HOISTING CAGES AND CARS IN SILVER MINES.
We have been a long time in the shaft, though it takes but a very short time to make the actual descent. There is an occasional flash of lights, hum of voices, and clash of machinery, as described above, when the motion of the cage begins to “slow down,” and a moment after this is noticed it stops exactly on a level with the floor of the station, 1,500[1,500] feet below the surface of the earth. We can hardly realize that we are standing at such a great depth below the upper world and the light of day.
Before us is what is called the “Station.”
A ‘station’ is the place of landing at each level of the mine (the levels are generally about 100 feet apart), and it is at the station that the cage stops to take on or let off passengers, to take on cars loaded with ore that are going up, or to put off empty cars that are going down. The station is generally a large and roomy apartment, the walls of which are ceiled with rough boards, and the roof of which shows heavy supporting beams.
It looks not unlike the interior of some of the large, rude wayside-inns seen in places in California on mountain roads. Hats, coats, shirts, and many similar articles are seen hanging upon nails driven into the walls, and two or three large coal-oil lamps fixed in brackets, render the place light and cheerful.
Upon the floor of the station (it has a floor as good as would be seen in most houses), ranged along the walls are seen boxes of candles, coils of fuse, and many other mining stores. There is also a large cask containing ice-water, with a tin dipper hanging on a nail near at hand. The station is a sort of lounging place, where the men who happen to have nothing to do for a few minutes stop to hear the news from the surface. Here there is more chat and sociability than in any other part of the mine. The reports of the sales of stocks in the San Francisco Stock Board are brought to the office of the mine as soon as they are telegraphed to the city, and about the time the reports arrive, you will hear the men at the station anxiously inquiring the price of stocks of the first man who comes down from the surface. The man thus questioned seems well prepared to answer, and gives the prices for the day, of a dozen or more of the leading stocks.
His report doubtless quickly passes through the mine, and soon five or six hundred men away down in the silver caverns, from 1,500 to 2,000 feet beneath the surface, know as much about the price of stocks for the day as do those persons who are walking the streets of the town. Other items of news circulate in the same way; but stocks they are always interested in. Almost every miner owns shares in some mine. There are not a few men working in mines along the Comstock who are worth from $40,000 to $50,000, and some who are probably worth still larger sums. While at work they are earning $4 per day regularly, and can “speculate” just as well as if they were constantly on the streets watching the stock reports.
In some of the stations are to be seen things that one would not expect to find hundreds of feet below the surface. In the Crown Point mine, for instance, the visitor finds on one of the walls of the station at the 1,100-foot level, a handsome little cabinet of ores, minerals, coins, and curiosities of all kinds—all neatly displayed in a suitable case which is provided with glazed doors. On the walls is also to be seen a considerable collection of photographs of actors, actresses, singers, and other celebrities. There is one group that is labelled “Vasquez and His Friends.” The “friends” grouped about the notorious bandit are photographs of leading citizens of the town of Gold Hill, a church deacon among the number.
We have all heard about things being played “low down,” but it would seem that this joker, at the depth of 1,100 feet, has it down about as low as any man on the continent. The cabinet, and the gallery of celebrities are the property, the care, and the pride of the station-tender of the level named.