VOL. XLIX.] ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS. [No. 6. 
 
 APPLETONS' 
 POPULAR SCIENCE 
 
 _ 
 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 ft 
 
 OCTOBER, 1896. 
 
 EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS. 
 
 CONTENTS. P AGB 
 
 I. The Metric System. By Prof. T. C. MENDENHALL ............... 721 
 
 *W II. Nevada Silver. By CHABLES HOWABD SHINN (Illustrated.) ...... 734 
 
 III. A Measure of Mental Capacity. By Dr. EMIL KRAEPELIN ..... . . 756 
 
 IV. Some Beginnings in Science. By Prof. COLLIER COBB. (Illus.) . . . 763 
 V. The Vivisection Question. By Prof. C. F. HODGE. (Concluded.) . . 771 
 
 VI. Acetylene, the New Illuminant. By V. J. YOUMANS ............. 786 
 
 VH. The Significance of Leaves. By F. SCHUTLER MATHEWS. (Illus.) . 793 
 
 VIII. The Educative Value of Children's Questioning. By H. L. CLAPP. . 799 
 
 IX. The Self and its Derangements. By Prof. W. ROMAINE NEWBOLD. 810 
 
 X. Exaggeration as an ^Esthetic Factor. By M. F. REGNATJLT ....... 821 
 
 XL Enrico Ferri on Homicide. By HELEN ZIMMERN. (Second Paper.). 828 
 
 XII. Sketch of Robert Empie Rogers. (With Portrait.) .............. 837 
 
 XIII. Correspondence : Woman's Claims to the Ballot A Correction .......... 842 
 
 XIV. Editor's Table : Another Bishop on Science Teaching in Elementary Schools. 
 
 The Fourth Buffalo Meeting of the American Association ........... 843 
 
 XV. Scientific Literature ........................................... 846 
 
 XVI. Fragments of Science ......................................... 855 
 
 XVII. Index to Volume XLIX ....................................... 865 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 72 FIFTH AVENUE. 
 SINGLE NUMBER, 50 CENTS. YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 Entered at the Post Office at New York, and admitted for transmission through the mails at second-class rates. 
 
Just as Good a. 
 
 i 
 
 Scott's Emulsior 
 
 You hear it in nin< 
 
 \ 
 
 out of ten drug stores 
 It is the reluctan 
 testimony of 40,00( 
 druggists that Scott' 
 Emulsion is the stan 
 dard of the world: ; 
 
 t 
 i 
 
 And isn't the kind all others try to range up to, the kind B 
 you to buy? Two sizes, 50 cts. and $1.00. 
 
THE METRIC SYSTEM. 733 
 
 commercial arithmetic none is comparable to that of expressii 
 shmings, pence, and farthings as decimals of a pound. The 
 are fl^reby put almost upon as good a footing as if the country 
 possessed the advantage of a real decimal coinage." He then 
 proceed^ to develop rules by means of which any sum o 
 money nmy be expressed in pounds and decimals exacly as our 
 money is always expressed in dollars and decimals, s^that any re- 
 quired operation may be easily performed by the common rules of 
 arithmetic, y^fter this the decimals of a poun(L<must be reduced 
 back again to ^millings, pence, and farthings. To^show how the Eng- 
 lish system leims itself to easy calculation, ^Lquote his rule, which 
 is only approximately correct, for makinafthe latter reduction : 
 " A pair of shillings for every unit, infthe first place ; an odd 
 shitting for fifty (Vf there be fifty), in tJy$ second and third places ; 
 and a farthing fo\ every thousandth .left, after abating one if 
 the number of thousandths left ex/eed twenty -four" Can any- 
 thing be more charn^ngly simpjfj and easily carried in one's 
 head than this ? 
 
 I must be content t& stop iftithout reference to a few other 
 points raised by Mr. SpSnce/ for they are essentially all of a 
 kind. There is a sentimenwpnderlying much of his argument, to 
 which I must briefly referAowever, because it has shown itself 
 in other recent discussioiw oiVthis subject. I refer to an anxiety 
 lest the "poor man" be^m sofeie way injured by the proposed 
 reform. It has come JQ be theL-fashion in all political or eco- 
 nomical controversies/to exhibilKa consuming interest in the 
 poor man's welfare ; /ndeed, one marvels that there should con- 
 tinue to be any po/r, so universal aW} so intense appears to be 
 this anxiety to smeld them from alrVharm. Fortunately, the 
 so-called " poor n/an " is not so blind to i&s own interests as some 
 would have it appear, and he is quite ali^e to the fact that the 
 proposed metr/iogical reform is fully as important to him as to 
 anybody. 
 
 Finally, \ ought to be understood that theV advocates of the 
 metric system do not assume that it can come i^to use immedi- 
 ately or without considerable hardship. It took nearly a century 
 to fairly establish our decimal money system, whichVo one would 
 now thiak of giving up. During all this time olck units and 
 denomiimtions continued to be used in a lessening ctagree, al- 
 though*/not authorized by law. Something of the kiM must 
 occur jp the transfer from our illogical, brain-destroying^ime- 
 consujffitag system of weights and measures for the more pe^ect 
 systeip for which it is sure to make way. Furthermore, tl 
 hearlfcy welcome and desire the presentation of all argumenl 
 agai|(f or objections to the metric system, believing that the 
 more widely it is known and discussed the more supporters it 
 
734 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 will have. They expect to meet occasionally such "intelligent 
 prejudice " as is exhibited by Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose contri- 
 bution to the discussion of the subject is sure to be considered in 
 the years to come as altogether the most remarkable to be found 
 in any time or tongue. 
 
 NEVADA SILVER. 
 
 c *ro 
 
 1^ CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, I 
 
 A 
 
 A THIRD of a century ago the surface bonanzas of the Corn- 
 stock began to yield their treasures. Californians long 
 skilled in gold mining were rushing by thousands into the newly 
 discovered silver districts, and prospecting the mountains and 
 deserts east of the Sierras. In fact, the whole Pacific coast was 
 ringing with shouts of " On to Washoe ! " In a few years this 
 obscure, long-neglected corner of western Utah became the State 
 of Nevada. It developed a multitude of mining camps besides the 
 Comstock ; it created new forms of mining skill, maintained vast 
 dependent industries, contributed revenues to distant cities, sent 
 forth new groups of millionaires, gave to the world new types of 
 frontier character, and added a dramatic chapter to the story of 
 American commonwealths. 
 
 The land itself is worth a moment's attention. It is a high 
 plateau, gridironed by short, parallel mountain chains, the most 
 noted of which is the Washoe Range, separated from the Sierras 
 by a line of small Alpine valleys, and rising, in Mount Davidson, 
 to a height of 7,827 feet. East, south, north, extend weary miles 
 of desert, relieved by a few oases. The scanty rivers of Nevada 
 soon lose themselves in alkaline basins. According to an old 
 frontiersman, reported by Dan De Quille, "the Almighty once 
 started out leadin' a number of small rivers along, meanin' to 
 unite them into one large one, and take it to the Pacific. But 
 before he had more than started it grew late Saturday night, so 
 he tucked the ends down into the sand, where they have remained 
 ever since." 
 
