"Are They
Exhausted?" "Oh, No," He Replied, "They Are Not Exhausted; On The
Contrary, They Have Never Been Worked At
All, for unfortunately, just
as we were about ready to open them, the Cherry Creek mines were
discovered across the
Valley in the Egan range, and everybody rushed
off there, taking what they could with them - houses machinery, and
all. But we are hoping that somebody with money and speculation will
come and revive us yet."
The dead mining excitements of Nevada were far more intense and
destructive in their action than those of California, because the
prizes at stake were greater, while more skill was required to gain
them. The long trains of gold-seekers making their way to California
had ample time and means to recover from their first attacks of mining
fever while crawling laboriously across the plains, and on their
arrival on any portion of the Sierra gold belt, they at once began to
make money. No matter in what gulch or canyon they worked, some
measure of success was sure, however unskillful they might be. And
though while making ten dollars a day they might be agitated by hopes
of making twenty, or of striking their picks against hundred- or
thousand-dollar nuggets, men of ordinary nerve could still work on
with comparative steadiness, and remain rational.
But in the case of the Nevada miner, he too often spent himself in
years of weary search without gaining a dollar, traveling hundreds of
miles from mountain to mountain, burdened with wasting hopes of
discovering some hidden vein worth millions, enduring hardships of the
most destructive kind, driving innumerable tunnels into the hillsides,
while his assayed specimens again and again proved worthless. Perhaps
one in a hundred of these brave prospectors would "strike it rich,"
while ninety-nine died alone in the mountains or sank out of sight in
the corners of saloons, in a haze of whiskey and tobacco smoke.
The healthful ministry of wealth is blessed; and surely it is a fine
thing that so many are eager to find the gold and silver that lie hid
in the veins of the mountains. But in the search the seekers too
often become insane, and strike about blindly in the dark like raving
madmen. Seven hundred and fifty tons of ore from the original
Eberhardt mine on Treasure Hill yielded a million and a half dollars,
the whole of this immense sum having been obtained within two hundred
and fifty feet of the surface, the greater portion within one hundred
and forty feet. Other ore masses were scarcely less marvelously rich,
giving rise to one of the most violent excitements that ever occurred
in the history of mining. All kinds of people - shoemakers, tailors,
farmers, etc., as well as miners - left their own right work and fell
in a perfect storm of energy upon the White Pine Hills, covering the
ground like grasshoppers, and seeming determined by the very violence
of their efforts to turn every stone to silver.
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