The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1891-12-11
The Epoch of Silver.

AAO OPOOA VI 0AlV0Ts
In 1899 occurred the first "gold
excitement" ever experienced in the
United States. The scene of it was
the Chestatee river Ueather's Ford
and Dahlonega), Georgia. 1t was
local in character, the state claiming
the mineral lands and disposing Of
them by lottery.
In 1840, with the discovery of the
rich auriferous placers in California,
came the great gold gathering ex-
citement of the centuries-all of the
centuries. It was an excitement not
confined to our own country and
continent, not even to the New
World. 1t was an excitement that
was worldwide. 1t awoke even the
usually apathetic Asiatics. The
people of all nations were infected
with the ''gold fever; disease the
seeds of which seem ever present in
the soul of man. 1t was u discovery
that infused new life blood into the
veins of a dull and sluggish world;
that inspired all brains with new
ideas and awoke in all hearts new
hopes.
Ten years later (1850) when the
fever which the prolific gold fields
of California had excited in the
minds of men had somewhat abated,
came the discovery of the great
Comstock silver lode, quickly fol.
lowed by the finding of many other
silver-bearing veins in the same re-
gion, and the grand discovery soon
thereafter that all the vast arid belt
between the Rocky mountains and
the Sierra Nevada range was argen-
tiferous-indeed, both gold and silver
producing.
Little did the thousands and tens
of thousands who toiled across the
arid plains and sandy deserts of this
vast region en- route to the gold
fields Of California, suspect the i'm
mense store of the precious metals
hidden in the great, rugged and
treeless mountains amid which they
wearily wended their way, day after
day, to the westward. Day after
day and week after week they un
consciously passed and left behind
untold millions of the wealth they
were journeying forth to 6nd--mil-
lions in gold and silver heaped in
the rocky vaults of the mountains by
the Creator, md as yet untouched
by the hand of man-virgin veins of
the precious metals awaiting the
pick and drill of the coming miner.
Thousands and thousands of emf
grants passed along the valley of the
Carson in front of Mount Davidson,
the prominent peak on whose east
ern slope is situated the Comstock
lode. All emigrants who left the
Humboldt river at its ''sink," crossed
the Humboldt desert and entered
California at "Hangtown,' (now
Placerville), in looking westward,
while passing up the Carson river,
had towering before them in plain
view the big mountain from which
since have been taken hundreds of
millions in silver and gold, and
which is still yielding its millions.
Had any man among the many
adventurous gold seekers then cross
ing the "plains" known what the
sage-clad and rock-capped old noun
tain contained, he could have taken
measure to secure to himself all the
wealth that John w. Macay, James
G. Fair, John P. Jones, William
Sharon, George Hearst, James G..
Flood, William Shaney O'Brien and
dozen other millionaires afterward
obtained. But no man am ong the
passing thousands had a thought
that the gray old mountain standing
before him, with its "bones'' pro-
troduding through its rugged mantle
of wild sage, was the grand store
house of the gnomes-that it con-
tanned more gold and silver than all
the vaults guarded by the "Goblins
of the Golden Mountains
Not only was the wealth hidden
in the big mountain unsupported by
the emigrants who gazed upon it
every summer day for ten years, as
they streamed along toward Califor-
MIA, but also was equally unthought of
and unsought by the few mon who
became permanent residents of the
neighborhood as keepers of trading
stations on the Carson river.
Ours was not yet mining people.
There were even then in California
hundreds of expert and keen-eyed
gold hunters and gold washers, but
of the science of real mining and
practical geology and mineralogy
they were quite ignorant. Though
not miners according to the present
acceptation of the term in the great
mining centers, they were all filled
to overaowing with the mining spirit.
In their composition was the raw
material of which to make the best
and most enterprising army Of
miners the world has ever seen.
| Tn a wear 0r two after the discov.