 Stephen T. Gage, of the Southern Pacific Railroad, tells an 
 interesting story of Horace Greeley's journey acros"s the conti- 
 nent. The distinguished editor had reached Placerville, Califor- 
 nia, and had been met by a few ardent followers on horseback. 
 The boisterous mountain town was politically opposed to Greeley, 
 but when the group of young men, of whom Gage was one, 
 brought him out on the plaza for a speech, a great crowd as- 
 sembled. f 
 
 "I believe," said Greeley, "that God never made anything 
 without a purpose. But the wilderness that I have crossed is 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 
 
 735 
 
 certainly worthless for agriculture. Unless there shall prove to 
 be great mineral wealth there, it has been created in vain. But 
 if, in the workings of Divine Providence, vast treasure houses are 
 revealed, as I believe there will be, then, my friends, it will take 
 the labor of a hundred thousand California miners a hundred 
 thousand years even to prospect it ! " 
 
 Even while Greeley spoke a small group of ignorant pros- 
 pectors, climbing the canons that slope south from Mount David- 
 
 CARSON RIVEB CANON. 
 
 son, were approaching the Com stock ledge. They were, in fact, 
 already filling their rude sluice-boxes with decomposed rock from 
 the giant lode, and were 'washing out a little gold, while they 
 threw many a lump of nearly pure silver down the gulches with 
 loud imprecations because the " blue stuff " clogged the machines. 
 These miners were the remnants of several larger camps that had 
 grown, nourished, and fallen into ruins in western Utah during 
 eight or ten years, but they were not the first settlers of the 
 Nevada region. The Oregon trail had three thousand emigrants 
 
73 6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 on the road in 1846, and as soon as the shout, " California gold ! " 
 was heard, the deep-trampled highways across the desert began 
 to be strewed with wrecks of wagons and bodies of horses and 
 oxen. Thousands of men made camp after camp in western Utah 
 without washing out a panful of dust or breaking off a specimen 
 of quartz. Meanwhile Mormon traders, anxious to sell supplies 
 to wagon trains, established small stations along the trail. These 
 traders were often colonists sent out from Salt Lake, under strict 
 orders not to cross the mountains and not to mine for gold. Ac- 
 cording to a letter in the Sacramento Transcript of October 14, 
 1850, the hungry emigrants were often forced to sell " a horse, an 
 ox, or a mule for twelve, ten, or even two pounds of flour," and in 
 1849 matters must have been even worse. 
 
 Placer gold was found in the winter of 1849 in a small gulch 
 near Carson Valley, and one or two men worked the deposit, with 
 poor results. The wandering Mormons abandoned their trading 
 posts, but in 1851 Colonel Reese, from Salt Lake, made a perma- 
 nent settlement. With him came, as teamster, bibulous, feather- 
 brained James Fennimore, afterward known on the Comstock as 
 " Old Virginia," who soon began placer mining in " Gold Canon." 
 By November the Carson region contained about twenty settlers ; 
 miners, herdsmen, and nomads of every description increased the 
 whole population of western Utah to nearly one hundred. Squat- 
 ter government began, and Congress, with unconscious humor, 
 was petitioned to create a separate Territory for this handful of 
 settlers. The Utah Legislature, with equally unconscious humor, 
 endeavored to hold the region by dividing it into seven huge 
 parallelograms of counties, only one of which appears to have 
 contained any people. The judge sent to Carson County was 
 referred by the Gold Canon miners to their local " rules, usages, 
 and customs," adopted in the main from California camps. 
 
 Local traditions contain much that is worth passing notice. 
 Israel Mott, for instance, "built his house out of the beds of 
 abandoned emigrant wagons." " Ragtown," on the Carson, re- 
 ceived its name because of vast heaps of rubbish that marked the 
 camp where the incoming host " ran into the water waist deep to 
 drink like animals," and threw their desert-worn garments in 
 heaps on the cacti and sagebrush. The last night of 1853 there 
 was a dance " in the log house over Spafford Hall's store " at the 
 mouth of Gold Cafion. Eight women were present, and this 
 number constituted " two thirds of all the white women in west- 
 ern Utah." Of white men there were about a hundred from 
 Lucky Bill's, Fort Churchill, Twenty-six-Mile Desert, Eagle 
 Ranch, and other settlements, as well as from the placer mines. 
 
 In 1857 the Mormon settlers were called back to Salt Lake by 
 a messenger from the Prophet. Some fifty families left claims, 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 737 
 
 cabins, water ditches, and other property, loaded one hundred and 
 fifty-three wagons, and were on the road in three weeks. A few 
 years later one of them, the noted Orson Hyde, wrote to the pos- 
 sessors of a sawmill he had built, demanding its return, and add- 
 ing : " This demand of ours remaining uncanceled shall be to the 
 people of Carson and Wassau as was the ark of God among the 
 Philistines. You shall be visited of the Lord of hosts with thun- 
 der and with earthquakes and with floods, with pestilence and 
 with famine, until your names are not known among men." The 
 letter was printed, and the camps of 1860 rang with loud laughter. 
 But in 1857 no one could see anything amusing in the departure 
 of the Mormons. Emigrant travel had ceased, traders had gone, 
 villages were deserted, plows left in the furrows, cabin doors 
 flung open. Even Gold Canon placers were nearly exhausted. 
 Everything seemed " played out." 
 
 The early miners of Nevada knew nothing of prospecting as a 
 business. They were so thoughtless and ignorant that it never 
 occurred to them to look for the source of the metal they were 
 obtaining in Gold Canon and other ravines that headed in Mount 
 Davidson. The little gold they found became more and more 
 alloyed with silver, so that its value decreased from nineteen 
 dollars an ounce to twelve dollars. The camp of Johnstown in 
 Gold Canon, where they wintered, dwindled in size, and discour- 
 aged miners went to other districts. Meanwhile two prospectors 
 of education and ability, the Grosh brothers, were secretly ex- 
 ploring the Washoe Mountains for silver. Their letters home 
 prove that they found "a monster vein " and other good pros- 
 pects, and they began to organize companies in the Atlantic 
 States and in California to work these claims. But one brother 
 died from an accident early in 1857 ; the other lost his life in the 
 Sierra the following winter. The first knowledge of the Corn- 
 stock perished with these two brave, thoughtful, reticent young 
 prospectors. 
 
 All the men who aided in the discovery of the famous mines 
 wintered in Johnstown in December, 1858. Among them was one 
 Henry Thomas Paige Comstock, a curiously ignorant, credulous, 
 and speculative miner, familiarly known as " Old Pancake." " My 
 first recollection," he wrote, " is packing beaver traps ; trapped 
 all over Canada, Michigan, Indiana, and the Rocky Mountains." 
 Comstock, "Old Virginia," Peter O'Riley, Pat McLaughlin, 
 " Kentuck " Osborne, " Long John " Bishop, Manny Penrod, 
 Sandy Bowers, and a few others had been more or less together. 
 Sometimes they were in Gold Canon, sometimes in Six Mile Caiion, 
 sometimes crossing from the head of one to the head of the other, 
 along the side of Mount Davidson, over the top of the Comstock 
 ledge. In January, 1859, a streak of warm weather tempting 
 
738 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 some of them out, Comstock, " Old Virginia," and several others 
 found "surface diggings" near " Slippery Gulch." They named 
 the place " Gold Hill," and, staking out claims, proceeded to work 
 the decomposed outcroppings over Crown Point, Yellow Jacket, 
 Belcher, Kentuck, and other great mines as yet undiscovered. 
 From the time they started the rockers, using water from a spring 
 close by, Gold Hill averaged twenty dollars a day to the man. 
 June 1st, O'Riley and McLaughlin, whose claim in Six Mile Canon 
 paid only two or three dollars a day, suddenly cut into the rock 
 on the surface of Ophir, at the north end of the Comstock, and 
 began to take out gold at the rate of a thousand dollars a day. 
 They had only been working a few hours when Comstock hap- 
 pened along, saw the value of the discovery, laid a general float- 
 ing claim to a mythical stock ranch in the region, and fairly 
 bluffed the good-natured discoverers into taking himself and 
 Manny Penrod as equal partners. "Kentuck" Osborne after- 
 ward came in, and the five took up the original Ophir claim. 
 
