SURROUNDINGS.
CHAPTER LXIV.
THE RICHEST SPOT IN THE WORLD.
As by this time the general reader will have heard as much as he will care to know about excitements in stocks, crashes, the tricks of the manipulators, and the troubles of the manipulated, I shall now turn to the Big Bonanza itself.
A description of a trip down a deep shaft being given elsewhere, I shall with the reader’s permission, drop at once to the bottom of the shaft of the Consolidated Virginia mine, landing among the miners at a station 1,500 feet below the surface of the earth, on what is known as the “1500-foot level.”
Although many bodies of ore that have yielded millions of dollars have been found on the great lode, here has at last been discovered what appears to be the heart of the Comstock. At the point where the big bonanza was found the fissure in which is formed the Comstock lode is of unusual width. Measuring, from the country-rock (syenite) on the west to the east country rock (propylite), the distance is from one thousand to one thousand two hundred feet. This space between the two country-rocks represents the width of the fissure, and is filled with a “vein-matter” or gangue composed of quartz, clay, and porphyry. In this gangue has been formed the ore. As the vein-matter or gangue appears to be the “matter” of the ore, in order to produce so great a deposit as is seen in the Consolidated Virginia and California mines, an immense mass of it was required. In a place where the fissure is narrow and the vein-matter is pinched, no great breadth of ore may be looked for—it will be in proportion to the vein-matter.
As we have seen, the Consolidated Virginia folks reached the crest of the subterranean silver-mountain in 1873, at the depth of 1,167 feet, but it was not until in the fall of 1874 that they began to open out on the 1500-foot level, running cross-cuts into the mass of ore that produced an unprecedented sensation among the mining men of both Europe and America.
Leaving the station into which we dropped with the cage from the hoisting-works, standing 1500 feet above, we advance a few steps eastward along a broad gallery, the sides and roof of which are composed of a mass of heavy timbers and thick planks, when we reach the main north-and-south drift, which is the great highway of the mine. It is a grand gallery, nine feet in width by about the same in height, and over one thousand feet in length. It extends through the whole length of the California (600 feet) to the Ophir mine. From the Ophir to the north line of the Consolidated Virginia it was made of double height in order to carry a great volume of air; as the air, fresh and pure from the surface, is drawn down the Ophir shaft and passing through that mine enters the great main drift which it follows through the California and the Consolidated Virginia to the shaft of the mine last named, where it ascends and again mingles with the atmosphere of the upper-world. In passing from shaft to shaft, however, this air has been turned from its direct course in various places (by means of doors closing drifts and cross-cuts) and carried to where it has refreshed and given life to many miners digging down the ore in the breasts of the several heated stopes.
Crossing this thoroughfare of the 1500-foot level and advancing a few steps further to the eastward, we reach the vast deposit of ore known as the “Big Bonanza.” Cross-cuts pass through the ore, east and west, and cross-drifts from north to south, cutting it into blocks from fifty to one hundred feet square, as the streets run through and divide a town into blocks. It is indeed a sort of subterranean town, and is more populous than many towns on the surface, as it numbers from 800 to 1,000 souls, and nearly all are voters.
Passing to the south end of the bonanza, to the place where it was first crossed by a drift, we find it to be one hundred and forty-eight feet in width—all a solid mass of ore of the richest description. Here a large stope is opened, and we see the miners at work in the vein, blasting and digging down the ore. They are working upward from the floor of the level, and as they progress they build up square sets of supporting timbers in the cavities or chambers cut out in extracting the ore from the bonanza. Even here, well toward its south end—as far as explored—the ore-body is by no means small, being over nine and one half rods in width! This is not a mixture of ore and worthless rock, but is a solid mass of rich silver-ore which is sent to the mills just as it is dug or blasted down—ore that will pay from $100 to $300 per ton. As thirteen cubic feet make a ton of ore, we have here for every block of ore three feet square from $200 to $600 in pure silver and gold.
We may take our stand here, where the miners are digging out the ore, and for a distance of seventy-five feet on each side of us all is ore, while we may gaze upward to nearly that height to where the twinkling light of candles shows us miners delving up into the same great mass of wealth. On all sides of the pyramidal scaffold of timbers to its very apex, where the candles twinkle like stars in the heavens, we see the miners cutting their way into the precious ore—battering it with sledge-hammers and cutting it to pieces with their picks as though it were but common sandstone. Silver-ore is not—as many may suppose—a bright and glittering mass. In color the ore runs from a blueish-grey to a deep black. The sulphuret ore (silver glance) is quite black and has but a slight metallic lustre, while what is called chloride ore is a kind of steel-grey, with, in places, a pale green tinge—the green showing the presence of chloride of silver. Throughout the mass of the ore in very many places, however, the walls of the silver-caverns glitter as though studded with diamonds. But it is not silver that glitters. It is the iron and copper pyrites that are everywhere mingled with the ore, and which, in many places, are found in the form of regular and beautiful crystals that send out from their facets flashes of light that almost rival the fire and splendor of precious stones. There are also often found in the mass of the ore great nests of transparent and beautiful quartz crystals that are almost as brilliant as diamonds. Many of these crystals are three or four inches in length. Some of the nests of crystals are of a light blue color, and then they may be classed among the precious stones, as they are amethysts. Some of these are almost as handsome as the precious amethyst. The miners always like to find these nests of crystals, as they indicate life and strength in the vein.