CHAPTER XVII.

EARLY COMSTOCK MINING OPERATIONS.

In the mines rapid advances were soon made, both in the development of the various claims and in the machinery and appliances used. Whereas, the first shafts sunk were mere round holes, precisely similar in every respect to an ordinary well, now began to be seen well-timbered square shafts of two or more compartments; the old hand-windlasses gave place to horse-whims and to steam hoisting machinery, and large and substantially constructed tunnels took the place of the “coyote holes” which were at first run into the hills.

The first steam hoisting and pumping machinery seen on the Comstock lead was put in at the Ophir mine, in 1860. The machinery was driven by a fifteen-horse-power donkey-engine. The mine was at that time being worked through an incline (an inclined shaft) which followed the dip of the vein. A track was laid down in this incline and a car was lowered and hoisted through it by steam-power. The pump then used had a pipe but four inches in diameter, and it was hard work to keep the mine drained, even at the slight depth then attained. At this time the dip of the vein was to the west, and all supposed that that was the true dip of the Comstock lode: on this account locations lying to the west of the Comstock were considered to be much more valuable, and were much more sought for than those lying to the east. The westward dip of the great lode would carry it directly into and under Mount Davidson, on the eastern slope of which, and 1500 feet below its summit, the croppings of the vein made their appearance; all, therefore, were desirous of obtaining mining ground on the side of Mount Davidson and the mountains flanking it north and south. But when the depth of 300 feet had been attained in the Ophir mine, the lead began to straighten up and soon assumed its true dip to the east, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, a dip it has maintained ever since, and not only at that particular point, but throughout its entire length of nearly three miles.

When the true dip of the vein had been ascertained, it was then seen that its apparent dip to the west was owing to the pressure of the superincumbent rock and earth, on the steep side of the mountain, having pressed down the upper part and bent it over to the east. When those who had located claims on the side of Mount Davidson, and adjacent mountains, saw the Comstock lead thus turning tail and leaving them, they stood aghast. Those who had located to the eastward and had mourned because they could do no better, were now happy men—the Comstock was making toward them.

In December, 1860, the Ophir folks had attained a depth of but 180 feet in their mine. They were working down in the heart of the bonanza, or rich ore-body, and at that depth the breadth of ore was forty-five feet. No such great width of ore had ever before been seen, and the miners were at their wits’ end to know how to work it and keep up the superincumbent ground—how to support such a great width of ground with timbers, was the question. The ordinary plan of using posts and caps would not do, as posts of sufficient length could not be obtained, and, even though they could be had, would be inadequate to the support of the great weight and pressure that would be brought to bear upon them. In this emergency the company sent to California for Mr. Philip Deidesheimer, a gentleman who had had much practical experience both in the mines of Germany and those of the Pacific coast.

After Mr. Deidesheimer arrived and was placed in charge of the mine as superintendent, he worked upon the problem before him for three weeks before he arrived at a satisfactory solution. He then hit upon the plan of timbering in “square sets” which is still in use in all the mines on the Comstock, and without which they could not be worked. The plan was to frame timbers and put them together in the shape of cribs, four by five or six feet in size, piling these cribs one upon another—but all neatly framed together—to any desired height. Thus was the ground supported and braced up in all directions. Where the vein was of great width, a certain number of these cribs could be filled in with waste rock, forming pillars of stone reaching up to the wall of rock to be supported—up to the roof of the mine.

Previous to the invention by Mr. Deidesheimer of the system of timbering by means of “square sets,” the only supports used in the mines were round logs cut on the surrounding hills. These logs were from sixteen to thirty-five feet in length. When of the latter length they were manufactured, that is, were made of two logs spliced and held together by means of iron bolts and bands. Owing to the stunted character of the pines and cedars found in the neighborhood it was almost impossible to procure a log more than twenty feet in length. After setting up two of these long logs, a log about eighteen feet long was placed upon them as a cap. These posts and caps were placed as close together as they could be made to stand, but then would not hold up the ground when it began to slack and swell from exposure to the air.

Besides this difficulty there was no safe way of working either above or below these sets, in the vein. To take out ore, either under or over the timbers, loosened them and caused a disastrous cave. Many accidents happened and many men lost their lives while this method of timbering was practiced, but no lives have ever been lost in timbering by the square-set or Deidesheimer plan. In the mines at Gold Hill was where the timbers thirty-five feet in length were used, and there was where the greatest number of accidents happened; but in the Ophir mine, timbers sixteen feet long had been used.