 The miners in the region soon staked out claims around Gold 
 Hill and Ophir. " Dutch Nick " started a saloon and restaurant 
 in a tent. " Old Virginia " went on a spree one night and chris- 
 tened the north-end camp "Virginia City." Comstock bubbled 
 with happiness, and flung his money broadcast. But a rancher 
 from Truckee Meadows, visiting the camp, picked up some of the 
 despised " blue stuff "from the waste heap of Ophir, and after- 
 ward gave it to Judge Walsh, of Grass Valley, California, with 
 the remark that " over in Washoe the miners were throwing it 
 away." An assayer reported it to be nearly pure silver. This 
 happened about midnight, and before dawn Judge Walsh was 
 miles on the road to Virginia City, while hundreds of other men 
 were making ready to follow. The Truckee Meadows rancher 
 paid no attention to the excitement he had caused, but went 
 quietly back to his farm. When Judge Walsh reached the camp 
 Comstock sold for $11,000, only $10 of which was paid down. 
 McLaughlin soon sold for $3,500, Osborne for $7,000, Penrod for 
 $3,000. Careless, ignorant, the first Comstockers were blown 
 aside like leaves in a whirlwind. They spent their money and 
 drifted off here and there, pursued by ill-fortune. McLaughlin 
 was soon cooking for a gang of men at $40 a month ; " Old Vir- 
 ginia," while on a spree in 1861, was thrown from a horse and 
 killed ; Comstock, who had parted with his interests exactly two 
 months after the ledge was struck, branched out into financial 
 and matrimonial ventures, spent every dollar, wandered over 
 Idaho and Montana vainly looking for another fortune, and in 
 1870 committed suicide. Sandy Bowers, who was considered a 
 millionaire, went to Europe with his wife " to see the queen," and 
 " had money to throw at the birds." He built a costly stone man- 
 
740 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 sion in Washoe Valley before birds of prey obtained all his 
 money. His widow, the "Washoe Seeress," made a living for 
 years by curiously futile predictions regarding the stock market, 
 and still reads the future for those who care to listen. One after 
 another all the placer-mining Comstockers went down before the 
 rush of silver seekers. 
 
 That rush was in many respects the most remarkable one that 
 California ever had known. Decidedly the best account was 
 written by J. Ross Browne, who made his Peep at Washoe a 
 classic of early Nevada. Stirred, he says, by the shout of " Sil- 
 ver ! silver ! Acres of it ! Miles of it ! " he left San Francisco in 
 March, 1860, and made his way to Placerville. Beyond this point 
 there were no stages. The town was full of men anxious to cross 
 the mountains, and "practicing for Washoe" in the saloons. 
 Every sign bore Washoe in large letters. Pack trains were start- 
 ing daily for the mines. No animal could be had for love or 
 money. " Lodging accommodations " consisted of enough floor 
 space on which to lie in one's blanket. 
 
 The next morning Browne started on foot. The muddy trail 
 was literally lined with broken-down vehicles and goods of every 
 description. He stopped at nightfall in " Dirty Mike's " shanty, 
 in which the bar and the public bedroom were the chief features. 
 The second day hundreds of persons were in sight along the trail 
 men with wheelbarrows, handcarts, donkeys, mules ; gamblers on 
 fancy mustangs, whisky peddlers, organ grinders, drovers, Mexi- 
 cans. Rain, snow, and slush prevailed for miles before he reached 
 the log cabins of Strawberry. There he slept on the floor with 
 about forty other pilgrims, and had his stockings stolen, which 
 " were above gold or silver in this foot- weary land." Three feet 
 of snow in the morning, four hundred men in the camp, and pro- 
 visions low ; eight hard miles to the summit, nine more to Wood- 
 ford's. Browne and several others tried the trail, but were forced 
 to return to Strawberry. The next day he tried it alone. The 
 trail was over old snow, honeycombed with holes hidden by the 
 new snowfall; pack trains were floundering through and occa- 
 sionally falling into the canons. Wind and sleet all day ; mud 
 knee deep in Hope Valley ; all in all a terrible day's experience. 
 The fifth day Browne's course was along the Carson. He was so 
 worn out that he could only cover about eighteen miles between 
 sunrise and nine o'clock at night. The sixth day he arrived at 
 Carson City, and took the stage for the mines. 
 
 Virginia City, as Ross Browne saw it in the spring of 1860, 
 lay outspread on a slope of mountains, speckled with snow and 
 sagebrush and mounds of upturned earth. The dwellings were 
 rude board shanties ; tents of blankets, sacks, old shirts, and can- 
 vas ; huts of mud and rock, caves in the hillside, and hollow heaps 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 741 
 
 of brush. Piles of goods were scattered about in the rain and 
 snow. A scathing wind, the "Washoe zephyr," tore the huts 
 apart and filled the air with gravel. Crowds were gathered in 
 open places, trading claims or fighting over them. Other crowds 
 were drinking and gambling in the numerous saloons. Rough, 
 unkempt, unwashed miners, speculators, bummers, thieves, cut- 
 throats filled the raw, unsightly mining camp with horrible con- 
 fusion. " In truth," says our artless adventurer, " there was much 
 to confirm the foreboding with which I had entered the Devil's 
 Gate." 
 
 In a short time the demands of the Washoe country developed 
 a complete system of transportation over three great toll roads, 
 the finest on the Pacific coast. Massive freight wagons, marking 
 in every detail the utmost skill of California workers in wood 
 and iron, carried all the supplies for Nevada. Bearded and 
 weather-beaten freighters, who were also owners of their outfits, 
 walked beside the great mule teams. Each freighter carried his 
 rod of empire, a short hickory handle to which was attached a 
 long, close-plaited whiplash as big as one's wrist at the swelling 
 part. At first receiving twenty-five cents a pound for whatever 
 was carried between Sacramento and Virginia City, and hauling 
 a thousand pounds to the animal, the freighter in a year or so 
 was able to move twenty-four tons besides the wagons, with a 
 sixteen-mule team, at a cost of four cents a pound for the entire 
 distance. It is said that there is not on record in courts or news- 
 papers a single instance of the loss of goods in transit either by 
 fraud, force, or carelessness during all the years of the Nevada 
 freighter's glory. 
 
 One stage line carried twelve thousand passengers to Nevada in 
 1863. Schedule time in 1861 had been three days for the one hun- 
 dred and sixty-two miles, but it was soon reduced to eighteen 
 hours. Three wealthy mining operators were once taken from 
 Virginia City to the steamboat wharf in Sacramento in twelve 
 hours and twenty-three minutes. Old travelers still recall with 
 pleasure the ride across the mountains on the Placerville route. 
 Its most striking moment was when one first saw from the summit 
 of the pass the hyacinthine waters of sealike Tahoe and the level 
 desert. "The eastward-gazing grizzly bear," to quote from one 
 of the stories written by an old Elko silver miner, the late Dr. 
 Gaily, " lifts his flexible nostril to sniff the odor of the arid waste, 
 then slowly turns and prowls westward. There is a visible line 
 eastward where two worlds appear to meet. Beyond is the great 
 'empire of Artemisia/ where gold and silver were married in 
 the volcanic chambers of the awful past. One sees the land of 
 Washoe outstretched from the mountain tops, with its browns 
 and grays, its arid junipers and dull nut pines, its crags of lime- 
 
742 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 stone, basalt, porphyry, granite, in naked barrenness. There, 
 underfoot," writes Dr. Gaily, "the world is dry, gray, silent. 
 Overhead, during the long cloudless day, it is pale blue, dry, 
 silent. All abroad it is gray or dark with mountain distance, and 
 it is silent. Silence is everywhere. No roar of far-off torrents 
 tumbling down the hills to jar the night air underneath the stars 
 the stars still are, but all the torrents have departed. At some 
 lost period backward of all dates, the Great High Sheriff of the 
 universe in open court has cried Silence and has been obeyed." 
 
