第60章

A late discovery plainly evinces cinnabar.The coarser metals are in gross abundance.Lately evidences of bituminous coal have been detected.My theory has ever been that coal is a ligneous formation.I told Col.Whitman, in times past, that the neighborhood of Dayton (Nevada) betrayed no present or previous manifestations of a ligneous foundation, and that hence I had no confidence in his lauded coal mines.I repeated the same doctrine to the exultant coal discoverers of Humboldt.I talked with my friend Captain Burch on the subject.My pyrhanism vanished upon his statement that in the very region referred to he had seen petrified trees of the length of two hundred feet.Then is the fact established that huge forests once cast their grim shadows over this remote section.I am firm in the coal faith.

Have no fears of the mineral resources of Humboldt county.They are immense--incalculable.

Let me state one or two things which will help the reader to better comprehend certain items in the above.At this time, our near neighbor, Gold Hill, was the most successful silver mining locality in Nevada.It was from there that more than half the daily shipments of silver bricks came."Very rich" (and scarce) Gold Hill ore yielded from $100 to $400to the ton; but the usual yield was only $20 to $40 per ton--that is to say, each hundred pounds of ore yielded from one dollar to two dollars.

But the reader will perceive by the above extract, that in Humboldt from one fourth to nearly half the mass was silver! That is to say, every one hundred pounds of the ore had from two hundred dollars up to about three hundred and fifty in it.Some days later this same correspondent wrote:

I have spoken of the vast and almost fabulous wealth of this region--it is incredible.The intestines of our mountains are gorged with precious ore to plethora.I have said that nature has so shaped our mountains as to furnish most excellent facilities for the working of our mines.I have also told you that the country about here is pregnant with the finest mill sites in the world.But what is the mining history of Humboldt?

The Sheba mine is in the hands of energetic San Francisco capitalists.It would seem that the ore is combined with metals that render it difficult of reduction with our imperfect mountain machinery.The proprietors have combined the capital and labor hinted at in my exordium.They are toiling and probing.Their tunnel has reached the length of one hundred feet.From primal assays alone, coupled with the development of the mine and public confidence in the continuance of effort, the stock had reared itself to eight hundred dollars market value.I do not know that one ton of the ore has been converted into current metal.I do know that there are many lodes in this section that surpass the Sheba in primal assay value.Listen a moment to the calculations of the Sheba operators.They purpose transporting the ore concentrated to Europe.The conveyance from Star City (its locality) to Virginia City will cost seventy dollars per ton;from Virginia to San Francisco, forty dollars per ton; from thence to Liverpool, its destination, ten dollars per ton.Their idea is that its conglomerate metals will reimburse them their cost of original extraction, the price of transportation, and the expense of reduction, and that then a ton of the raw ore will net them twelve hundred dollars.The estimate may be extravagant.

Cut it in twain, and the product is enormous, far transcending any previous developments of our racy Territory.

A very common calculation is that many of our mines will yield five hundred dollars to the ton.Such fecundity throws the Gould & Curry, the Ophir and the Mexican, of your neighborhood, in the darkest shadow.I have given you the estimate of the value of a single developed mine.Its richness is indexed by its market valuation.The people of Humboldt county are feet crazy.As Iwrite, our towns are near deserted.They look as languid as a consumptive girl.What has become of our sinewy and athletic fellow-citizens? They are coursing through ravines and over mountain tops.Their tracks are visible in every direction.

Occasionally a horseman will dash among us.His steed betrays hard usage.He alights before his adobe dwelling, hastily exchanges courtesies with his townsmen, hurries to an assay office and from thence to the District Recorder's.In the morning, having renewed his provisional supplies, he is off again on his wild and unbeaten route.Why, the fellow numbers already his feet by the thousands.He is the horse-leech.He has the craving stomach of the shark or anaconda.He would conquer metallic worlds.

This was enough.The instant we had finished reading the above article, four of us decided to go to Humboldt.We commenced getting ready at once.And we also commenced upbraiding ourselves for not deciding sooner--for we were in terror lest all the rich mines would be found and secured before we got there, and we might have to put up with ledges that would not yield more than two or three hundred dollars a ton, maybe.An hour before, I would have felt opulent if I had owned ten feet in a Gold Hill mine whose ore produced twenty-five dollars to the ton; now I was already annoyed at the prospect of having to put up with mines the poorest of which would be a marvel in Gold Hill.