When the miners of Gold Hill heard of the new mode of timbering practiced in the Ophir mine, they went up to Virginia to see it, and found it was just what was required. Mr. Deidesheimer sent some of his carpenters down to Gold Hill to show the workmen there how to frame the new timbers, and how to set them up. In 1861 this style of timbering was adopted along the whole line of the Comstock and has been in use ever since. The Ophir was probably the first mine in any part of the world where such a system of timbering became a necessity, as no ore-body of such great width had ever before been found. Nothing seen in the Comstock mines more surprises and pleases the mining men of Europe than this mode of timbering. It is a thing none of them has ever before seen or thought of, and its utility is so strikingly obvious that they can hardly find words in which to adequately express their great admiration of it.

In 1861, Mr. Deidesheimer prevailed upon the Ophir Company to put up a forty-five horse-power engine, an eight-inch pump and improved hoisting machinery for the incline of the mine. The company thought this a fearfully extravagant move, and were almost frightened out of their wits when this “tremendous” machinery was first mentioned. Now there is hardly anything in the shape of a mine anywhere along the Comstock range on which there is not in operation more powerful and costly machinery.

At the depth of 180 feet, at what was called the third gallery, the width of the ore was, as I have said, 45 feet; at the fourth gallery it became 66 feet in width, and the miners were delighted to find that the new timbers supported the ground in the most perfect manner. At this time the ore extracted from this first bonanza was assorted as it was extracted. That which would average $1,000 per ton was sacked up and shipped to England for reduction, while the remainder was piled up as second and third-class ore, to await the erection of proper mills for working it at home. At the Mexican and other mines in the neighborhood, about the same disposition was at this time being made of the ores taken out, while at Gold Hill they had not yet attained a sufficient depth to reach the silver, and were working their ores for gold alone; though much silver was obtained with the gold.

[Illustration: TIMBERING OF A MINE.]

The first mill started up for the reduction of silver ores was that known as the “Pioneer,” located at the Devil’s Gate, just where the warlike “Silverites” built their fort at the time of the Indian troubles. Other mills started up within a few days after this first one went into operation and soon there were many at work in all directions. The early millmen knew but little about working silver ores, and all manner of experiments were tried with a view to the thorough amalgamation of the silver contained in the rock that was crushed. This, in the opinion of most superintendents of mills, was to be accomplished by the use of chemicals. A more promiscuous collection of strange drugs and vegetable decoctions never before was used for any purpose. The amalgamating pans in the mills surpassed the caldron of Macbeth’s witches in the variety and villainousness of their contents. Not content with blue-stone (sulphate of copper), salt, and one or two other simple articles of known efficacy, they poured into their pans all manner of acids; dumped in potash, borax, saltpetre, alum, and all else that could be found at the drug-stores, then went to the hills and started in on the vegetable kingdom. They peeled bark off the cedar-trees, boiled it down till they had obtained a strong tea, and then poured it into the pans where it would have an opportunity of attacking the silver stubbornly remaining in the rocky parts of the ore. The native sage-brush, which everywhere covered the hills, being the bitterest, most unsavory, and nauseating shrub to be found in any part of the world, it was not long before a genius in charge of a mill conceived the idea of making a tea of this and putting it into his pans. Soon, the wonders performed by the “sage-brush process,” as it was called, were being heralded through the land. The superintendent of every mill had his secret process of working the silver ore. Often, when it was supposed that one of the superintendents had made a grand discovery, the workmen of the mill were bribed to make known the secret. To guard as much as possible against this, the superintendent generally had a private room in which he made his vile compounds. “Process-peddlers,” with little vials of chemicals in their vest pockets, went from mill to mill to show what they could do and would do, provided they received from $5,000 to $20,000 for their secret. The object with many inventors of “processes” appeared to be to physic the silver out of the rock, or at least to make it so sick that it would be obliged to loose its hold upon its matrix and come out and be caught by the quicksilver lying in wait for it in the bottom of the pans. Had it been in the dark ages that these experiments were in progress, the efficacy of the blood of human victims would doubtless have been tried; they would occasionally have hoisted an honest miner up from the subterranean depths and cut his throat over a pan. The “process-peddlers” finally became a worse nuisance than ever lightning-rod men have been—the limited space of country to which they were confined being considered—and the millmen became disgusted with all the patent processes—-their own as well as those of others—and soon little, save salt and blue-stone, was used in the pans. It was found that thorough grinding and careful working of the ore was what was required.

