582 FALLING OFF IN THE COMSTOCK LODE. [1869.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

NEVADA, sterile as it looks, is not without farming attractions. In the scattered, narrow valleys, ranches multiply. In autumn the standing bunch-grass is cured by the frosts, and sustains cattle till the pods of the white sage-which grows upon millions of acres-crack open and release the seeds. Upon these seeds they fatten, and they prefer them to corn or oats.

Hot springs abound in the mountains, and are found at almost every station along the railway. Their healing power has gained high repute among persons who suffer from rheumatism or have been poisoned by mineral fumes from amalgamating-pans in the quartz mills.

On the great Comstock Lode the ore grows poorer as the miners descend. The United States Commissioner of Mining estimated the yield for 1868 as six millions of dollars less than that of 1867. Some mills are being removed to White Pine; others await the result of work in one central mine, where the owners have sunk a shaft fourteen hundred feet, and at that depth are drifting,' but thus far without finding the ore, in satisfactory quantities. A terrible fire raged in several of the mines in the spring of 1869, consuming timbers and stagings, and suffocating a large number of workmen.

Just as the richest lode hitherto known begins to fail, a new silver region is creating the wildest excitement in our mining history. The memories of Washoe, Fraser River, and California in Forty-nine, all pale before it. Every man on the Pacific coast is talking of it; speculators and miners are thronging to it from every part of the country, in weary desert journeys of five hundred and a thousand miles. Hundreds of new mining companies based upon it are forming in California, Nevada, and the Missis

1869.]

'ME LIKE UM BEANS!'

583

sippi valley; and even New Yorkers, who have been bled a dozen times over with quartz lancets, are fascinated by specimens of ore from the new region, and beginning to invest in 'the biggest thing yet!'

This is its history. In Nevada, a hundred and twenty miles east of south from Elko,-the nearest station on the Pacific Railroad-stands White Pine mountain. Its summit, covered with white-pine timber, is ten thousand feet above the sea, and the general altitude of the surrounding valleys fully eight thousand feet. Five miles to the east of it is Base Range, where silver ores are largely contaminated with base metals; and eleven miles further, Treasure Hill. These three mountains run north and south, and are each from six to twelve miles long.

'A few months before the period at which our story opens, party of miners had erected a mill, called the Monte-Christo, on the western slope of White Pine; and they were working there with indifferent success. Early one morning they discovered a familiar, impudent Indian thrusting his dirty fingers into their breakfast-pot of baked beans, and scooping the food by handfuls into his gaping mouth. With a few kicks and many curses, they sent him howling out of camp. He went, but he returned. Reappearing a few days later, he beckoned one of them aside, handed him a piece of odd-looking ore, and complacently sat down grunting:

'Um! May be pooty good!

It was almost pure silver. With dilating eyes the eager miner asked:

'Where did you get it, Jim-where?'

'Um!' muttered the now indifferent visitor. Me heap hungry! Me like um beans!'

No kicking out this time! Jim was treated to his fill of the best the camp afforded. Then he led the white man to Treasure Hill, and there, in September, 1867, the first mine, the Hidden Treasure, was located. The Eberhardt, the richest and most famous, was staked a few weeks later. The deposit of ore was an Aladdin's palace. Nothing like it had ever been known. One lad struck his pick into what looked like a mass of putty, but proved to be pure chloride of silver, worth twenty thousand

584

EARLY DAYS OF WHITE PINE.

[1869. dollars a ton. Some ore was so rich that when taken to a quartz mill it clogged the stamps until they could do nothing with it. The silver was found in 'pockets,' or masses like coal, not in quartz veins; and in a limestone instead of a granite formation.

The fortunate discoverers, working silently and shrewdly, kept the secret well for months, while they uncovered and extracted enormous sums. They induced a Captain Page to bring a tenstamp mill from Austin. When it was set up on the new ground, it had cost Page about thirty thousand dollars. At first he began to burn bricks for furnaces, but a little experimenting proved that these ores required no roasting.

