Notwithstanding the crookedness of the road, trains run over it at a high rate of speed, as the road is kept in perfect order and steel rails are used on the mountains where short curves most abound. So crooked is the road that in places, in going down the mountain with a long train, the locomotive seems to be coming back directly toward the rear car, when directly it gracefully sheers off and heads down the mountain again, the train being thrown into the form of the letter S, reminding one of what the Bible says of the “way of a serpent on a rock.”
From Reno—over the whole length of the road—come vast amounts of machinery, stores, and supplies of all kinds for the mines and mills, and goods and merchandise for all of the towns along the river and in the mines. Along the road are a great number of side tracks and switches leading to mills and mining works. Some of these are of considerable length and, as more are constantly being constructed, the indications are that the added length of these will possibly exceed that of the main road.
Branch roads, all of a permanent and substantial character, are being built to the shafts of the leading mines, to be used in taking in machinery, wood, timber, lumber, and other supplies, and for sending ore out to the mills. Many of these side-tracks are laid in places where it would be almost impossible to construct an ordinary wagon-road, and to see trains darting out of tunnels, and rushing along the face of almost perpendicular hills, disappearing behind a great tower of rock one moment, and the next coming in sight again and swinging round a second rugged tower, looks somewhat too “lively.” All the wonderful engineering required in the construction of these side-tracks, as well as in the main road, was done by Mr. I. E. James, an old resident of the country—the man who has done nearly all of the intricate surveying that has been required in the leading mines on the Comstock lode. Although one of the most modest and unassuming men on the Pacific Coast, with him nothing in the way of engineering appears to be impossible.
After having seen the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, all will say that there is no region so rugged but that a track for the “iron horse” may be found over it and through it in all directions. When engineers, conductors, and other railroad men from the Atlantic States, first begin running on the Virginia and Truckee road they promise themselves that they will make a very short stay, but in a few months they begin to take pride in their ability to run on such a road; they like the excitement of it and consider that those who only run on roads that are straight and level know but little about the beauties of the business—about railroading as a fine art. Although these men run trains down the mountains from Virginia City to Carson River swinging seventeen times round the circle and going at a fearful rate of speed, yet serious accidents very seldom occur. The trains are timed by telegraph and the stations are so numerous that the conductors are always well informed in regard to the trains on the road, and their position.
Surveys have been made for a narrow-gauge railroad from Virginia City to Reno, and thence to the northward, along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This road will run northward from Virginia—starting out in an opposite direction from that taken by the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, and will pass over some very rough country, but will reach Reno by a shorter route than the other road named. The object in building this narrow-gauge road is the tapping of the vast forests of pine lying along the eastern slope of the Sierras.
CHAPTER XXXII.
AN ENGINEERING TRIUMPH.
Another work that has been of great benefit to the towns along the Comstock, and to all the mining and milling companies in and about the towns, and along the cañons below, was the bringing of an ample supply of pure water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
In the early days, when the first mining was done at Virginia City and Gold Hill, natural springs furnished a supply of water for the use of the few persons then living in the two camps. For a time after the discovery of silver, these springs, and a few wells that were dug by the settlers, sufficed for all uses, but as the towns grew in population, an increased supply of water was demanded. A water company was formed and the water flowing from several tunnels that had been run into the mountains west of Virginia City for prospecting purposes, was collected in large wooden tanks, and distributed about the two towns by means of pipes. At length the tunnels from which this supply was obtained began to run dry, and a water famine was threatened. It then became necessary to set men to work at extending the tunnels further into the hills to cut across new strata of rock. This increased the supply for a time, but, at length, the whole top of the hill into which the tunnels extended appeared to be completely drained.
Early in the spring, when the snow was melting, they afforded a considerable supply; but in the summer, when water was most needed, the tunnels furnished but feeble streams and these were much impregnated with minerals, one of the least feared of which was arsenic. The ladies rather liked arsenic, as it improved their complexion; made them fair and rosy-cheeked—almost young again, some of them. The miners did not object to arsenic; as, while it did not injure their complexion, it strengthened their lungs—made them strong-winded, and able to scale mountains. (Every man of them hungered to hunt the wild chamois.) But there were other minerals held in solution in the water—those that caused diarrhœa for instance—that were not so well thought of.