The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1872-12-21
Line to the Colorado.

ture, manufacture nor mining can be car
| ried on prosperously without the moving
| power of the iron horse. The grain of
the Northwest and the fabrics of New
England are now made profitable to the
proeucer by the facilities provided for
carriage TO the great markets of the COM
mercial world. A belt of fifty miles
f~ringing the track on either side is made
to glow with prosperity. Outside of that
belt all labor is burdened with an incu-
bus which paralyzes the arm of creative
industry.
4 glance over the vast fields of the
Great Basin, reveals the fact that no
mines are proftably wrought except
those of the free ores. These ores, it is
well known, nre exceptional, and that
the augue of base metals of copper,
lead, anthony and other constituents,
in combination with silver and gold,
make up more than ten to one of the me-
talic veins of the mining empire West of
the Rocky Mountains. Eureka stands
almost alone as a producer of base bull
lion in this State and its history DEM
onstrates that even at 80 miles from
railroad, its business is rendered almost
proftless, although affording masses of
base ores of great comparative wealth.
Cheap fuel for reduction, and cheap IA
~cilities for the evacuation of the more
ponderous bullion product, are the means
absolutely indispensable to success in
this business. That district Is the repre-
sentative of hundreds of discoveries per-
meating the chains witch traverse the
State in parallels from the Central Pa
ciic to the borders of the Colorado, and
which measure in fold on mountain fold
from the Toyabe Range to the bounda-
ries of Utah. Something to make prac-
ticable the working of these vast treas
ures which dot the country like the
| thousand Islards of the st. Lawrence, is
the desideratum ordained by memorable
laws, and that something is realized by
experience to be the power of transit
afforded by the locomotive. Were CAPT
tai ready under an intelligent syndicate,
to select at once the points of mining en-
terprise over this field and at the same
time to give its productions "a capable
railroad communication with the centers
of commerce, it would be found that
more than one route should be based at
the Central Pacific, to conyirge toward
the head of navigation on the waters
which empty into the Gulf of California.
So far as developments have been actual
ly made, the exigency for a line which
would give facilities to the Diamond
Range, Eureka, White Pine, Troy, Fret
berg, TEN Piute, Groom, Patterson,
Cave, Bristol and Ely Mining Districts,
would be first appreciated. The center
of this belt would be IA line striking
through from a point between Palisade
and Elko, running southwark through
Railroad valley, detected to the eastward
below or near Troy, through the passes
in the White Pine Range. This was the
route marked out by Lieut.. Wheeler in
his Typographical reconnaissance of 1869,
made with a special eye to railroad con
n%ection, and reported to the United
States Government. Early after this
survey had been made, acting upon the
suggestion, charters were granted by oul
Legislature, designed to encourage the
construction of sections of Narrow-Guagc
upon the line. 1t has been said that the
grantees OF the franchise from Elko tC
Hamilton have displayed n want of st
gacity, or that disinterestedness which
was essential to the building of the road
That the men who received this grant
were not of financial ability, of them
selves, to complete the work, was wei
understood. 1t is further said that had
they regarded themselves simply as trus-
tees of the public, prepared to transfer
the franchise to capitalists, who would
give guarantees for its completion, that
the road would have been a fact accom-
plished by this time, and that White
Pine and the adjacent country would
have rejoiced in active industrial bust
ness, the momentum given to the latent
capabilities of the country.