Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1863-12-10
Gold Hill.

Those who dwell in other lands, and who,
when they hear of the mines of Washoe,''
picture to themselves a limited ledge of rock,
yclept the Comstock lead, and one or two
mills owned by the Gould Il Curry and Ophir
Companies, which Ross Browne and kindred
writers have taught them to believe conSti-
tute the sum total of the argentifcrous region
have but a faint idea of Silverland. Such
a one should stand any pleasant day upon
the dividing ridge between Virginia and Gold
Hill, and turn his back upon the former
already great pile Of brick and mortar, its
stately buildings and its tens Of thousands of
busy men, its immense warehouses, its busy
workshops, its mills and its mining works
built, and maintained, and building, and
growing every day and hour, from the wealth
daily and hourly delved from the bowels OF
the mighty mountain side on which it stands.
With all this wealth and busy din behind
him, he should gaze down the rugged noun
tain gorge, along the bed of which is built
the town of Gold Hill. On his right hand
rises far above his head the lofty fierce-looking
crag tina. gives its name to the Town, and
along the side of which and down through
the canon farther than his eye can reach,
rise the black and smoking tunnels of count
less, roaring, rattling, laundering mills and
hoistiug works. Into the sides of these hills
for miles and miles are sunk and driven, and
while one gazes, are still being sunk and
driven, hundreds upon hundreds of shafts
and tunnels, the gaping mouths of which
fairly honeycomb the rough noun tain sides
and out of which every moment is rushing
carload after carload of clay, or granite or
siIver-bearing rock, which is hurled crashing
down the " dumps" All day long from these
dumps, hundreds of teams are hauling their
thousands of tons of rock down through the
steep main street Of the Town to the almost
numberless mills. All day long, and all
night long, these mills keep up their steady
rumbling, roaring, and Gathering, as they
crush the hard rock beneath their ponderous
stamps, grind it into powder, mix and puddle
it in the pans, and drive it through process
after process, until it finally yields up tic
glittering wealth, which is the aim and con-
sequence of all this noise and turmoil, this
din and toll. All day and all night they run,
ever and anon sending forth from brazen
throats, with scalding breath, the unearthly
wells that call from refreshment to labor, and
from labor to refreshment, the toiling swarmS
of men, who, in alternating shifts, BY day and
BY night, dig and delve and drive these caverns
deeper and deeper in the hills, with pick and
sledge and drill, and heavy booming blasts,
that shake the hills and jar the walls of the
town above them. These are the sights, and
these the sounds that would aStonish the
eyes and ears of those who sit in their easy
chairs in the Atlantic and Pacific towns and
cities, and as they read of WaShoe, imagine
a barren mountain side, with two holes
punched in it-one marked " Gould & Curry"
and the other "Ophir," with Ross Browne
sitting on the back of another donkey, taking
"peeps" at the same time through pair OF
greeR goggles. |