The Nevada Democrat., 1860-12-20
Nerada aemutrat.
STARR KINGS VISIT TO NEVADA.
[From the Boston Transcript

DEAR TRANsCRIPT:--Nevadal lies 1900 feet
above the sea, on the first slope of the Sier-
ras. 1t is bright, CHEEKY, stirring place,
with more conspicuous and brilliant adver-
tising on its shop-fronts and awnings than
have seen anywhere in the State, and a
more decided stell.trap air about all the
movements OF the population. Two things
| was especially impressed with on the first
night of my visit,--the marvellous beauty
OF the clear western evening sky after sun
set, and the energy of chorus of frogs
near the lecture room. They must have
been under good drill by some leader, for
they kept up an incessant, ryhthmcal, and
even concert for half an hour after the lec-
ture commenced, and at precisely o'clock
they all stopped as suddenly as the orches-
ira does after that furious burst aud thump
in Hayden's Surprise Symphony" Not
another croak was heard during the evening.
The same phenomenon was repeated the
next evening at the second lecture, and de-
serves to be inquired into as an illustration
Of the claws OF Disorder"
The loveliness of the twilight and NOR
ming skies arrested my attention particu-
larly, because they were the first revela-
tons to me of any peculiar translucence
and charm Of atmosphere IN :be State.
have often heard San Franci-eaus at the
East boast of The far greater clearness Of
their skies and air, contrasted with Boston
and New England. Ifmy senses are trusty
judging by five months Of the sumner, this
is all brag and folly. The summer etmos-
phere in San Francisco is peculiarly hazy,
Opaque and unfavorable for distant seeing
There have not been FIVE days in five months
when the Pacific could have been seen from
the top of Mount Diablo, twenty-five miles,
airline; and clear sunset and lovely twi-
light we rarely know. on account Of after
noon fog What the winter airs and nights
may be | don't know, and certainly don't
trust what anybody tells me; but that pure,
soft, transparent blue that hung oeer Neva-
da, holding new moon whose silver edge
seemed twice as wide as had ever noticed
it before, and not bard either, bat lsmbeut,
was the first revelation to me here Of any
sky clearer, loveler in hue, mere poetic,
than those of the New England coast,
The great interest of Nevada, town and
county, is mining. One can see in the neigh
borhood of the town, within a compass Of
two or three miles, all the operations and
methods of mining which the State has ever
seen. Cinnamon may be found prospect
ing" or working over the "leavings" OF for
mer parties. with the pick and pan, and
some with the "cradle," which was the first
advance on the pan-method. Near by, we
can discover Americans working with the
"long TOM" the next triumph of mining en-
terprise. This is an oblong trough of wood
with perforated sheet iron bottom at the
lower end, beneath which is q rlille-boX.
Dirt is shovelled into the trough at the up
per end, and washed down 10 the lower part
by water where man stands who stirs it
brskly over the perforated iron, that the
precious yellow particles may he sure to
tiud their way by gravitation into the trap
of the riffle-box underneath. "Sluicing,"
which is method Of washing out much
larger amount of dirt, quickly succeeded
the "long tom," and that has been left be-
hind in Importance by the process Of tuu-
nelling, shafting, river.fuming, gulching,
crushing and hydraulic tearing, by which
now the soil, the rock, the beds of powerful
streams, and the hidden strata of noun
tain's heart, are made to yield the shining
dust that was mixed with them, ages ago.
What would the early miners who made
easily their five hundred dollars a month,
net, nave LnOuRnblI Tue cUanReS vi teH VI
eleven years had been foretold to themY II
they could have forseen that surface dig
gings we're to be superseded by subterrane-
an searches, and that instead Of depending
on personal energy and luck the whole
business was so soon to pass iato TIE do
minion of capital and costly machinery,
Systematically working large and moderate
ly lucrative claims in gravel and quartz!
What would the first adven turers, who
found themselves so cramped by the search
ty of water in the long rainless season, have
thought if they we're told that IN 1860 there
would be over seven thousand miles Of arti-
ficial water courses in the State, tapping
the unfailing sources of the rivers In the
heart of the Serras, and at an expense of
nearly fifteen millions Of dollars, carrying
the indispensable flood into the heart of
thousand mining districts. over obstacles
that look unconquerable? Everywbere in
the interior counties we see these acque-
ducts which have been engineered ard built
with energy and speed that can hardly be
accounted for even by the enormous profits
which many of them pay. Without thea the
gold product of the State must have fallen,
during the last ten years, to less than half
its pfeee Mt amount.