The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-16
A Mountain Travelling Eastward.
 Butte Mininx Journal.


 "There arc many strange things con- nected with the Comstock mines, ' said an old resident of Virginia City to a San Francisco EraRsiaer man. "You must recollect that while the main workings extend from the north of Gold Hill to Virginia and below, a distance of three miles, there Is total of 252 miles of tunnels, drifts, slopes, sumps, quips and turns, making up the interior as total.
 "Think of it--252 miles; further by far than from tho Golden Gate to the Nevada line, and further than across the great state of New York. Why, look around little. You might go as far as from Washington to Balti- more and back again and you wouldn't be much more than half way through the Comstock. When you think of the great depth of these mines, the gigantic, incomprehensible weight of the mass resting upon the timbers and the travelling mountain, in which are these mines and on which is Virginia City, you involve propositions again that have stumPed the deepest thinker.
 "For instance, queer, polished sticks as smooth ss mahogany and no thinner than my cane are every once in awhile being taken out of the workings. They are as hard and as heavy as iron, and knife will make no mark on them. Now, what are they? Origin ally they were twelve-inch solid tim bers, and the millions of tons bearing upon them in all directions, perpen- dicularly as we'll as laterally-for 1t is only in this way that mines can be timbered-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 displaced. No known me- chanism at present, nor in any age in the past, so far as history recounts, has such power to compress and work marvels with wood. The silent old mine has stumped the scientists.
 "You have asked me if it Is really true that Mount Davidson is slowly travelling eastward, with the town of Virginia on her back and her mines within. It is true, and this again has set our ablest men to scratching their heads. By the careful estimate of en- gineers, it is seen that Virginia City has travelled down hill ten feet in fifteen years, or about two-thirds of a foot year. It Is concluded that 1t is owing to the vast underground work ings, but just how it Is done is prob lematical. At any rate, however, 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 a long time caused much deep study and a vast expenditure of money. The fires which broke out in the ,500-fo level and burned for years seemed inextinguishable. Every known means was tried. There was a large body of superior ore there, as many will remember, and the owners were anxious to get at it. It was no use, so they put in seven solid feet Of bulkhead and shut 1t up. It burned for seven years, and 1t was only year ago that carbolic gas was injected by means of costly machinery and the hidden fire put out. The gas in there was 30 deadly that not man could approach it as it was escaping. IL would have been instant death. Now the best ore of the consolidated Vir- ginia and California is coming out oi that place where the unseen fires long ragged"