The Placer herald., 1864-03-26
NEVADA IN NEW YORK

In letter to Wilkes Spirit of the Times
the talented and versatile Kingston, poet, au
thor, and business agent for Arlemus Ward
gives his impressions in brief of Washoe the
land OF Silver and Sage Brush:
Behind me, to the West, is California;
! Before me, to the East, is Utah. On my
right, is New Mexico; and on my left Ore
gon, Virginia, city is the commercial capital
of Nevada. Carson city, eighteen miles of,
is the political capital. Nevada is badly
named. 1t should have been Argentina,
Dollaraska or Silver Land; for it is the great
silver mine OF America Plethoric with the
stuff of which dollars are made, and reekine
with uuconed quarters, halves and ten cent
pieces, to look at it, it is the most cheerless
dreary, despicable conglomeration of noun.
tain, desert, sand and rock which ever as
pired to the dignity Of being called "earlh. y
Remember, that no tree grows on the soil
and no flower blooms amidst its desoation
Grass cant grow, singing birds won't come,
pigs cant get their own living, and worms
can't find enough mud to live in; vet the
land is filthy with silver, and destined to be
the site OF great cities. This Virginia city,
from which | write, is situated on the side
of Mount Davidson. The mountain is 5000
feet high, and Virginia city is hooked onto
It's side, at an altitude Of 1900 feet No two
streets are on the same level. The back
doors Of the houses on G street opening on
the roofs Of the houses on ID street. Four
years ago there was not hut, where now
stands city of 1000 people; city which
has three tine churches, An opera house, q
music hall, four or five hotels, and magni
ticent bar room kept 10y Messrs. Wood q Co.
furnished with marble mautles, mahogan,
desks for frequenters to write on, painting,
from Italy, and files OF newspapers from ev
cry part of the States. Silver has built uI
this extraordinary city, and silver will ye,
rear for it many palatial dome. Standing
on Mount Davidson, the sight is magnificent:
half way down is Virginia City, lower down
is the twenty six mile desert" Further
away, and in the distance, on every side are
mountains in endless masses, many of them
snow covered, but all of them treeless, crag-
gy grim and grand. Winding between those
dreary hills is the road to Salt Lake City,
along which, in few days, | shall have to
travel. No nightingaes will sing to me on
the way, no locusts will chirrup in the
grass, nor any buIl-frogs grunt me sautations
from the ponds, simply because the ponds
are too alkaline for any reptile, not IRON
plated, to exist in; the grass don't grow; nor
the grasshoppers either; and the nghtngales
don't sing, because they have no boughs to
sit on to sing from, nothing to sing about
and finally, there are no nightingales. But
| will tell what there are. Looking around
from this altitude the eye discovers, in every
direction, heaps of recently excavated blue
earth, piles Of argentiferous quartz, wooden
shanties built over the entrance to quartz
mines, tunnels perforating the sides of the
hills, railways for transporting the silver
ore, and huge workshops for extracting, puri,
flying, and refining the precious metal. Then
there floats up to the ear the sound of innu
merable stampers, punchers and crushers,
stamping, pounding, punching, cracking
crushing, banging, smiting and smashing the
silver quartz increasingly day and night, on
Sundays and all other days The wealth
smashed out of the earth in twenty four hours
is something enormous in its amount. A
visit to Wells Fargos Express office in the
morning is goo for the weak eyes of New
Yorker, who has seen no description of
money latel y except greenbacks. He will
see at the express Office huge bricks of silver;
the whole office strewn with them. Square
and oblong chunks of uncreated dollars
make floor to dance upon. And they
throw them into the wagon as irreverently
as though they wore but bricks of common
clay! They won't even give me twenty OF
them. How happy twenty of them would
make me! patled one of them affection
ately yesterday morning. 1t was stamped
"Silver, $1,000; Gold S497. They allowed
me to handle it and play with it, but though
looked imploriugly they would not let me
take it under my protection. can't tell
you how much bullion is extracted from the
earth every day, taking all the mines togeth-
er; but this can tell you, that one mine
aIone-that Of "Ihe Gould and Curry Com
pany" takes out of the rock $4,000 daily
and employs directly and indirectly up
wards of 10000 persons. Virginia City is
a gay young place. Its saloons, billiard
rooms, hurdy,gurdy dance-houses, and lagre-
beer with-pretty waiter girls-cellars are with
out number.