 Into such a land the silver seekers came, and it claimed them 
 for its own. Soil, climate, topography, environment, began to 
 create the Nevada type, with its large freedom, its quick com- 
 prehension, its broadly humorous buoyancy, and similar charac- 
 teristics that one finds abundantly illustrated in such books as 
 Mark Twain's Roughing It and in the writings of a great group 
 of younger newspaper men. " Desperate climatic humor " is what 
 Dr. Gaily calls it. Occasionally an old copy of an early Nevada 
 newspaper turns up, fairly scintillating with wit and sarcasm, 
 but for the most part the files have been destroyed in the great 
 fires. Said brave old De Quille, companion reporter with Mark 
 Twain on the Territorial Enterprise : 
 
 " I used to make the newspaper my notebook for years, and I 
 thought what a book I could write some day out of that note- 
 book ; but now I don't know of a single file in existence." 
 
 Still there are gleams of the past in stray copies that have 
 escaped the fires. Senator Stewart was the most prominent man 
 on the Comstock in the days before Sharon, and the Gold Hill 
 News, amazed at his audacity, once likened him to the Colossus 
 of Rhodes he was as large and contained as much brass. Mark 
 Twain, in his forgotten Proceedings of the Third House, once 
 burlesqued nearly every member of the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion of 1863. Larrowe, of Landor, for instance, was made to 
 glorify the " nine sceptered and anointed quartz mills " of his dis- 
 trict until the president ordered him to "hold his clatter" and 
 drop Reese River quartz-mill statistics. Mr. Stewart, after a long 
 speech on miners' taxes, was told : " Take your seat, Bill Stewart. 
 I have been reporting and reporting that same infernal speech of 
 yours for thirty days. . . . You and your bed-rock tunnels and 
 your blighted miners' blasted hopes have gotten to be a sort of 
 nightmare to me and I won't put up with it any longer." The 
 wealth of material in this field would fill volumes instead of 
 paragraphs. 
 
 Hardly had the first rich ore been taken from the Comstock 
 when an age of litigation commenced. The early claims overlapped 
 and were badly defined, some being taken up under placer rules, 
 others as quartz claims, and all without accurate surveys. Mat- 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 743 
 
 ters went from bad to worse, as every one had access to the record 
 book in the pioneer camp, and most of the prospectors changed 
 their stakes and boundaries as often as seemed best. The most 
 casual study of the Comstock region in 1860 reveals the wildest 
 Walpurgis-night revels of conflicting claims of every size, shape, 
 and age tumbling over each other three and four deep. Besides, 
 the Virginia lode was parallel to the Comstock, and many lesser 
 veins crossed it or ran near, thus giving rise to the great legal 
 problem of the day, Was the Comstock one ledge or two ledges ? 
 
 Then followed the famous mining cases that fill volume after 
 volume of the Nevada reports Savage against the Bowers Com- 
 pany, Chollar against Potosi (pronounced Potosee* by all old 
 " Comstockers "), Burning Moscow against Ophir, and others of 
 
 FLASH-LIGHT OF DEILLS IN NEVADA MINE. 
 
 equal interest. The total number of lawsuits for twelve mines 
 during this period is 245, and 168 of these were " actions brought " 
 to dispossess the claimants of ground that, under the single- 
 ledge theory, belonged to the first locators. The direct cost of 
 this litigation was $10,000,000, or one fifth of the entire product 
 of the lode during the fighting period. Pitched battles occurred 
 underground ; mines were flooded with water or filled with smoke. 
 Forts were built, armed men employed, and battles fought on dis- 
 puted claims. Some of the best mining lawyers of America were 
 trained in this age of litigation. Stewart, known as " Old Invin- 
 cible," tireless in devotion to his clients, received $100,000 from 
 Belcher and $30,000 as a single fee from Yellow Jacket. The 
 reputation of the Territorial courts suffered, and some of the 
 judges resigned under stress of public wrath. Lord, in his His- 
 tory of the Comstock, sums up the period from 1860 to 1865 with 
 
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 the terse remark that " the Washoe bar at that time was hardly a 
 nursery for tender consciences." 
 
 The first problem that troubled the miners in the midst of 
 their lawsuits was how to handle the immense bodies of ore. To 
 develop the various claims by means of the usual shafts, tunnels, 
 .1 rifts, cross-cuts, and other underground workings was unusually 
 difficult. The vein matter of the great fissure varies from 100 
 feet to 1,500 feet in width. The whole body was once a seething 
 mass of fire and steam. It still remains in many places so hot 
 that the appliances of modern science hardly enable the miners to 
 accomplish any work. The ledge first sloped west, became ver- 
 tical at about 200 feet down, and then bent toward the east, thus 
 necessitating a second and finally a third line of shafts. Machin- 
 ery for pumping, for hoisting, for ventilating and lighting the 
 depths of the mines, had to be constructed upon a larger scale 
 than ever before attempted. As the ore bodies were opened they 
 were found to be so wide that the timbering system failed entire- 
 ly. A new method, known as the " Deidesheimer square sets/' 
 was invented, which is still in use in all large mines. It consists 
 of short timbers mortised together in frames that can be built up 
 to any height or width, like the adding of cells to a honeycomb. 
 A few years later the mines siphoned water from the Sierras 
 under a pressure of 1,720 feet. Incidentally the miners invented 
 the V flume to carry lumber down the Sierra slopes. The annual 
 supply of timber for the mines amounted by 1866 to 25,000,000 
 feet of lumber and 170,000 cords of fuel. The consumption of 
 both increased steadily until in bonanza days 80,000,000 feet of 
 lumber annually disappeared into the drifts and chambers and 
 250,000 cords of wood went up in smoke and flame. 
 
 Metallurgists, too, found endless study in the methods of re- 
 ducing Comstock ore. Beginning with slow Mexican arastras 
 and patio yards, adopting in 1860 California stamp mills, and 
 modifying the amalgamating apparatus to save the silver, the 
 modern " Washoe process " was finally adopted, though only after 
 years of costly experiments. For a time every one went rainbow- 
 chasing for something to perform impossible chemical feats. One 
 pioneer mill man used to put strong decoctions of cedar and juni- 
 per bark into his amalgamation pans ; others actually used sage- 
 brush tea, it being argued that Nature had created the otherwise 
 worthless shrub for the express purpose of getting the metal out 
 of Nevada's mountains ! Persons with secret processes overran 
 the mining districts, each one with the whole trick contained in a 
 little bottle in his vest pocket, ready for a consideration to pour a 
 few drops into the amalgamating pan. San Francisco was ran- 
 sacked for drugs to put into the batteries with the pulverized ore. 
 Alum, saltpeter, borax, potash, all the acids obtainable, tobacco 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 
 
 745 
 
 enough for a "sheep-dip," a multitude of articles never before 
 used by miners, such were some of the contents of the Nevada 
 mill men's witch caldrons in the early sixties. "The object ap- 
 peared to be," says an amused 
 observer, "to physic the silver 
 out of the rock." 
 
 Slowly, after immeasurable 
 waste, crude methods gave way 
 to better ones. Mills were built 
 in Washoe Valley, in the canons, 
 and on the Comstock, but the 
 greater number were along the 
 Carson River, so as to be run by 
 water power. No less than 76 
 mills, costing over $6,000,000 and 
 carrying 1,200 stamps, were in 
 operation before the end of 1861. 
 Some of the mills of the period 
 are still remembered for their ex- 
 travagant construction. Gould 
 and Curry built one on a ter- 
 raced hill where the mine owners 
 spent about $1,000,000 in pic- 
 turesque and useless magnifi- 
 cence. After a few years, when 
 their bonanza began to fail, it 
 was found that the reduction of 
 their ore was costing fifty dol- 
 lars a ton. The machinery was 
 thrown aside, and it required 
 $600,000 to put the mill in work- 
 ing order again. Everywhere, 
 through years of readjustment, 
 mills were torn to pieces, rebuilt, 
 enlarged, made to do better and 
 better work, until the results 
 produced when the great bonan- 
 za mines were running at full speed attracted the attention of 
 mill men all over the world. 
 
