode began but few of the machines which miners now use for extracting and reducing the ore had been invented and methods of saving the gold and silver it contained were crude indeed. Many if not most of the really useful mining machines and methods were first used on the Comstock, and some were practically invented and perfected there. The methods of working the ores are peculiar. The mills belong to separate corporations; they make a large charge for working the ores and are only required to return to the mining companies sixty-five per cent of the assay value of the ores. The residue -- thirty-

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five per cent -- belongs to the milling companies who work the "tailings," as they are called, for their own profit.

            Some of the mining machines and appliances invented and manufactured for use on the Comstock were far in advance of any that had ever before been thought of, and they have been but little improved upon to this day. The great engine manufactured for the exposition in Philadelphia in 1776 attracted world wide attention, and yet machines equally powerful were at work on the Comstock before it was built. The hoisting machines, pumps, and ventilating apparatus were marvels of strength and perfection, while drills, cables, settling pans, ore crushers, and other devices were steadily improved. The ablest engineers, mechanics, and mining experts came from all parts of the civilized world to see them in operation, and to inspect the shops in which they had been constructed.

            Most of the $340,000,000 in gold and silver which the lode produced within twenty years after it was discovered, was poured into California, and remained there. Much of the larger part of it was paid out for wages, machinery, and supplies, and again paid for the means by which the machinery and supplies themselves were produced. The machine shops in which the great pumps and engines, the stamps, drills, wire cables, hoisting machines, and a thousand other things for use in the mines were made, grew from very small affairs to be among the greatest institutions of the kind in the world. The great siphon by which water was carried across the deep valley to Virginia City, was made in pieces in San Francisco, each piece for the particular

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place it was to occupy, and calculated with great nicety to resist the tremendous strain to which it would be subjected. Great wire cables, such as had never before been used, more than a third of a mile long and made of tapering wires so that the upper might be able to support the lower part as well as lift the heavier loads of ore from the deepest levels, were contrived, and a thousand other useful articles were first brought into use on the Comstock. The immense sums realized by the stockholders great and small were employed in many ways-- in San Francisco to erect palatial homes and stately buildings, and in the interior to improve hitherto uncultivated lands, or develop new and profitable industries. But perhaps in no way was the Comstock of more benefit to the state than in that described by Mr. Bowles: "California," he says, "has taught herself and the country how to mine intelligently and economically by her Nevada experience; mining here has been carried to greater perfection than ever before on this continent; and the wisdom thus acquired is already going back to profit California's own gold mines, and remains and extends over all the mining regions as a sure and safe basis of all future operations."[12]