606 



NEVADA. 



"for the purpose of enabling _ the State to 

 transact business on a cash basis from its or- 

 ganization, the State may contract public debts; 

 but such debts shall never in the aggregate, 

 exclusive of interest, exceed the sum of three 

 hundred thousand dollars, except for the pur- 

 pose of defraying extraordinary expenses, such 

 as would be necessary in time of war or insur- 

 rection." Under this provision it is con- 

 tended that, as the State debt already exceeds 

 the limit allowed, no more money can be raised 

 by loan until the present indebtedness is re- 

 duced, and that the expenses of the next fiscal 

 year will have to be met by taxation. 



Her silver mines still continue to be the great 

 source of wealth, to Nevada ; and notwithstand- 

 ing several districts have enjoyed an ephemeral 

 notoriety, the " Washoe " region still maintains 

 its preeminence, and will, in all probability, do 

 so for many years to come. The following 

 table shows the average monthly production of 

 the four principal mining centres of Nevada, 

 during the first nine months of 1865 : 



Washoe (Virginia and Gold Hill Districts) $1,286,275 



Austin (Reese River District) 75,000 



Aurora (Ksmeralda District) 19,000 



Union ville (Humboldt District) 1,282 



Total monthly average 11,881,557 



Of this amount by far the greater part comes 

 from the celebrated Comstock lode, near the 

 town of Virginia, in Western Nevada, which 

 may be described as a ledge of ore running 

 along the mountain side for three miles, and 

 having a width of from fifty to one hundred 

 feet, and a depth at present incalculable. 

 Over thirty companies, formed principally 

 by Eastern capital, were at work on this 

 ledge in 1865, but so variable is the soil in 

 mineral richness that probably not half of them 

 have paid dividends. One company has spent 

 already a million of dollars, without striking a 

 bed of "pay ore," that is, ore rich enough to 

 pay for mining. The success of other com- 

 panies, again, has been of the most remarkable 

 character. The Gould & Curry, whicb is the 

 largest and most famous enterprise on the Com- 

 stock ledge, has mined to the depth of eight 

 hundred feet, excavated five millions of cubic 

 feet of earth, and produced twelve millions 

 of bullion, of which four millions were clear 

 profit. It is said that, but for extravagance in 

 the management and the necessity of expensive 

 experiments, the net profits would have reached 

 six millions. This company has now more 

 than two miles of underground passages, and 

 has consumed more lumber to brace up the 

 walls of its tunnels than the entire town of 

 Virginia, containing from ten to twelve thou- 

 sand inhabitants, has used for all its buildings. 

 In May, 1865, for the first time since the dis- 

 covery of the Comstock lode in 1859, its an- 

 nual production began to diminish, and so ma- 

 terially to diminish, that fears are entertained 

 lest the mines may be giving out and fail to 

 pay expenses. That these fears are not with- 

 out some foundation will appear from the fol- 



lowing table, showing the approximate yield 

 of these mines during the first nine months of 

 1865: 



Pounds Avoirdupois. Value. 



January 54,1 23 



February 59,106 ...$4,434,669 



March 64.737 



April 61,179 



May 58,453 ...$4,261,811 



June 49.979 



July 41.526) 



August 44,927 V... $3,221.951 



September 40,278 j 



In nearly every mine on the ridge the lower 

 workings now show ore which is of inferior 

 quality and much less in quantity to what the 

 upper levels have produced; and it becomes 

 interesting to ascertain the practicability of 

 continuing the excavations already commenced, 

 with a view of finding new and valuable de- 

 posits of ore at a much lower depth. On this 

 point the opinion of William Ashburner, Min- 

 eralogist of the California State Geological 

 Survey, is worth quoting. "It is now," he 

 iys, "an accepted conclusion by all those per- 

 sons who have examined the matter carefully, 

 and have had the most experience in geological 

 as well as in genera* mining matters, that the 

 Comstock is a fissure vein of extraordinary 

 width and productiveness, and, consequently, 

 reasoning from analogy, we have great right to 

 assume that ore exists and will ultimately be 

 found at as great a depth as it is possible to 

 extend underground workings. In fact, there 

 is no instance where a well-defined fissure vein 

 has been found terminating entirely in depth ; 

 and although nothing is more frequent in the 

 progress of working than to meet with barren 

 zones of unproductive matter, their metalliferous 

 contents have never been exhausted at any 

 depth which has yet been obtained by mining. 

 The limit to the successful working of one of 

 these veins appears to be fixed entirely by the 

 increased cost of extraction of the ore, and 

 pumping the water from the lower levels, and 

 consequent reduction of the profits. There is 

 a point, of course, where, in the absence of new 

 discoveries of increased value, the receipts will 

 exactly counterbalance the expenses of work- 

 ing, and then soon these latter will exceed the 

 former." * * * " As a general thing, these 

 mines have been worked heretofore, not so 

 much with reference to the permanent inter- 

 ests of the stockholders, as for the purpose of 

 raising the market value of the stock. With 

 this view, it has frequently happened that cir- 

 cumstances deeply affecting the interests of the 

 mines have been concealed from the public, 

 and the policy has hitherto been to increase 

 the production as largely as possible, in order 

 to enable certain persons to realize immediately 

 great profits from the sale of their stock, rat In. T 

 than await the slower and perhaps more haz- 

 ardous returns which it was expected would l>c 

 afforded by the dividends. This is the only 

 excuse, or rather reason, why, in the midst 

 of mines yielding so enormously, no proportion 

 of the gain in their more prosperous days was 