 What is known on the Comstock as the old group of bonanzas 
 began comparatively near the surface. The yield of the diggings 
 of 1859 had been about $100,000 for the entire lode. In 1860 it 
 yielded in round numbers $2,000,000. After that the mines were 
 developed so fast that by 1865 the output of Storey County, most 
 of it from the Comstock, was $9,500,000. During twelve years 
 after 1859 the product of all the Comstock mines was $145,000,000. 
 
 VOL. XLIX. 58 
 
 KUINS OF OLD MILL NEAR THE COMSTOCK. 
 
746 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 Work went on with increasing zeal. Mines that were in "bor- 
 -," or barren rock, were kept going by immense assessments. 
 If the present business methods that prevail in mining had been 
 adopted on the Comstock, half of this enormous yield of $145,000,- 
 000 would have been clear profit, but the greater part of every 
 bonanza went into running and extraordinary expenses. Reck- 
 less waste and superb enterprise seemed to go hand in hand. The 
 numbers of relatives and friends that the owners of the mines 
 managed to support l.y making positions for them ran hardly be 
 reckoned. Everybody, from servant girls to bankers, speculated 
 iu Comstocks and other mining shares. 
 
 In l>;o more than five thousand claims within thirty miles of 
 Virginia City were " on the market." Frenzied prospectors were 
 marking out thousands more, until the most remote corners of 
 the desert were "pegged down with claim stakes" set on indi- 
 cations which were seldom attractive to a mineralogist. Iron 
 pyrites and all sorts of worthless combinations seemed as good as 
 gold or silver to the enterprising adventurers. Before long men 
 were claiming to have found huge ledges of iridium, platinum, 
 and plumbago. One Washoe speculator being told by a gentle- 
 man that an ambergris mine would be valuable, replied that he 
 had just staked out one ! A company tunneled for weeks into 
 the granite of Mount Davidson in order to tap an alleged lake of 
 coal oil. 
 
 No one can reckon up the number of prospect holes that dot 
 Nevada. Millions of them, mere ragged cuts or pits in the tawny 
 hillsides, make wind-blown heaps on every hand between the 
 clumps of dark sagebrush and the dull yellow of an occasional 
 sunflower. Only one prospect hole in a hundred ever material- 
 ized into a recorded claim ; only one claim in a thousand ever 
 became a mine. Up to 1880 Virginia City and Gold Hill alone 
 had 16,000 registered claims, and less than a dozen really great 
 mines. To sum it up, the amount of dead work and wasted capi- 
 tal in every mining region almost surpasses belief. Ruins of 
 mills and dwellings, nameless graves in the canons, fragments of 
 old trails washed by the storms of thirty winters, are all that 
 mark the sites of many once- aspiring districts. In Esmeralda 
 and White Pine, which the late Dr. DeGroot used to call " those 
 Golgothas of Nevada speculators," what millions were fruitlessly 
 scattered ! 
 
 The entire history of the Comstock lode is revealed by the as- 
 sessments, dividends, and fluctuations of the stocks of separate 
 mines. Before the close of 1861 eighty-six companies were work- 
 ing on or near the grea*t lode. Gould and Curry, a marvelously 
 rich mine, declared $2,908,800 in dividends in 1863 and 1864. This 
 was upon an actual investment of less than $200,000. But the ex- 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 
 
 747 
 
 penses of the mine, which worked 110,000 tons of ore during those 
 two years, were nearly $6,000,000. It is believed that twice as 
 much could easily have been paid in dividends, but, as the presi- 
 dent of the company said, "every shareholder was crazy and 
 wanted it snaked out at once at any cost." Gould and Curry, 
 July 1, 1863, was selling at $6,300 per foot (the old way of meas- 
 uring values) ; in July, 1864, it was worth only $900. Belcher 
 was one of the dividend mines of the Comstock, having paid 
 $16,000,000 up to 1880. It had 104,000 shares after 1869. In that 
 year prices ranged from $12 to $35 ; in 1870, sank from $36 to $1 ; 
 in January, 1871, rose to $6, and in December to $450 ; in Janu- 
 
 ALTA MINE, MILL, AND DUMP, GOLD HILL. 
 
 ary, 1872, sank to $6, and in April rose to $1,525, fluctuating all 
 that summer down to $1.50, up to $95, and back and forth after 
 this fashion for years. Once it rose in a month from 25 cents to 
 $113 a share. Out of 103 Washoe mines listed, only six ever paid 
 more money in dividends than they levied in assessments. These 
 six were Consolidated Virginia, California, Belcher, Crown Point, 
 Gould and Curry, and Kentuck. Some of the assessments levied 
 upon mines that never paid a cent to the stockholders remain un- 
 paralleled in mining history. Ten mines sank nearly $17,000,000 
 before 1880. Assessments on Bullion were $3,352,000; on Over- 
 man, $3,162,800. Alta, Baltimore, Caledonia, Mexico, Imperial 
 these and other non-producers are still remembered with sorrow 
 by thousands of investors. 
 
748 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 Nevertheless, viewed as a whole, the Coinstock was immense- 
 ly profitable. In twenty-one years from the summer of 1859, 
 according to Government reports, the mines levied in assess- 
 ments $62,000,000. The dividends paid during the same period 
 aggregated $118,000,000. Striking a cash balance, the Comstock 
 ledger shows an actual profit of $50,000,000. The total bullion 
 yield for the same period was $306,000,000. Subtracting divi- 
 dends and adding assessments, we find that the cost of purchasing, 
 maintaining, defending, and developing the great lode for twenty- 
 one years was $250,000,000. Three fourths of this sum came from 
 the mines themselves, the other fourth was gathered from direct 
 assessments. The prospectors and original locators had received 
 less than SKM),UK. The various owners paid less than a million 
 dollars out of their own pockets, as working capital, before as- 
 sessments and the stock-gambling period began. Since 1880 
 the yield of the Comstock has been decreasing, and many of 
 the mines have been shut down. The ledger account of the Com- 
 stock with the public remains practically unchanged. 
 
 The most dramatic events in the story of the Comstock clus- 
 ter about a series of struggles for its control during the ebb and 
 flow of alternate borrasca and bonanza. Nothing was lacking to 
 make the period impressive. The financial leaders of the Pacific 
 coast were conquering Nevada, while another group of men were 
 winning victories that shortly led to the culminating treasure of 
 the lode, and while the indomitable Sutro was toiling in his great 
 tunnel. So vast and ruthless was the battle that its far-reaching 
 results still influence politics and social life of California and 
 Nevada ; men still divide upon issues which began in the depths 
 of the Comstock a quarter of a century ago. 
 
 In 1804 the ore deposits were worked out, and ray less gloom 
 settled over the Comstock. The Bank of California,, through its 
 resident agent, William Sharon, had been making advances on 
 mills and allowing the mine owners to overdraw their accounts. 
 The security in both cases was only undiscovered ore, and if the 
 lode were really exhausted the whole camp was ruined. Ralston, 
 the head of the bank, visited Virginia City in 1865, and agreed 
 with Sharon that the time had arrived to gain control of the dis- 
 trict. Loans, instead of being lessened, were increased, to what 
 extent is not known, but it was afterward said by Sharon that at 
 one time before 1870 $3,000,000 of the $5,000,000 capital of the 
 bank was on the Comstock. In June, 1867, the famous mill and 
 mining company was formed by W. C. Ralston, William Sharon, 
 Alvinza Hayward, D. O. Mills, Thomas Bell, Charles Bonner, 
 William E. Barron, and Thomas Sunderland. It was the strongest 
 possible combination of capitalists and mining men ; its business 
 was to manage the mills and mines that had now fallen into the 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 749 
 
 hands of the Bank of California through foreclosure and through 
 manipulations of stock. It also aimed at securing control of 
 others, and ultimately at directing the output of the entire lode. 
 
