Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-21
COMSTOCk MYSTERIES.
How Twelve-Inch Timbers Are Com
pressed Into Walking Noun
tain That is Travelling Eastward -
Virginia City Going Slowly Downhill.

- A"S1tc-1ASh
pressed Into Walking Sticks-A Noun
tain That is Travelling Eastward -
San Francisco Examiner: There are
many strange things connected with the
Comstock mires,' said an old resident OF
Virginia City yesterday. You must recol-
lect that " lille the main workings extend
from the north OF Gold Hill to Virginia,
and below, a distance of three miles, there
is a total of 252 miles OF tunnels, drifts
slopes, quips and turns, making up the in
terror workings as a total. Think OF it
252 miles; further by far than from the
Golden Gate to the Nevada line and
further than across the great state OF New
York. Why, look around you a little.
You might go as far from Washington, d.
c., as to Baltimore and back again and
you wouldn't be much more than half
through the Comstock. Then when you
think Of the great
DEPTH OF THESE MINES,
the gigantic, incomprehens:bIe weight OF the
mass resting upon the timbers, and the
CrdNtlllS mOuu-diu III "HlCA dIC bACoS
MINES and on which is Virginia City, you
involve propositions again that I'VE
stumped the deepest thinkers. For in
stance, queer polished sticks as smooth as
mahogany and no thicker than my cape
are every once n a while being taken out OF
the old workings. They are as bare and
as heavy as iron, and a knife will no. make
a mark Oh them. Now, what are they?
Originally they were twelve-inch timbers,
and the millions of tons bearing upon
them in all directions, perpeadicuiarly DIS
we'll as lattrally-fur it is only in this way
tn It mines can be timbertd-have pressed
them to this shape. They are found
SOMETIMES IN BITS
sometimes in long pieces, taken out where
caves have occurred and the workings dis
placed. No known mechanism at present
nor in any age OF the past, SO far as his
tory recounts, has power to compress and
work marvels with wood. The silent old
mine has stumped the scientist. YOn have
asked me if it is really true that Mount
Davidson is slowly travelling eastward,
with the town OF Virginia on its back and
her mines within. 1t is true, and this again
has set our ablest men to scratching their
heads. BY the careful estimates Of engi-
neers it is seen that Virginia City has tray
eied down hill ten feet in fifteen years, or
about two-thirds of a foot a year. 1t is
concluded that it is owing to the vast I'M
derground workings, but just how it is
lone is predetermined. At any rate, how
over, the people OF Virginia City are
NOT AFRAID OF THE TRIP
they are taking. They have been with it
too long to get alarmed about It now. In
the Consolidated Virginia and California
mines of the COmstock was another strange
thing too, that for aloLgtime caused much
deep study and n vast expenditure of
money. The fires which broke out there on
the l ,5OO-foot level years ago and burned
for years seemed in~extinguishable. Every
Known means was tried. There was a large
body OF superior ore there, as many will re-
member, and the owners were anxious to
get at it. 1t was no use, SO they put in
! seven solid feet of bulkhead and shut it up.
1t burned for seven years, and it was only
a year ago that carbolic gas was injected
by means Of costly machinery and the hid
den fires put out. The gas in there was so
deadly that not a man could approach it
as it was escaping. 1t would have been in
slant death. Now the best ore of the con-
solldated Virginia and California is coming
out Of that place where the unseen fires
long ragged"