We the undersigned jurors, summoned by Coroner Homles of Storey County to make due inquiry into the cause of the deaths of William Kellogg, Michael Riley, John Brown, Michael Cain, and W. D. Shifiett, on being duly sworn do find that the true names and ages of deceased were as follows: Michael Cain, a native of Ireland, aged 35 years; W. D. Shifiett, a native of Virginia, aged 47 years; W. P. Kellogg, a native of New York, aged 42 years; Michael Riley, a native of Ireland, aged 37 years, and John Brown, a native of Pennsylvania, aged 37 years: and we do find that they came to their deaths at Waller Defeat shaft of the Justice mine in Gold Hill, Storey County, Nevada, on Saturday October 3, 1874, from gunshot wounds inflicted by the hands of parties to us unknown.
Four men were arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the shooting, but these were finally discharged by the grand jury, and so ended the last mining battle on the Comstock lode.
The men who were in the Waller’s Defeat building, and handled the guns, were not regular miners such as work in the lower levels, but belonged to a class that generally toil on the surface at about ten dollars per day, taking “fighting interests” in mines that are in dispute, or hiring out keep possession of property that has more than one claimant. In former times they were a class of laborers that were in brisk demand.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE WEALTH OF THE WORLD.
Silver was known to the ancients as far back in the dim and distant ages of the past as any record extends. It was undoubtedly one of the first metals mined by mankind. In writings, both sacred and profane, mention is made of silver in the earliest ages of the world.
Gold being a metal that is found native, and silver being very frequently found in the native state, these were doubtless among the first metals with which the primitive races of mankind became acquainted. Native silver being found mingled with various ores of silver, it was probably not long after the metal became known and valued that men conceived the idea of smelting these ores and thus obtaining a larger supply of the metal than was yielded in the native form. In the Bible frequent mention is made of silver, from the very beginning. Silver was more highly prized than gold by all the primitive peoples of the earth. Even the sacred writers speak of it with gusto. To this day we find that savages and semi-civilized nations prefer silver to gold. It is the case with the negro tribes of Africa, the Indians of the American Continent, and with the nations of China and Japan. The human animal must be educated up to a just appreciation of gold, but silver by its brilliant white lustre and flash in the light of the sun recommends itself to him as soon as its sheen strikes his eye.
All metals were no doubt first extracted from their ores by smelting, yet it appears that the process of extracting silver from its ores, and gold from its matrix, by means of quicksilver was not unknown to the ancients. Pliny and Vitruvius speak of quicksilver being used for this purpose. In ancient times, if Pliny is to be believed, the art of mining was well understood, as he speaks of silver-mines being worked to the depth of a mile and a half. If this be true, our modern mines have little to boast of. To have done such mining the ancients must have possessed hoisting and pumping machinery, or their equivalents, with appliances for ventilation equal to if not surpassing any known to the mining engineers of the present age. There is every evidence that silver-mines were worked in many countries in the Old World at a very early day, and not a few are still being worked, in regard to the date of the discovery and opening of which there is no record. All that is known is that they seem to have always been worked.
Fuller, in his treatise on silver-mines, says:
“Wherever in any part of the world silver-mines have been worked they are worked now, unless for some unexplainable cause, such as the lack of machinery, the existence of war, the invasion of Indians, etc. We know of no silver-mining regions in the world that have given out. Mexican mines, worked by the Aztecs before the conquest, are still worked as profitably as ever; the old Spanish mines opened long before Hannibal’s time, are still worked with enormous profits; the South American mines have constantly yielded their wealth for more than three hundred years, and are as productive as ever; mines in Hungary, that were worked by the Romans before the Saviour’s time, still yield abundance of ore; the silver-mines of Freiburg, opened in the eleventh century and worked continually ever since, yield their steady increase. So in Norway, Sweden, and Russia, and indeed, wherever silver-mines have been opened, we believe without exception, they continue to be worked at the present day, and generally are more productive than at any time in their past history. For permanent and rich returns, silver-mining has no parallel in any other business.”[business.”]