 There are, let me explain, two systems of handling ores. A 
 mine can own its mills, or it can send to a custom mill. On the 
 Comstock the mine-owners' experiments in building mills had 
 proved disastrous. The independent millman was a more efficient 
 ore-worker than a salaried superintendent. But the Comstock 
 system did not secure the permanent welfare of the outsiders. 
 What Prof. Raymond calls " the piratical policy of gutting the 
 mines " was carried on in bonanza times at such a shocking rate 
 of speed that it unduly stimulated the building of more mills, 
 and then left the mines totally unable to sustain any of them. It 
 is not surprising that the Union Mill and Mining syndicate were 
 soon able to gather in seventeen of the leading mills and to keep 
 them running on ore, while outside mills could not make a living. 
 It became evident that the substitution of Sharon for Stewart as 
 the leading personal force on the Comstock was in reality the 
 most complete revolution the sagebrush land had yet known. 
 
 Nevada had long " talked railroad." Legislatures, Territorial 
 and State, had granted many charters, but after a few abortive 
 efforts the last of these haphazard schemes was dead. Sharon, 
 the man of affairs, sent for James, of the Sierra Nevada Mine. 
 The following conversation is said to have occurred : 
 
 " Can you run a railroad from Virginia City to the Carson 
 River ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do it at once." 
 
 Within thirty days the winding course, twenty-one miles long, 
 was surveyed ; graders were at work ; rails were on the way ; 
 men were hewing ties in the Sierras ; an obedient Legislature had 
 passed a new charter and had authorized $500,000 in bonds as a 
 bonus to the road ; lastly, the mines had subscribed $700,000. It 
 was a busy month, even on the Comstock. Extended to a junc- 
 tion of the Southern Pacific at Reno, the Virginia and Truckee 
 Railroad cost about $3,500,000. The maximum grade is 116 feet to 
 the mile ; the curves of the track in the thirteen miles and a half 
 of mountain distance make seventeen full circles, and the rise is 
 1,600 feet. 
 
 Sharon had put Chinese graders at work, but the miners 7 
 unions of Gold Hill and Virginia City marched out a thousand 
 strong. The sheriff halted them, and they sat down on the rocks 
 to hear him read the riot act. That ended, they rose with shouts 
 of Homeric laughter, gave three cheers for the sheriff, and moved 
 resistlessly on the graders' camps. The Chinese " ran like rab- 
 bits " up the gulches. The miners told the boss to quit work, and, 
 
-o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 marching back, sent word to Sharon that no Chinamen would be 
 allowed in the district under penalty of a strike that would shut 
 down every mine on the lode. In twenty-four hours the Chinese 
 were dismissed and white graders took their places. Defeated 
 here, Sharon silently made ready for the real labor conflict that 
 he foresaw. It began when the first trains entered Virginia 
 City. The fine old silver freighter, in Nevada slang the " mule 
 skinner''; the bull-puncher walking sedately beside his oxen; 
 even that aristocrat of the fraternity, the lordly " silk-popper/' 
 flicking his playful whiplash at the leaders as he drove his stage- 
 coach down Geiger's grade these, all these, after fierce, useless 
 struggles, disappeared into the unrailroaded distance. " Sharon's 
 iron mules," as they said, " had crowded them off." 
 
 Mean while the total bullion yield of the lode, which was $16,- 
 000,000 in 1865, continued to decrease till in 1869 it was only 
 >,000. None knew better than Sharon and his associates that 
 although borrasca had put them into possession, a few more 
 years of borrasca would utterly smash their fortunes. There had 
 been in all eleven bonanzas up to 1869, but now all were 
 " worked out," and the ordinary ore in the mines not only grew 
 poorer and scantier on the lower levels, but was harder to work. 
 Everything was in eclipse. The miners were following a mere 
 stringer of ore on the nine-hundred foot level of Yellow Jacket 
 that gave Sharon a little hope, but troubles with the miners and 
 disastrous fires intensified the situation. By 1870 some of the 
 members of the syndicate began to weaken ; it was openly said 
 that the Comstock had paid its last dividend ; the cities of the 
 lode were trembling on the verge of panic. 
 
 The famous John P. Jones, since United States Senator, was 
 superintendent at Crown Point, and, like all the rest, was vainly 
 looking for ore. The stock fell to two dollars a share, making the 
 total value of the mine, with its costly plant, only $24,000, and 
 assessments went unpaid. Late in 1870 Jones found an ore body, 
 and, joining forces with a discontented member of the bank syn- 
 dicate, wrested control of the mine from Sharon before he knew 
 of the bonanza, which in eighteen months more raised the stock- 
 market value of Crown Point to $22,000,000. They also organized 
 the Nevada Mill and Mining Company in direct opposition to 
 their old associates. Nevertheless, Sharon's lesser defeat only 
 emphasized a greater victory. His interests in other mines 
 doubled and quadrupled in value, empty treasuries were filled 
 by outside investors, and search for new ore bodies was prose- 
 cuted with renewed energy. 
 
 The story of the rise of Mackay and Fair reads like a leaf from 
 the Arabian Nights. Like Jones, they had been poor and un- 
 known, working for daily wages. Associated with Flood and 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 751 
 
 O'Brien, they discovered the Big Bonanza, the richest treasure of 
 the Comstock. Mackay outranks the rest of the group, because 
 his rise was more remarkable and his grasp of circumstances 
 more firm. From toiling in the lower levels he rose to be super- 
 intendent of one of the smaller Gold Hill mines. Like Fair, he 
 saved every dollar and put it into stocks under his own control. 
 Before long he was interested in " Kentuck," a rich little mine, 
 and it began to pay dividends again. His own statement is that 
 for years he had labored with all the powers of mind and body 
 to make himself " master and manager of the greatest mines in 
 the world." Kentuck gave him the start. Mackay and Fair, 
 now associated in every enterprise, ventured to make a fight for 
 the control of Hale and Norcross, which they acquired in March, 
 1869, its stock, like everything else on the lode, being greatly de- 
 pressed. Fair, leaving Ophir, of which he had long been super- 
 intendent, soon put Hale and Norcross on the dividend list. Old 
 Comstockers still praise " Uncle Jimmy's fine nose for ore." The 
 mining skill of Fair, as well as of Mackay, rose at times into the 
 domains of genius. Before the close of 1869 they controlled Sav- 
 age and Bullion. This proved a bad affair, and nearly ruined 
 them. The Bank of California millionaires began to feel relieved 
 in mind. In a year or two, they said, Mackay will be back in the 
 face of a drift, at four dollars a day, and Fair can be made useful 
 somewhere on a superintendent's salary. But the Mackay firm, 
 still convinced of the reasonableness of their system of explora- 
 tion, concentrated their last resources upon a long-neglected por- 
 tion of the lode. 
 
