History of the big bonanza

by Dan De Quille

A car-track—a railroad track in miniature—is laid through the floor in the centre of the station, which track runs out to the main north and south drift of the mine (it must be borne in mind that the general course of the Comstock lode is north and south), and through the main drift connects—by means of turn-tables—with a great number of cross-cuts and other drifts.

As we stand in the station, cars loaded with ore are regularly arriving from the several “stopes” of the level. These are run upon the cage, the signal to hoist is given to the engineer above, and an instant after, the cage and car, with its load of ore, dart swiftly up the shaft. Perhaps at the same instant a cage comes down the adjoining compartment, bringing with it an empty ore-car. This is at once grasped by a man in waiting, known in the mine as a “carman,” and is trundled away to some distant part of the mine, to be again loaded with ore and again whisked up to the surface on the cage.

As there are three hoisting compartments, the arrivals and departures are quite frequent, and the station is really quite a business place.

CHAPTER XLII.
BELOW THE SURFACE.

In order that the reader may get a proper idea of the underground works of a mine, I shall now give a detailed description of all that is worthy of special mention. Drifts are openings or galleries from four to six feet in width, and from six to eight feet in height, opened along the course of the vein. They are generally run along one of the walls of the vein, in the “country rock,” (rock outside of the vein) as that contains no lime, and therefore stands best, and does not swell and crush the timbers. In some drifts the rock stands without being timbered. The main north and south drift, generally the first reached after leaving a station in a mine, is the highway of the level in which it is opened. It has a car-track running through its whole length, and, in some cases, as in the main drift on the 1500-foot level of the consolidated Virginia and California mines, contains a double car-track.

The cross-cuts are the same kind of openings as the drifts, but they are smaller and run across the course of the vein—run east and west. They start from the main drift, and are pushed out into the vein and ore-body, if ore-body there be. Pushed out in this way from the main drift at intervals of about 100 feet, they cut through and “prospect” the vein. The progress of the cross-cuts on a new level in a leading mine on the Comstock is always watched with great interest by all the “mining experts,” “stock sharps,” and mining men generally.

Car-tracks are laid in all of the cross-cuts, and connect with the track of the main drift by means of turn-tables. The cross-cuts are pushed through the vein to its opposite wall, in order that the whole of the ground may be thoroughly explored and its boundaries defined. In order to secure a free circulation of air on the level, they are frequently connected at various points by cross-drifts.

Winzes are small shafts sunk from one level to another in the mine. They are sunk in any place where they may happen to be required. Some are sunk vertically, but many follow the foot-wall of the vein, and thus go down at an angle of from thirty-five to forty-five degrees. All are of great use for the purpose of ventilation, and those that are sunk at an angle are very frequently properly planked up, and used as chutes through which to send ore or timbers to a lower level. In all mines will be found a great number of these chutes. Sometimes the men fall into them. When this happens they are always to be found at the bottom, on the level below, immediately after. Generally, men are not very badly hurt by sliding through an ordinary chute, yet not a few have been killed by such a fall, and many have had bones broken.

In going down a chute much depends upon the angle of the opening—the steeper, the more danger there is in making the trip. On the surface of the earth all the vertical winzes would be called shafts, and what are called drifts and cross-cuts below would be called tunnels, were they where their mouths came out on the surface. An “upraise” is where the miners begin on a lower level and dig upward toward a higher. While it is going up, it is an upraise, but when it is connected with the level above it is a winze. Should it never reach the level for which it was started it remains an upraise for all time.