Ixiv INTEODUCTION. 



commnnities of Mormons from Salt Lake City, wlio are all 

 agriculturists, and notliing else. 



If, however, the Great Basin had only these attractions 

 to hold out to emigrants, it would be a region of as little 

 interest as any on the globe; but amongst these baiTcn, 

 monotonous ranges lie the yast deposits of silver ore whicli, 

 since the discovery of the Comstock lode, have been foimd to 

 be scattered throughout the entire region. The lode just 

 named has yielded, in the four years ending April 1st, 18G6, 

 51,380,500 dollars, or upwards of £11,000,000 sterling. Its 

 present annual yield is about 600,000 pounds avoirdupois of 

 silver (containing more or less gold), worth about £4,000,000 

 sterling, a yield which exceeds the present yearly total of all 

 the silver mines in Mexico. One mine company alone — tlie 

 Savage — during 1867 paid in dividends a larger sum tlian 

 that derived from all the metallic mines of England and 

 Wales put together. Any day we may hear of another 

 " Veta Madrc " (as the Mexicans call one of these wide m^ 

 veins) being discovered, for by far the greater part of tlie 

 basin is as yet quite unknown, even to the indefatigable 

 prospectors, who brave all privations in the search for the 

 precious metals. Mr. Eoss Brown, in his last Keport on 

 mining operations in the districts west of the Mississippi) 

 gives the total yields of the gold-fields of California, for 

 the year 1867, at the small sum of 25,000,000 dollars, 

 while that of Nevada is 20,000,000 dollars, of which the 

 Comstock lode furnished about 14,500,000 dollars, thus 

 leading the large amount of over 5,000,000 dollars as the 

 yield of the newly-discovered districts. 



Enough, however, has been said to give a general idea^ of 

 the Great Basin, so we shall leave the fui-thcr consideration 

 of this subject, and of the probable results to be expected 



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