During the first few years that they were experimenting on the Comstock ores, in the many new and inefficient mills, millions of dollars in silver and gold were lost in the tailings; that is, in the pulverized ore that ran away from the mills after it had been operated upon in the pans, settlers, and other apparatus for the saving and amalgamation of silver by the wet-process. These tailings flowed from the mills into the cañons and were swept down into the Carson River, thence down to the “sink” or lake into which the river empties. These millions still lie in the bed of the Carson River and in the bottom of the sink. Had any man thought of saving these tailings in the early days of milling, by putting a flume into Gold Cañon and running them to some flat or valley where they could have been dumped in a great heap, all that is now lost would have been saved, and the originator of the enterprise would have made half a dozen big fortunes. The Mexicans knew the value of these tailings and worked them, but they always do things on such a small scale that what they obtained was a mere trifle, and nobody thought of collecting the whole of the tailings running to waste in the cañons and saving them in bulk; besides, the price of milling at that time was so high—about $50 per ton—that the general impression was that it would not pay to save the whole mass of tailings.

Two Mexicans were at work all one summer in Gold Cañon, at Silver City, at concentrating and working the tailings that were flowing down the stream, a mere rill of muddy water. They caught the tailings in a small reservoir, from which they took them and spread them on a table that stood at an inclination of about thirty degrees. They then threw water over the tailings with a small dipper, beginning at the top of the table and gradually working downward until they reached the bottom, at which point, where the end of the table rested on the ground, would be found some pounds of sulphuret of silver, with some particles of amalgam and quicksilver that had escaped from the mills. This they placed upon a platform of boards, called a “_patio_,” and when several hundred pounds had been saved, sulphate of copper, salts, and quicksilver, in proper proportions, were added to the mass of sulphuret and tailings, and the whole was mixed up as builders mix mortar. When thoroughly mixed, the whole mass was drawn together into a round heap, and allowed to stand and sweat and digest in that shape for a certain number of hours. It was then spread out and worked over, giving it the benefit of the air for a time, when it was again heaped up to digest. This being several times repeated, the operation was complete, and the silver, amalgamated with quicksilver, was washed out in a pan or rocker. This is the famous Mexican ‘_patio_’ process on a small scale. At the mines in Mexico they have large, circular _patios_, paved with stone or tamped with tough clay, in which horses are driven about to tread and knead the pulverized and moistened ore. It is, however, the same thing in effect as the process described above. The two Mexicans mentioned worked all summer, and the supposition was that they were about “making grub,” but after they left, the butcher of whom they obtained their meat stated that they took away with them about $3,000 each; that they were in the habit of bringing their bullion to his shop every Saturday night to weigh it, therefore he knew what they had been doing all the time, but had promised to keep their secret, as they were afraid of being driven away before winter if it were known that they were making money.

After freshets in the cañon the miners used to go out and collect amalgam by digging it out of the crevices in the rocks with knives, or scooping it out with spoons. Having retorted this, they would take it to a blacksmith’s forge, and make rings out of it by melting it and pouring it into a mould cut in an adobe or piece of brick. In this way they made rings that would weigh an ounce or more, and of nights, when going into town to have a good time with the “boys,” would slip three or four of these rings upon the fingers of their right hands, for use in lieu of brass knuckles.

Notwithstanding all these evidences of the richness of tailings it was long before men began to work them in any regular or scientific manner. At length, however, shallow flumes were put up on the cañons in which the tailings were concentrated and the sulphurets caught on strips of coarse blanketing placed in the bottom of the sluices, and, finally, huge reservoirs were constructed in which the whole of the tailings were caught and saved in bulk, it being found that they could be worked at an expense not exceeding four or five dollars per ton. With the tailings there is always caught more or less amalgam and quicksilver. It appears to be impossible to save all the gold and silver contained in ore by any one process; indeed, after it has been worked over several times, and in several different ways, the tailings that finally escape still contain gold, silver, and quicksilver, but a much larger per cent is at present saved than formerly.

[Illustration]