The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-27 00:00:00

c •

THE GREAT SILVER MINE.

White Pine is likely to proinc,, in the Great
Basn, the state of things which upsA society in
Melbourne. The labourers sent forward to com-
plete the Pacific Railroad desert as fast as for•
warded, so that the demand remains the same ; and
if a work so well organized and paid cannot retain
its hands, no other employment, from the Rocky
Mountains to the Sierra Nevada, can hope to do so.
On the one side, San Francisco is depleted of its
inhabitants ; and on the other, even New York now
begins to fed the drain. Treasure City contained
6,000 people before the snow incite I from the height
whereon it stands, 9,000 feet above the level of the
sea. Mazeppa, close by, is an established and
growing town ; the city of Swansea has commenced,
and Eberhardt has so far ris.m that a man who
invested $750 in it had just sold his interest for
SS,OOO. To understand the present state of attlirs
in Treasure City, the reader must itnag;ue a coa-
grega.iett of unmitigated ruffians, without any re-
straining power but fear, each armed, and with his
pistol loaded in his pocket, his bowie knife at hand.
Picture such an assemblage located on a mine ;
drunkards, gamblers, thieves, extortioners, each a
law unto himself, and kept in check only by the
pistol of his neighbour. An Act has been passed
creating White Pine a County ; the number of law-
abiding citizens will gradually increase, who act
together, while the ruffians are a rope of sand ;
Vigilance Committees will be established, and under
the leadership of some brave and energetic man
Treasure City may soon hope to be an orderly town.
The mountain on which it stands is des-
scribed as similar in formation to Potosi.
Two years ago a starving Indian brought to some
miners, ore, which showed its wealth. On explors
ing, pure silver was found where trees bad fallen
and had been burnt, or where Indians bad lit a fire
on beds of chloride ore, reducing the easily smelted
rock to metal. The great Ebenhardt vein was
next discovered, then the Chloride Flat. The
White Pine News nays :—" The geological forma-
LltAl UL VUU tuvuu Mtn 10 CO -ntetraLie.dide its riches are
rare. It is an isolated peak of fossiliferous lime-
stone, overlaying silurian rocks at a great depth,
and these having a foundation on those of the
primitive age. Into the crevices, caves, and chasms
of the limestone, or in displacements occasioned by
the, action of thermal waters rising from the primi-
tive and silurian rocks, were deposited the lime,
silicia, spar, and ores which now constitute the
mines and veins of the bill. By such process of
change has been formed that singular feature of
mineralogy—fossiliferous quartz. The limestone
has been carried away by the action of the water,
while all its features, the form and character of its
fossils, have been preserved in the obtruding silica.
These crevices, chasms, caves, or displacements are
iu every portion of the hill, and of every size, fn m
' j that of a bull's eye to that of the mammoth chasm
of the Eberhardt, and the continuation of each,
with increasing or varying richness, may be fol-
lowed to an indefinite depth. A body of ore, small
at the surface, may at a greater or less depth ex-
pand to a great size, and vice versa. Such a for-
mation is very advantageous for mining, as the or
arc in vast quantity, pure and rich, and easily
mined. The exhaustion of the bill is almost a
matter of impossibility, and none now living will
see it accomplished. as of the mountain to which
we have compared it, hundreds of years hence w:11
see a prosperous mining community about the sides
and base of Treasure Hill." Two beds of bitumin-
ous shale hare been discovered six miles east of Trea-
sure City, the one 15 feet in thickness, the other 150
' feet, in a country of carboniferous limestone, and
which burns freely. A correspondent who bad
just arrived says that he found the wealth
of the district to be underrated ; indeed, it could
not easily be overrated, and certainly he bears out
this statement by surprising figures.
L IThe following list of returns for the month of December
will servo to show the relative yield of the various mines.
The first column gives the number of tons, the second the
average per ton :

Average
per ton.