 The Comstock mines begin at the north with Sierra Nevada, 
 3,300 feet on the lode ; coming south, Union Consolidated follows, 
 600 feet ; then Mexican, the same size ; then Ophir, 675 feet. All 
 these were being worked on a large scale. Next came a group of 
 small neglected claims whose titles were in dispute, 1,310 feet in 
 all, followed by Best and Belcher, Gould and Curry, Savage, and 
 Hale and Norcross, which completed the famous north- end, or 
 Virginia City, group of mines. The neglected section, 600 feet of 
 which was afterward known as California, and 710 feet as Con- 
 solidated Virginia, was worth only $40,000 on the stock market. 
 As Mackay and his associates bought, the stock rose ; the three- 
 fourths interest they desired cost $100,000. They took control in 
 January, 1871, and began mining operations, sinking a new and 
 large shaft and pushing a drift north from Gould and Curry, 
 nearly 1,200 feet below the surface, by a special contract with the 
 owners of the mines crossed. 
 
 One day Fair discovered a slight change in the barren rock 
 and determined to follow a narrow seam hardly thicker than a 
 knife blade. Sometimes it was only a film of clay, but occasion- 
 
752 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 ally a pin point of ore was seen. For hundreds of feet the miners 
 IriYted beside this slender clew. Fair became ill, and the work- 
 men lost it, but on his return he picked up the ore thread. They 
 u.iv now a hundred feet in Consolidated Virginia ground, and 
 the price of the stock began to break, when suddenly the stringer 
 widened to a vein of sixty-dollar ore. In October, on the 1,167- 
 foot level, the top of the "Big Bonanza" was uncovered; the 
 drift went 148 feet through solid ore 54 feet wide. The great 
 kidney-shaped mass extended downward below the 1,500-foot 
 level, and widened to 150 feet and even to 300 feet. The ore grew 
 
 GOULD AND CURRY MINERS READY FOR WORK. 
 
 richer and richer as the men advanced. Nothing like it had ever 
 been known in the history of mining. 
 
 Here, in the heart of the Comstock, hundreds of naked miners 
 were soon hewing down the ore. On all sides of a pyramidal 
 mass of timber which grew larger every minute were twinkling 
 stars of lamps. Everything in the bonanza was sent to the mill 
 as fast as it was quarried out, and some of it was so rich that 
 waste rock was added to aid amalgamation. An average block 
 of ore three feet square contained from two hundred to five hun- 
 dred dollars in silver and gold. The richest spot was near the 
 California line, where clusters of malleable silver in coiled wires 
 occurred beside shining stephanite, pale-green and steel-gray 
 chlorides, and lustrous black silver glance, besides masses of the 
 most exquisite crystals of every color known to the mineralogist. 
 
 In six years Consolidated Virginia milled 682,355 tons of ore, 
 producing $60,732,882 ; California, in four years, milled 486,043 
 tons, producing $43,727,837. The total yield of the Big Bonanza 
 had been nearly $105,000,000, and more than $73,000,000 had been 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 753 
 
 paid in dividends. Extreme haste was necessary in extracting 
 the ore, so great was the danger of a disaster. Mackay and Fair 
 hardly rested day or night till the bonanza was exhausted. Out- 
 side, all the exchanges of the world were fighting over Corn- 
 stocks. The two mines, rated in 1871 at $40,000, were rated in 
 1875 at $160,000,000. Thirty mines on the lode were now valued 
 at about $400,000,000. So much money was withdrawn from 
 legitimate business and flung into the stock market that when 
 the inevitable crash came and the Bank of California failed, 
 every industry of the Pacific coast was checked for years. 
 
 In the midst of the bonanza excitement Virginia City was 
 swept by a great fire, the culmination of a long series of mining 
 disasters, and in a few hours a territory half a mile square was a 
 mass of ruins. The mining companies lost acres of supplies and 
 lumber; Ophir, Consolidated Virginia, and California had all 
 their buildings burned; two thousand stores, hotels, lodging 
 houses, and dwellings were destroyed. The very next day men 
 were at work in the ruins, on the rugged hillsides, in the ravines, 
 by the monstrous waste dumps, clearing away, rebuilding on a 
 still more massive scale the giant machine shops, hoisting works, 
 and mills. The two bonanza 
 mines lost $1,500,000, and 
 yet they managed to keep 
 up regular dividends at the 
 rate of $1,080,000 a month ! 
 
 All these years one in- 
 domitable mill owner and 
 engineer, Adolph Sutro,had 
 been fighting single-handed 
 the men who controlled the 
 Comstock. Away back in 
 1860 he had advised a deep 
 adit, and in 1865 he obtained 
 a franchise for the Sutro 
 Tunnel Company, with Sen- 
 ator Stewart as president. 
 The mining companies 
 bound themselves to pay 
 perpetual royalties after the 
 completion of the tunnel. 
 Congress, assuming the reg- 
 ulation of the immense ADOLPH SuTRO 
 mining interests involved, 
 
 passed an act which, still further protecting the enterprise, made 
 the very titles of the mining companies dependent upon the ful- 
 fillment of their obligations. Large subscriptions were made, and 
 
75 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 it was expected that the bonds would sell readily. But early in 
 the Bank of California syndicate began to perceive that the 
 Sutro Tunnel, delivering ore at the Carson River mills and mining 
 supplies nearly two thousand feet below the surface, might very 
 easily destroy their control of the Com stock and its dependent 
 industries. Therefore they declared war, and opened hostilities. 
 Stewart resigned ; subscriptions were all withdrawn ; shrewd law- 
 yers and politicians were employed to obtain the repeal of the 
 franchise and of the act of Congress ; financiers in New York and 
 Europe were warned not to touch Sutro bonds. 
 
 Years after Sutro said in conversation : " Ah, it was a hard 
 thing to have so many old friends in San Francisco and Virginia 
 City actually afraid to be seen talking to me after the fiat had 
 gone forth that I must be crushed at any cost. But I kept 
 on fighting. There was one time, I remember, when I had to 
 go to Washington to save my interests from destruction. I 
 had no money. All the profits of my mill had been swallowed 
 up. But I had a lot in a little California town, and I sold it 
 for two hundred dollars, and with that I managed to get to 
 Washington. I stayed there somehow that winter, poor as I 
 was, and fought my enemies, and came out ahead. But their 
 newspapers said I had bribed Congress out of my two hundred 
 dollars!" 
 
 After making the most strenuous efforts Sutro failed to place 
 his bonds. In 1869, turning for help to the working miners, he 
 delivered a remarkable address in Virginia City. Large cartoons 
 illustrated his bitter eloquence. One showed Bill Sharon's Big 
 Woodpile, another Bill Sharon's Crooked Railroad, a third the 
 then recent fire in Yellow Jacket, where forty-two lives had been 
 lost that might have been saved had the Sutro Tunnel existed. He 
 appealed to the miners' unions for stock subscriptions with which 
 to begin work. " Will the people of Nevada see me crushed out 
 now ? . . . Come in together. Let two thousand laboring men 
 pay in ten dollars apiece a month, and insure the construction of 
 the tunnel, carrying with it the control of the mines. . . . From 
 dependents you will be masters." With such sentences he ad- 
 dressed the working miners of the Comstock, who actually raised 
 fifty thousand dollars in a few weeks, and on October 19th reso- 
 lute Sutro broke ground in his great undertaking. Nevertheless 
 the tunnel was steadily opposed by the California and Nevada 
 Senators and by nearly all the mining men on the Comstock. 
 The history of the long struggle is embalmed in the pages of the 
 Congressional Record and innumerable public documents. Sutro 
 bonds were finally sold, but the difficulties of the undertaking 
 proved greater than had been expected, and the period of the 
 bonanzas passed before the lode was reached. 
 
NEVADA SILVER. 
 
 755 
 
 The progress of the work was dramatic. The face of the rock 
 " showed a temperature of 114." Two or three hours was all that 
 the strongest men could work. Endurance was strained to its 
 utmost capacity. Man after man dropped down on the rocky 
 floor and was carried to the surface babbling and incoherent. 
 This strenuous toil continued till July 8, 1878, when Sutro him- 
 self, half naked like one of his miners, labored at the front, and 
 finally crawled through a jagged hole into the Savage drift, 
 " overcome with excitement," as one of the newspaper accounts 
 
 SUTBO TUNNEL, SUTRO, NEVADA. 
 
 said. What had been contemptuously called "Sutro's coyote 
 hole " thus became an accomplished fact. 
 
