CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE LODE. 



Condition of the Lode. — Duriiig tlic peHod ill which the field-work for this 

 report was done the condition of the Comstock was not flourishing. The 

 last remunerative ore from the neighborhood of the great Consolidated Vir- 

 ginia and California bonanza was extracted while the examination was going 

 on, and no other body of similar importance had been discovered. In the 

 course of the time covered by the stoping of the great bonanza several small 

 bodies were discovered in the Sierra and Union ground. These, however, 

 were speedily worked out. The old workings were, with few exceptions, 

 inaccessible, and the exposures of the vein were meager and unsatisfactory. 

 The study was therefore necessarily rather, one of the conditions of the 

 occurrence of the great Lode than of the vein phenomena in detail. For- 

 tunately, the attention of previous investigators took the opposite direction, 

 and the vein has been amply and ably described as far down as the large 

 ore bodies extend. Aided by former descriptions and some few notes 

 and recollections of visits made when several of the most important bonanzas 

 were yielding largely, I am able to give a succinct account of the occur- 

 rence of ore on the Comstock, and to show to what extent the facts and 

 theories developed in the foregoing chapters throw light on the structure 

 observed in the upper portion of the Lode, as well as upon the probable 

 character of the regions below those as yet explored. 



General outline. — Tlic surfacc map, Atlas-shcet IV., shows a plan of tlie 

 Comstock as it would appear if the debris and talus were removed.^ The 

 main body of the Lode is a belt of quartz and vein matter 10,000 feet long 

 and several hundred feet broad, showing slight undulations in its course, 



' The scale of the surface map is too small to show some of the minor irregularities iu the walls 

 which may he seeu iu some of Mr. King's horizontal sections, or the outlines of the horses. 

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