When one stood at the 3,000 level and looked up a compartment of the shaft (five feet by six feet in size) the little spot of daylight seen at the top appeared to be about four inches square. At this great depth even the smallest bit of rock falling from the top whistles like a rifle-ball before reaching the bottom, and, striking a man on the head, would instantly kill him. Should a man fall that distance little would remain on which to hold an inquest—his body would be quite “dissipated.” The Cornish and the hydraulic pumps working together had a daily capacity of 5,200,000 gallons—a small river! Hydraulic pumps were placed at the 2,400-foot level, the 2,600 and the 3,000 levels. Some idea of the great size of these engines and pumps may be formed when it is stated that the stations excavated for them were eighty-five feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, and twelve feet high. All this space was so filled with machinery that there was only room left to move about among it. Drifts were run to the west to the lode at the 2,400, 2,800 and 3,000-foot levels. On the 3,000 level the distance from the shaft to the east wall of the vein was found to be only 250 feet. The lode at this depth (3,000 feet) was found to be of great width and well mineralized—indeed the Hale & Norcross folks had a good showing of ore.
The Deepest Workings.
Although the Combination Shaft is the deepest vertical opening on the lode, it is not the point of deepest mining. The deepest workings are in the mine of the Union Consolidated Company, toward the north end of the lode. There long drifts were run and much prospecting done at the great depth of 3,350 feet. This depth was obtained by running a drift from the bottom of the vertical shaft and then sinking a winze from the drift.
The Yellow Jacket (new) shaft has a vertical depth of 3,050 feet, and much prospecting was done in the mine at a depth of 3,000 feet; also in the Belcher and Crown Point. In the Belcher excellent prospects were being obtained when the company were obliged to discontinue work. By connecting adjacent shafts by means of drifts and otherwise maintaining a proper system of ventilation miners experience no difficulty in working at any depth yet attained on the Comstock Lode.
A Return to the Second Line of Works.
February 13, 1882, a flow of water was tapped on the 2,700 level of the Exchequer Mine, that flooded not only that mine, but also the Alpha, Imperial, Yellow Jacket, Kentuck, Crown Point, Belcher, Overman, Segregated Belcher, and Caledonia. The water rushed to the Yellow Jacket Shaft, where the pumping was done which drained the advanced workings (most eastern) of all the mines named. The Yellow Jacket folks pumped and bailed an average flow of 110 miners inches a day for seven days. Though they were raising 1,320 gallons every minute the water gained on them and raised to the level (2,700) on which it was tapped by the Exchequer. The water had then filled all the drifts, cross-cuts, and winzes of the whole group of mines from the Bullion south to the Caledonia. Pumping was still continued, for the purpose of exhausting the subterranean reservoir in the Exchequer, till March 28, when the water had been so far reduced that there was a depth of only 950 feet above the 3,000 level of the Yellow Jacket Shaft. Then, as no combined arrangement could be made among the several companies interested to continue the work and drain all the mines, the Yellow Jacket Company stopped pumping and shut down their works. This stopped all work below the level of the Sutro drain tunnel, and the works have never since been started up. Had all the companies “stood in” for a time longer all the flooded mines would have been thoroughly drained.
The cost of the new works on the advanced line had been so much, and the expense incurred in hoisting and pumping from such great depths was so heavy, that stockholders in all the mines along the lode now became discouraged. They declared that what had happened in the case of the Gold Hill group of mines was liable to happen in the other deep workings, and began to clamor for a general return to the works at the second line of shafts, where it was known that pay ore had been left behind in the race after depth. When stockholders found that the deep shafts did not at once cut into pay ore, when they tapped the vein, they had no patience to wait for much prospecting to be done. They demanded that paying deposits be sought for at once in the old levels above the Sutro Tunnel, where there could be no trouble from water. Thus it happens that along the whole lode all the mining now being done is at the works situated over the second line of shafts, and above the level of the Sutro Tunnel. These shafts are by no means shallow, as they range in depth from 2,000 to 2,900 feet. The return has been fortunate. The vein being from 400 to 1,000 and even in places 1,400 feet in width between walls, it was very little explored in the neighborhood of the works of the second line of shafts. When the bonanzas in sight were exhausted, the universal cry was: “Get away to the east! Strike the lode at greater depths! Another 1,000 feet of depth will give us a third fertile zone—a third line of bonanzas!” Now it is being discovered that large and rich deposits of ore had been left behind—that they are scattered in all directions in the great breadth of vein material like plums in a pudding. Again dividends are the order of the day along the famous old lode.
The Old First Bonanzas.
Out of the first “bonanzas” great fortunes were taken. The bonanza of the Ophir, into which the first discoverers of silver—O’Riley and McLaughlin—accidentally dug, yielded about $20,000,000 before it was exhausted; the Savage, $16,500,000; Hale & Norcross, $11,000,000; Chollar and Potosi, $16,000,000; Gould & Curry, $15,500,000; Yellow Jacket, $16,500,000; Crown Point, $22,000,000; Belcher, $26,000,000; Overman, $3,250,000; Imperial, $2,750,000, and the Kentuck, Sierra Nevada, Justice, and many other mines sums running from hundreds of thousands up into millions. In all, the yield of the mines on the Comstock Lode from the discovery down to the present time has been between $350,000,000 and $400,000,000. Of much of the silver and gold at first taken from the lode, both at Gold Hill and Virginia City, there is no record; and in many instances since that time much gold and silver bullion has been obtained from ores, tailings, slimes, and sulphurets that was never fully accounted for.