The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-10-04
 THE FINDEh hS OF T4IG OPHIR.


 When old man Comstock, aftel
 whom the famous Comstock lode wa.
 named, bought George Carter's wife fol live hundred dollars and horse, sad
 dle and bridle in the fall of 1859, I little ] thought of the enormous developments
 that were soon to follow" said John F
 Clark, once familiarly known as "Ophil
 Jack"
 We then were taking out about a | nail keg full of dust every week, and
 naturally thought we had the biggest
 thing on top of ground, but that was nothing to speak of compared with the ore we were soon to strike, that pro- duced over thirteen thousand dollars to the ton. Money was very easy with us at that time, and Comstock would doubtless have been willing to pay more for the only woman in the camp had his first offer not been accepted. Carter, his wife and her brother came overland in wagon, and when they struck our camp we offered him a job, and it was while he was carrying dirt out of the mine and keeping judicious watch over his domestic establishment at the same time that Comstock said:
 Carter, what will you take for your wife?'
 What will you give? replied Carter simply.
 Five hundred dollars
 If you will throw in your horse, saddle and bridle, all right and the bargain was concluded.
 "Comstock wanted bill of sale, and 1t was regularly drawn up, signed and witnessed in Johnny Newman's saloon, Newman being one of the witnesses. Carter went back to work and stayed around for few days, and then took his horse and left. I never heard of him again. After Comstock sold his interest in the Ophir, he and Mrs. Car ter went to Placerville, and there in a few months they had a row and separa- ted.
 ! was one of the seven men who dis covered the Comstock lode" continued MT. Clark. Joe Winters and I were working near Forest City, making small returns when I heard of placers over near Gold Hill, and I gave Joe money and told him to go there and buy claim. He bought an interest for one hundred and fifty dollars. There we're seven in the party-old man Com- stock. Pat Mclaughlin, Pete Reilly, Emanuel Penrod, or Nanny as we called him, 'Kaintuck' Osborne, Joe Winters and myself. We had no tents, and slept in our blankets under big spruce tree. We were making any, where from one to six dollars a day where we were working. Going back and forward between the spruce tree and our rockers. We for long time passed over what was afterward the ophir mine, without paying any atten- ton to the bright sand at that point. One day Comstock, in passing, said
 Boys, this sand looks very bright and he picked up a double handful and carried it to one of our rockers
 Just as soon as the water struck it We saw that what we had for weeks been carelessly walking over was the richest sand we had ever seen or heard of. You may be sure we were not long in changing the base of our operations We constructed an ordinary V-shaped shute to carry water from the spring, about a quarter of a mile away, and went to work. The bulge of soft, dis ntegrated ore was about twelve feet across and nearly circular. Its edges were clearly defined and went down with slight dip to the east The dirt was extraordinarily rich, some of it | 'unning as high as six dollars an ounce. | Dur Washings were measured almost | iterally by the bucketful. We divided l 'ur wealth by weighing it on a common Iet of grocers scales. It was not long | until our rich strike became generally | InoWn, and miners came from all di- | ections during the following winter, | tnd the town of Virginia City, named | liter a drunken, worthless miner called | Virginny,' rapidly sprang into exist | nee.
 But no one found dirt like that we truck. The great crowd skipped out IS lively as it came when the Flutes | vent on the warpath in the spring of S6O. l feel like laughing every time I hink of that event. Major Ormsby, vho kept store and the overland tage station, when he heard about the indians, said, Whenever they see me, oys, those Indians will quiet down. ie got together all the miners who had uns and pistols and marched for the eat Of war. By the time they found he Indians the men had shot away all their ammunition at rabbits and irds, and when the Flutes showed up, he miners, instead of seeing the Indi- ns running, skipped themselves, and 1ost of them didn't stop until they ,ere back in California.
 we were not disturbed, however, nd soon afterward, at depth of bout nine feet, our mine fpetered out he. soft, easily washed dirt and sand topped short on bed of hard, dark ray rock of ore, that we all thought Ias iron ore. Then the discovery of | 1e real Comstock lode was made un- CT somewhat extraordinary circum- -ances, It must be remembered that those days we did not know much | bout mining, and did not have any fla Iltles at the camp for testing. We ere not exactly down in the mouth | bout the mine running out, for we had aeh made a handsome stake, but, nile We all thought we had run into ad or iron, We had sense enough to re- ect that if it was iron ore, where did le pocket we had worked come from?
 insisted that we have the stuff as-