 Through such passionate conflicts as those described the 
 heroes of the Comstock continued making workshops, mills, 
 machinery ; building two marvelously picturesque towns along 
 the lode, and hiding underneath the greater creation the real 
 City of the Comstock. Here, in deeps below deeps, are three- 
 mile streets, mysterious labyrinths, water torrents, burning 
 heats, perils numberless, legends that might serve to fill a vol- 
 ume. Time was when twelve thousand miners toiled in these 
 vast galleries, swinging picks, hammering drills, raising timbers 
 to place, climbing to the stopes, breaking down the ore, pushing 
 lines of loaded cars to stations on the hoisting shafts. They were 
 superb athletes, with muscles evenly developed by their labor. 
 A few of them remain, scraping out the ore left in older work- 
 ings and maintaining to the fullest degree the fine old-time pride 
 of their craft. For sixteen years, however, the mines have been 
 
756 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 in borrasca, and they may never again pay a profit to their 
 owners. Still, with faith and endurance that are sublime, the 
 heroes of the Comstock cling to its fallen fortunes, and continue 
 the search for new bonanzas. 
 
 [EDITORIAL NOTK. The full story of the mines, as illustrated by the great Comstock 
 lode, prepared hy Mr. Sliinn, will constitute the next volume of the Story of the West Series, 
 edited li\ Mi. Uipley Hitchcock, to be published by D. Appleton & Co. in October. Our 
 readers need hardly !u> told that Mr Sliinn hits special qualifications in his familiar acquaint- 
 ance \\ith the suliject and his rare literary skill, which will impart special interest and value 
 to this work | 
 
 A MEASURE OF MENTAL CAPACITY. 
 
 BY DK. EMIL KEAEPEL1N, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AT HEIDELBERG. 
 
 (From an Address delivered in behalf of the Heidelberyer Frauenverein.) 
 
 e able to calculate almost precisely the amount of woi 
 
 given machine as a steam engine or an electitfc-lmnt- 
 ing plan%4i| capable of performing, and the amount of 
 will be revjixed to develop the calculated power. TOnen we 
 come to maiyye are much less certain, although a sMJmil army 
 surgeon can fl^l almost at a glance whether the reoj^cTit standing 
 before him is sVpng enough to meet the requirements of the 
 service, and thereNare machines in the marketMiat will inform 
 us in what time we^an pull a given weigh^to a given height. 
 But we have no meafeire that we can apply to the capacity for 
 mental work, and no utets of mental valuation. The most we 
 can do is to compare the^bitellectuaL/apacity of one man with 
 that of another by the mental results^mey have severally achieved 
 in practice. When we wisn\p te^t the fitness of a candidate for 
 a position of trust or responsibafry, we subject him to an exami- 
 nation, which relates, howeve^ mbstly to what he has learned, 
 and from which we guess/m a rat? indirect way what he may 
 be capable of doing in^ne future, atod with relation to other 
 matters than those onXnich we examineitim ; and the test is very 
 often deceptive : for those who have macte the most brilliant 
 displays in the examination frequently failNn capacity to make 
 practical application of what they have learnHd only theoretic- 
 ally ; or theViail by irregularity, frequent and narked changes 
 in theip disposition to work, want of endurance, orNtoo great de- 
 pendence/^n external conditions, of which the examination gives 
 no prediction. Such efforts as have been made to obvS^te this 
 diffiamty have hitherto failed to meet their object. 
 
 Lt has, however, recently become possible to reach fairly ap- 
 proximate conclusions concerning mental capacity, such as other- 
 
The BEST 
 
 Fe and Endowment Policies 
 
 As well as 
 
 Accident Policies 
 
 In the market 
 are issued by 
 
 TRAVELERS 
 
 OF HARTFORD 
 
 The Best is always the Cheapest 
 Insurance must Insure, or even a 
 Low Price is so much money 
 Thrown Away <* J J* * 
 
 Over Thirty-Two Years of Success 
 Premium Receipts in 1895 nearly 
 FIVE MILLION DOLLARS,* 
 
 }s, ${9,425,000 Surplus, $2,661,000 Paid Policy-Holders over $29,000,000 
 JAMES G. BATTERSON, President. JOHN E. MORR& Ass't Secretary. 
 
 :)SEPti GIUOTT'S NEW PENS. 
 
 ixtra 
 nooth- 
 
 !SS Of 
 
 'oint. 
 
 OAMOKD-STUBI 
 
 |!|tj;u!tP.eg<flgPSiiaii 
 
 1O08 DiAMXDND-STUB. 
 
 SEPHGI 
 
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 1044 BANK PEN. 
 
 1O43 PROBOSCULAR. 
 
 1O47 MULTISCRIPT. 
 
 1O15 VERTICULAR. 
 
 1046 VERTIGRAPH. 
 
 Special 
 
 Ease 
 
 of 
 
 Action. 
 
 <hese pens have the extra smoothness of point, also the special ease and firmness of action required 
 ,ireful business writing, or , for the rapid scribbling of profession^ and literary men. 
 
 ]or fine and extra-fine writing recourse may be had to the Gillott series of pens so long familiar to 
 ]eople : > % % 
 
 i 303/404, 170, 604 E. F., 332, 601 E. F. 
 
 I Pari$ iMedal. Chicago. Award, 
 
 i The Standard Pens of the World. \ 
 
 ohn Street, 
 :w YORK. 
 
 JOSEPH GILLOTT & SONS, 
 
 HENRY HOE, Sole Agent. 
 
Rp Yfo LT 
 
 POWDER 
 
 Saves 
 
 Lafcor, Time, 
 
 Money Makes 
 
 the food more 
 
 delicious and 
 
 wholesome.' 
 
 ABSOLTOLY-PURE- 
 
 L cream of tartar baking powder. Highest of all 
 in leavening strength. Latest United States 
 Government Food Report. 
 
 ROYAL BAKING POWDER Co., NEW YORK. 
 
 IVORY 
 SOAP 
 
 There is a "com- 
 fortable feeling' that 
 comes after a bath 
 with Ivory Soap. 
 
 THE PROCTER & GAMBLE Co., CIN>TI. 
 
 THE 
 
 NUMBER SIX MODEL 
 
 REMINGTON 
 
 Standard* typewriter, 
 
 MANY NOTABLE IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 MATCHLESS CONSTRUCTION. 
 UNEQUALED DURABILITY. 
 UNRIVALED SPEED. 
 
 WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT, 
 
 327 Broadway, New York. 
 
 The Dyspeptic and 
 
 convalescent find in SOMATOSE a 
 tasty, easily digested and nourish- 
 ing food. It never palls on the ap- 
 petite, and rapidly increases weight. 
 
 ofomatoae 
 
 A Perfect Food, Tonic 
 
 and Restorative* 
 
 It is a powder made from the most nour- 
 ishing elements of meat, prepared for the 
 nutriment and stimulus of weak systems. 
 May be taken dry, or in milk, water, etc. 
 
 At druggists, in 2 oz., X, % and i Id. tins. 
 
 Also the following combinations, Somatose-Bis- 
 cuit, Somatose-Cocoa, Somatose-Chocolate each 
 containing 10 per cent. Somatose. Very conven- 
 ient and palatable preparations. 
 
 Pamphlets wailed by Sckieffelin & Ca. t Nev) York, 
 agents for Farbenfabriken vonn. Friedr. Rayer & Co., 
 Elberfeld. 
 
 flTOWTOW^^