This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1806 Excerpt: ...Lode, the richest silver-vein in the world. It is honeycombed with hundreds of subterranean tunnels and chambers, from twenty to six hundred feet below the surface. The Gould & Curry mine alone has thirty-five chambers, one above another, with endless drifts and passages. Some of the huge timbers which keep the roofs ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1806 Excerpt: ...Lode, the richest silver-vein in the world. It is honeycombed with hundreds of subterranean tunnels and chambers, from twenty to six hundred feet below the surface. The Gould & Curry mine alone has thirty-five chambers, one above another, with endless drifts and passages. Some of the huge timbers which keep the roofs from falling in, are so crushed and broken by the weight of rock, as to shake the strongest unaccustomed nerves. This mine alone, but four hundred yards in length, and seldom one hundred feet in width, is believed to contain more lumber than the "whole city of Virginia above ground. A journey through it is very fatiguing. One climbs, hour after hour, up and down dizzy ladders and long, hollow passages, where the blows of the pick ring and echo, while flaring candles throw lurid light over perspiring miners and carmen. Only the lower grades of ore are reduced here. All yielding more than one thousand dollars per ton is sent in wagons over the Sierras one hundred miles to the railroad, and thence shipped, via San Francisco, to Swansea, in Wales. Rich ore, even from Austin, is hauled seven hundred miles, and sent abroad for crushing. On the completion of the Pacific Railway, this branch of carryingtrade alone will become immense, unless we acquire the same subtlety to extract all the metal which Welsh and German mills have attained. The average Nevada ore yields two dollars of silver to one of gold. I have spoken only of those regions in which mining is carried on extensively. Other sections, where development is just beginning, are equally rich in valuable ores. The Humboldt region, north of Virginia, a large tract south of Austin, and the Pah-Ranagat district, near the Colorado River, are said to contain larger and more remunerative min...
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