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- 



