When a grand season of spouting was about to begin, a heavy rumbling would be heard below, there was a hissing sound at the bottom of the well, bubbles came up through the sand, and presently boiling water surged in. This water would rush, foaming and hissing, to within two or three feet of the surface, when it would suddenly withdraw with a great sigh. In about a minute the hissing and rumbling would again begin, and again the water would rush almost to the top of the well. When this had been three or four times repeated, the preliminary performance—notes of preparation, as it were—had ended. A rumbling much louder than anything before heard began, the ground for many rods about the spot was violently shaken, and on a sudden, with a great roar, a huge column of water darted into the air. Had this spring continued these eruptions, it would have been one of the lions of the country, but after a season of activity in the Spring of 1860, it became closed up, and has since been one of the tamest springs along the line. In 1862 a spring for a time spouted water to the height of fifty or sixty feet, through an orifice about three inches in diameter.
In June, 1873, the then proprietor of the Steamboat Springs and hotel, lost his life in one of the springs. He was engaged in the erection of a new bath-house over a large pool of boiling water, some five feet in depth, for use in giving steam baths. Timbers for the foundation had been laid across the pool, and the man walked out on one of these to arrange a cross-timber, when he slipped and fell into the scalding water. The water was so deep as to reach nearly to his neck, and so hot that eggs could be cooked in it in two minutes.
When he fell into the pool, he was either so much frightened or felt such pain that for a time he seemed in a manner paralyzed, and did hardly anything toward trying to make his escape. He was in the spring at least half a minute before he got out, which he at last did principally through his own exertions, though a man who was working near the place ran to his assistance and lent him a helping hand when he had reached the bank of the pool. When his clothes were taken off, the greater part of the skin slipped from his body. He was literally cooked alive, and lived but a short time.
At certain seasons of the year, many of the millionaires of the Comstock are to be found rambling in California, taking their ease in that land of sunshine and flowers. Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and other places on the sea-coast are much frequented by those who are weary of the eternal sameness and the light and dry atmosphere of the mountains, and who wish to find some pleasant place in which to rest and recuperate. Said an enthusiastic Comstocker, who had just returned from a visit to the “Golden State”: “California, sir! It is the land of the palm, and the banana! Look abroad on her vine-clad hills, sir! Beautiful! Observe her glorious gardens—gardens such as were not in Eden—the propped trees of her orchards; her fields of golden grain; her giant eucalyptus; and see, towering over all and overshadowing all—with one hand resting on the peaks of the Coast Range and the other on the summit of the Sierras—her hoodlum! Beautiful, sir, beautiful!”
CHAPTER LVII.
TRACES OF THE TRICKSY MINER.
Now that we have had a ramble among the lakes and the valleys of the Sierras, and are rested and recuperated by reclining under the tall pines, and breathing the cool air of that region of eternal snow, we return once more to the mines and the miners. A few chapters on the tricks of miners, and their characteristics, good and bad, may prove of interest to readers residing in regions purely agricultural.
The “honest miner” is sometimes a little trickish. Should he find that he has made a bad bargain in taking a contract, he will sometimes resort to “ways that are dark” in order to “play even.” A trick of rather an original character was some years since successfully played by some roving miners who had taken a contract to extend a certain tunnel at Virginia City, a distance of ten feet.[feet.] The tunnel already extended a distance of five or six hundred feet, and in exceedingly hard rock. The miners, four in number, contracted to drive the tunnel forward ten feet, at $30 per foot, but soon found they would make nothing at this price, owing to the extreme hardness and stubbornness of the rock.
When they took the contract an officer of the mine caused a hole to be drilled in the rock, and a wooden plug inserted just even with the face of the tunnel. The plug was shown the contractors as their starting point—the point from which they were to advance the work a distance of ten feet. All this was quite satisfactory, but when the men began work they soon found that they had undertaken a very unprofitable job—a job that would not pay their “grub.”
As soon as they became fully aware of this, the men began to consider how they might best find their way out of the trouble into which they had involved themselves. That way they were not long in hitting upon. They drew out the wooden plug which had been placed in the rock as the mark from which they were to start, then putting a blast in the hole, blew it out, completely obliterating all trace of the place where it had been drilled. They then measured back from the face of the tunnel a distance of ten feet, good strong measure, and drilling a hole in the rock drove into it the plug. This done, the four men took their ease about town for some days—about the length of time that would have been required to do the work—when they waited upon the officer from whom they had taken the contract and informed him that they were ready to receive their pay: also, putting in a great deal about the hardness of the rock and the very poor speculation the job had proved. The secretary, if it was that officer, hunted up a tape-line and went out to the tunnel with one of the men to measure the work.
Mr. Secretary found the peg all right. Placing the end of his line upon it, he measured back to the face of the tunnel and found the distance to be ten feet, good and strong. The honest sons of toil received their $300, immediately slung their blankets across their shoulders and “lit out” in search of a new camp and another profitable contract.