Averago

Tons. per ton.
Eberhardt... 470 $774 00 I Eclipse
Keystone ... 80 551 00 I Last Chance 18 313 51
IliddenTrea- Nlontgomery 17 323 52
sure 80 337 00 Robert Em-
Snowdrop... 8 5.17 61 I inett
Aurorallorth 4 51(1 Gil Empire
Stonewall... GS 4'll 60

172 837 57
4 1,007 :17

The on is reduce I at a cist of from $6 to $7O a
ton. Notwithstanding that the district hes at-
tracted miners from every direction, fi orn the Ccm-
stock lode, the richest mines of Neva la, from Mexico,

from California, they all appear astounded at the
wealth cf the ore, and the ease with which it is
worked. Already neatly 100 companies have bee-t
organized ; 9 mills are in operation ; wages are £l.
a day of eight hours, but no men work for others
except when pressed for money to carry on their
own operations. English miners, young, healthy,
and fearless, might push their fortunes there, and
it would be worth the while of a Cornish family to
combine to send one of its members to try his for-
tune, and report for his fellows.
A recent traveller thus narrates his experiences :
—" At one station the party halted for a square
meal. There was a tent, and in it a huge kettle of
coffee and a camp oven. After waiting a few
minutes, the landlord came to the door and snapped
out, " room for four." Our informant went in with
three other men and they knelt around a fiat box,
which the hotel keeper had turned down on the
ground. On the top were four basins of strong
coffee, and by each dirty tin was a dirty black bis-
cuit and an egg. The coffee and eggs were good,
and the biscuits were good on the outside, that is,
the eater had to choose between two evils—dirt
over the top crust, dough under it. Each loaf was
like a cream cake, perfectly soft inside. Thehungry
men took off the crust and after blowing, scraping,
and rubbing it to remove the alluvial deposits, put it
down with a gusto and torrents of strong coffee.
The inside masses of dough were left by each man's
basin. When the men had finished their meal, and
while they were yet kneeling, the host put his soot-
begrimtued and greasy hand over the box and spoke
again, " Four dollar." He was paid. Plump went
the silver into his pouchy pocket, and pop went the
four masses of dough back into the oven. As soon
as a new crust was baked over them, eggs cooked
and the basins refilled with coffee, four more hungry
men knelt down, ate off the crust, rejected the rest
of the dough for another baking, and paid their
dollar each for the meal. It was calculated that
one more stage load of customers would finish the
biscuits and put the landlord to the trouble of
kneading a new batch."

In Senator Wilson's reply to Senator Sprague in
discussing the lot of working mon, 113 said :—" In the
winter of 1836, when I came of ago, I hired myself
for one month to a farmer of my native town. I went
into the forests, drove teams, chopped wood and timber,
working at least 14 hours daily. For this work I re-
ceived the enormous sum of $6 in cash. I then thought I
was quite fortunate to get $5 in money for that month's
hard toil. The wages of labour have increased in that
region in New England since that day three or four fold."
General Webb, the new military commander in
Virginia, is a sou of James Watson Webb. During the
war he was General licado's chief of stuff a portion of the

time.
Captain Qualey, of the American packetehip
Harpsworth lost at sea Feb. 14th on the coast of Po rtu gal,
arrived at New York, April 6, on board the steamer Ville
de Paris, from Brest. The crew were taken off by the
A. C. Carroll, of New York, and carried to Lisbon.
Charles E. Thompson alias Bullard, and Isaac
C. Morton alias Marsh, the robbers of the Merchants'
Union Express Company, have escaped from the gaol at
White Plains. Charles Lester and James Lewis, burglars,
improved th occasion, as the gaol had boon opened for the
others to walk oat also. .Brooks and thine, the
m
Broadhead
murderers, escaped from a Pennsylvanian gaol, but Ore
was recaptured.
The only son of Commodore Livingstone, U.S.N.,
died at Brut.swick, Germany, last week, of apopl,xy, to.
suiting fro:n the effects of a sore tlit oat. Ho was thee° for
the purpose of studying German, and was attended in his
last mo:uents by his cousin, J. L. Tappan. His body was
sent to America for burial, This is a severe affliction to
Commodore Livingston, whom so many Americans had
the pleasure of becoming acquainted with last summer on
the Continent.
])UNVILLE and Co., Be,eeset
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preference
so.mr e the
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holders of Whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whisky is re •
in
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