The mill started. The miners soon found that under their contract with Page, the ores were yielding him a profit of two hundred and thirty-five dollars a ton! After he had run the mill for seven days, they gladly bought it of him for ninety thousand dollars. Many more mills have since been set up in the district. The ores have assayed from one thousand to twenty thousand dollars per ton; and when crushed in large quantities, the average yields have ranged from three hundred to one thousand dollars.

'White Pine,' became the general name for the entire region. Ten thousand immigrants spent the winter of 1868-9 in it. Some had arrived on foot, some with teams, and some in the half-dozen coaches that started every morning from Austin, carrying twenty passengers apiece. Treasure City, Sherman, Hamilton, and other towns sprang up, swarming with people who dwelt in tents, in caves in the ground, in log huts, and in frame cabins.

Forest trees were abundant, but saw-mills scarce; lumber went up to five hundred dollars a thousand, and it became a common jest that one could carry away ten dollars' worth in his waistcoat pocket. Board commanded twenty dollars a week; laborers and mechanics, from five to ten dollars a day; and hay, three hundred dollars a ton. Three months before, building lots would not have brought fifty cents a dozen; now they sold at from five hundred to eight thousand dollars apiece. One plot of ground, purchased for forty-five hundred dollars, was disposed of twenty-two days later for twenty-five thousand. In silver claims the speculation was still wilder. Many an old miner, who reached the region without money enough to pay two weeks'

1869.] TWO STORIES OF SILVER MINES.

585

board, soon had property which he could have sold for a hundred thousand dollars or more. And many another who carried in thousands with him, paid it all away in less than a week for claims as worthless as Sahara.

Before the richness of the region was known, a Nevada lawyer was offered two hundred feet in one mine for twenty-five dollars. He had risked thousands of dollars upon 'prospects' before, and invariably at a loss; and now, yielding to prudence for the first time in his life, he declined to purchase. Three months later he visited the district. A boy working in the mine he had refused gave him a piece of ore worth three hundred dollars; while the owner of the claim offered him five thousand dollars to spend a single week in arguing an injunction suit concerning it before one of the mining courts. He vowed that he would never be prudent again, however great the temptation.

A quiet visitor to the Eberhardt mine, after looking carefully through it, announced that he represented one of the wealthiest banks on the coast, and was authorized to purchase it. The owners, who had been poor men a few months before, replied:

'The Bank of California hasn't got money enough to buy this mine. But come around next fall, and we will buy the Bank of California!'

At the present rate it will not be many months before the region has a population of fifty thousand. There will be the usual preposterous inflation and reckless investments, and then the usual reaction, bringing things to their proper level. The lesson of quartz mining, like other lessons of life, can not be acquired by proxy; every generation must learn it for itself, every man for himself.

New Mexico begins to feel some mining excitements; yet with its inefficient Mexican population it makes little progress. During the summer of 1868, General William J. Palmer, of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, made an interesting survey through to the Pacific, along the thirty-fifth parallel. West of Albuquerque his party found the Zuni Indians, already described on pages 254 and 266. The group in our illustration was sketched by the artist of the expedition. The Zunis preserve the old Aztec faith pure and simple, and have not a single Catholic priest in their

586 MORE OF THE WHITE INDIANS. [1869. village. They raise fruit, corn, and sheep, in abundance, and under their sad faces, hide a fondness for barter and a shrewdness in it, quite unmatched among any other tribe. They sold grapes and mutton to the exploring party, but only at high prices and after hours of dickering. Education and a favorable geographical position would soon develop them into a great commercial people.

Palmer saw one of their white Indians. He had red hair, blue eyes, and a complexion fair even for a white man. He showed none of that preternatural paleness of the eye, feebleness, and appearance of being a freak of nature, generally observed in Albinos; but seemed to be a strong, normal man. From generation to generation these white Zunians have white childrengiving some color to a local tradition, that they sprang originally from a Welchman who lived for a while with the tribe. Why do not our scientific men study more this strange people, the traces