CHAPTER XII.
MISLED BY THE “SPIRITS.”
Comstock was a believer in spirits. Mrs.[Mrs.] L. S. Bowers—one of the early settlers at Johntown and at Gold Hill, and now known as the “Washoe Seeress,” on account of her many predictions about fires in the mines and rich bodies of ore—is a Spiritualist, and very many of the early settlers and those who were one way and another connected with the discovery of silver in Nevada, were Spiritualists. Old Virginia was also a believer in “spirits.” O’Riley was not the only person who did mining in Nevada under the direction of the spirits. Much money has been lost in that country with spirit superintendents in charge of the work.
The most ridiculous work of the kind ever done there however, under the direction of spirits was that by some parties who were led to believe that Mount Davidson—the mountain on the side of which Virginia stands and which towers nearly 2000 feet above the city—was an immense tank of oil.
This was about the time of the excitement in regard to the oil wells of Pennsylvania; while “Coal-oil Tommy” was “swinging round the circle.”
The great coal oil revelation was made through an old lady of Virginia City who was a great medium, and the great oil deposit, according to this old lady and her spirits, was near the summit of Mount Davidson.
To Joe Grigg, an engineer at the old Savage mining-works, the medium made known the spot where the great subterranean lake of oil was to be found. Joe got some tools and began a tunnel in the flinty granite, or rather gneiss, which was stratified and stood as would the shingles on a house if turned upside down. For a long time Joe dug away in his tunnel, encouraged by new revelations almost daily.
ENCOURAGED BY REVELATIONS.
