Notwithstanding their trouble with the sulphuret of silver, they were taking out gold at the rate of a thousand dollars or more per day; their dust selling at about $11 per ounce. In some spots they obtained from $50 to $150 in a single pan of dirt.
About this time some ladies from Genoa visited the mine, attracted by the reports which had reached their town of its great richness. Comstock was delighted, showed them everything and very gallantly offered each lady a pan of dirt, a piece of politeness customary in California in the early days when ladies visited a mine. “Old Pancake” was anxious that each of the ladies should get something worth carrying home, therefore by means of sly nods and winks gave one of the workmen to understand that he was to fill the pans from the richest spot.
One of the ladies was young and very pretty. Although the other ladies had each obtained from $150 to $200 in her pan, Comstock was determined that something still handsomer should be done for this one. Therefore, when her pan of dirt was being handed up out of the cut (i. e. the open drift run into the lead), he stepped forward to receive it, and as he did so, slyly slipped into it a large handful of gold which he had taken out of his private purse. The result was a pan that went over $300, and “Old Pancake”[Pancake”] was happy all the rest of the day.
Although Comstock had a passion for possessing rich mines, and appeared to have a great greediness for gold, yet no sooner was it in his possession[possession] than he was ready to give it to the first man, woman, or child that asked for it, or to recklessly squander it in all directions. Anything that he saw and took a fancy to he bought, no matter what the price might be, so long as he had the money. The article to which he had taken a momentary fancy, once purchased, he presented it to the first person that appeared to admire it, whether that person was white, red, or black.
As work progressed, and the opening made in the hillside penetrated further into the lead, the silver sulphuret, which had at first been found in a decomposed condition, began to grow more firm. In order to work it in the rockers it was necessary to pulverise much of it by beating it with the poll of a pick or sledge-hammer. Even then there were many lumps which it was necessary to pound in a mortar, and soon much of the ore began to assume the form of a tolerably firm rock, when it became necessary to work it in arastras—an old Mexican contrivance for grinding up gold and silver-bearing quartz.
AN ARASTRA.
NAMING VIRGINIA CITY.
As soon as the grand strike had been made at the Ophir mine by O’Riley and McLaughlin, there was a great rush to that neighborhood; not only of miners from Johntown, Gold Hill, and Dayton (then known as Chinatown), but also from the agricultural sections of the country—from Washoe Valley, Tracker Meadow and from Carson and Eagle Valleys.