180 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



mines in the region east of the Sierra Nevada, naming them in the order 

 of their discovery, are the Esmeralda mines, a little over one hundred 

 miles south-southeast of Virginia City; the Humboldt, one hundred and 

 sixt}^ miles northeast; the Silver Mountain, sixty miles south ; the Pea- 

 vine District, thirty miles north; and the Reese River country, one hun- 

 dred and seventy miles east-northeast, embracing, like the other sections 

 named, many districts, and flanked by two of more than ordinary prom- 

 ise — the Cortez, seventy miles north, and the San Antonio, one hundred 

 miles south of Austin, now the principal town in the Reese River region. 

 Besides these, there are many other isolated districts in various parts of 

 the country, all advancing claims to great mineral wealth, and perhaps 

 none the less meritorious from having been less talked about than the 

 others. Thus there is a cordon of districts about Virginia, numbering a 

 score or more within a circuit of as manj r miles, each containing nume- 

 rous ledges impregnated more or less with the precious metals, and upon 

 which a large amount of work in the aggregate has been done. 



Lying south of Virginia, and extending from the Town of Gold Hill 

 to Carson River, a distance of eight miles, is a tract of country embrac- 

 ing the Gold Hill, Devil's Gate, and Sulphur Spring Districts, containing 

 a multitude of ledges, manj^ of them lai'ge and exhibiting fair prospects 

 in the outcrop, and upon which a vast amount of work has been done, 

 operations having been commenced upon some of them in the fall of 

 eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, and continued steadily ever since. Here 

 are scores of tunnels, some of them more than two thousand feet long, 

 and shafts without number, varying in depth from fifty to three hundred 

 feet. 



Within this tract, large enough for two or three good sized townships, 

 there is hardly a square mile but has its work of this kind, while in some 

 sections every acre contains its shaft, tunnel, incline, open cut, or other 

 monument of the laborious enterprise of the hardy and industrious 

 miner. In some instances these works are executed by companies, in 

 others by individuals, and frequently by persons who, having nothing 

 to invest but their own labor, have themselves toiled incessantly for 

 years, engaging in other pursuits only long enough to earn sufficient to 

 support them meantime. After being prosecuted for a few months, 

 most of these works were suspended, and in many cases entirely aban- 

 doned — the ledges not turning out, so far as explored, according to 

 expectation. Subsequently many of them were resumed, and for the 

 past eighteen months have been pushed vigorously, the success of a few 

 demonstrating that the pay ores throughout this region lay far beneath 

 the surface ; and the theory is now held that only great depth is required 

 to establish for these districts a verv general success. However this 

 may be, certain it is, the opinion is supported by a number of practical 

 tests, while a few have tended to establish an opposite conclusion. 

 From some of these ledges considerable quantities of pay ore of a me- 

 dium quality are now being raised, while others promise soon to con- 

 tribute their quota. Several mills on Gold Canon and Carson River are 

 now running upon it Avith results satisfactory to parties concerned^ 



"What has been said of the three districts above mentioned might 

 aptly be applied to several others in the vicinity of Virginia City, as, for 

 cxamjjlc, the Flowery, a few miles east, in which several small mills have 

 been running, in good part on rock procured in the neighborhood, and 

 where recent developments would seem to show that only depth is 

 required to justify the reputation that attached to certain ledges in that 

 district at an early day. 



