The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-26 00:00:00

The Silver Mines of Nevada.

Beyond a passing notice or a stray paragraph taken
from some American newspaper, the English public have
learnt little from the press, and necessarily not much
from any other source of the surprising wealth of the re-
cently discovered silver region of the State of Nevada; and
yet this district which was unsettled and almost unknown five
short years ago, and is yet in an undeveloped state, has
added to the wealth of the world more than £20,000,000
worth of silver, and is now exporting annually an amount
of bar silver equal in value to that produced by all the other
silver mines in the world. Surprising as this statement
may appear, a comparison of the mining statistics wil
prove its correctness. The news of the discovery of gold
in California created an excitement which reached every
obscure village in Europe, while the tidings that certain
parts of Australia were auriferous induced tens of thou-
sands to undertake a long and perilous voyage to a coun-
try then scarcely known ; but Nevada, which is already
eclipsing in mining value both these great gold-producing
countries, has grown rapidly but silently, and almost un-
consciously, into a position of so great importance that her
fame cannot much longer be hushed. Perhaps it was that
the rear of battle and the clash of arms in the conflicts of
the two great contending armies so riveted the attention
and deafened our ears that we did not care to learn of the
important though bloodless victories which a few hundred
mining pioneers were achieving in their contest with nature
in the western wilderness. The argentiferous region of Ne-
vada is a great rocky desert stretching from the fertile valleys
and plains of California to the grassy prairies which ter-
minate in Utah. On the desolate mountains and parched
plains of this district is found no green thing to delight
the eye except the monotonous grey sage bush and the
stunted pine. Here Nature would seem to have erected a
barrier to man's further westward progress. On every
side are plain evidences of volcanic convulsions, salt de-
posits in the crevices of rocks, croppings of granite, with
admixture of sulphur, and in some parts warm springs.
The "Great Salt Lake," on which the Mormons have
most easterly indication of thainsdeexutpepnesirvuerve.olcTanhiec
srue
chosen to locate their " Promised Land," is perhaps the
and
thereabounds in is
every
vo r , reasongo tod believe that the whole terri-
tory , gb
nc
t
of this article is, however, the argentiferous part of Nevada,
which extends from the eastern slope of the "Sierra
Nevadas " to the last of the parallel ranges of mountains
that run from north to south, intersecting the western
part of the state, and which are known as the Toiyalie
range, and stretching from 36 deg. to 41 deg. north lati-
tude. This region, which a few years ago was known only
to the intrepid hunter as the refuge of the grizzly
bear, and was from its sterility and want of game
even avoided by the nomadic aborigines, exported in the
year 1864 no less than $30,000,000, or .£6,000,000 worth of
silver, while in the year 1865 the returns will show, it is
expected, much in excess of the previous year. These re-
sults have been obtained almost without the aid of any
capital or labor, except what could be drawn from the
adjacent prosperous State of California; and, though more
latterly, since the close of the war, the bankers and the
capitalists of New York and other eastern cities have in-
vested largely, thus enabling the minors to obtain im-
proved machinery, yet this movement is so recent that
the result is scarcely seen in the present returns, but will
be unmistakably shown in those of the next and following
years. Villages, towns, and cities have sprung up as if
by magic, and order is as firmly established and law as
much respected as in the older settled States of the At-
lantic seaboard. This mining territory embraces the
" Washoe" or Virginia District on the west, containing the
first discovered and most thoroughly developed mines,
among which is "the Gould and Curry," that has already
produced:£3,soo,ooo of silver; the "Reese River District,"
on the east, which has narrower but richer veins or lodes
than the Washoe, but has not been fully prospected ; the
" Great Basin District," to the south, and the "Humboldt"
to, the north of the Reese River, of which district they
are, in fact, continuations, but show wider veins. There
are also an innumerable number of other small districts of
rapidly increasing importance. In the Washoe District
the silver is generally found in a native metallic state,
granulated in quartz, while in the eastern districts the vein
rock above water level shows stronger evidences of vol-
canic agencies, and contain oxides and carbonets of the
base metals, with chlorides, bromides, and iodides of silver,
generally known as "chloride ores," while below water
level are found rich sulphuretted silver ores (antimonial and
arsenical), the general term for which is " ruby ores;"
both aro easily reducible by crushing, roasting, and amal-
gamating, and the silver obtained is of remarkable
purity. Owing to the difficulties of transit on the
mountainous roads, and from the fact that the Washoe
District is only about 200 from Sacramento, the
capital of California, whence tools and machinery must be
obtained, while Reese River and branches are about 400
miles from this centre, Vac cost per ton for mining and re-
ducing ores at Washoe is only about £5, while in the
eastern districts it reaches £8 to £lO. The means of com-
munication are, however, improving, and it is expected
that the western arm of the Pacific Railroad, which is to
unite the towns of Eastern Nevada with San Francisco, will
be finished during the present year, while a few years more
years will witness the completion of the eastern arm of this
railroad, and will place the mining districts of the west
within five days of the Atlantic seaboard. At the present
the carriage of silver bars from the mines and of machinery
to the mines in eastern Nevada amounts to about five-
pence per lb., a sum which, though insignificant when
compared with the value of the silver bars, is often suffi-
cient to double the cost of machinery. A favourable fea-
ture is that the roads by which the silver is transmitted
are so safe that bars for. San Francisco can be insured for
a half per cent. Agents of San Francisco bullion dealers
are also always ready to purchase at the mines. It is well
to bear in mind that the cost of working the ores is steadily
Idiminishing as improved methods are adopted and more