Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-10-09
THE CREEPING CLAY.
TREMENDOUS FORCE MANIFEST IN
THE cOMSTOCK MINES.
It Compressed Wood Until 1t Was Like
Stone-Timbers That Were Seventeen
Inches When Put In Place Crushed to
Four Inches In Few Years.

Inches When Put In Place Crushed to
Four Inches In a Few Years.
There is but one mine in the world
that has ever shown through the natural
action of its drift how thoroughly ma
ture can compress wood, and that mine
is the old Consolidated in the Comstock
lode, "Jim Fairs Pet" and the mine
that holds the record for quartz ore. In
half dozen offices in this city there are
small slabs by 10 inches that have for
some time puzzled workers in wood.
Every time man who knows anything
about wood comes into one of these Of
fees he is shown one of these slabs and
asked to say what kind of wood it is.
As rule he shutters and stammers and
hesitates, and is lost 1t has the princi
pal properties of SO many different kinds
of wood that he does not know just
what forest should be blamed for its
birth. AS a fact it is Sierra Nevada
pine, and its compression is due to the
fact that several million tons of super
fuous earth have been pressing upon it,
although not for any very long time,
with SO great force that pieces of
wood II inches square have been COM
pressed into A inches in width, and
the fbers SO closely crowded together
that when polished it seems much more
like stone than wood.
All the history of the Comstock lode,
governed and regulated as it always has
been by men in San Francisco, is pecul-
lar, but of all the stories in the mines
on this lode there is none more peculiar
than the Creeping clay" and the COM
pressed timbers. From 1874 until 1877
the Big Bonanza was worked down to q
1900 foot level, but at 1,100 feet they
stopped for awhile and concluded TO
drift off to the east This brought them
to position where large proportion
of side of o mountain was pressing
upon the quartz bed. There was q body
Of ore, shaped like q watermelon and
in size equal to about four Palace no.
tells 1t was this ore that made the for
tunes of SO many men, and to get it out
required particularly skillful engineer
ing. There was wall running down at
an angle of about 40 degrees, and this
wall marked the limits Of the loose
earth which contained this watermelon
Of ore, and this samo loose earth was
continually moving. Immediately sur
rounding the lump of ore was clay, and
this clay so moved III the natural process
of natures action that by the miners it
was called creeping clay and watched
continually. So irresistible was it's force
that nothing could stand against it.
From the 1,100 foot level the drift
was set in toward this body Of ore.
There was gallery where the car ran
along for taking out the ere, and from
this gallery ran the smaller drifts.
Above, below and on the sides Of these
smaller drifts were heavy timbers of
Nevada pine. There was between the
timbers space Of about on the average
feet in height and feet in width.
These were square sets, and it was these
timbers that, by the action Of the loose
earth around them, were SO compressed
that pieces of them look more like stone
than wood.
At one time, about 1887, the engi-
neers of the Nevada mine believed that
they almost reached the limitation of
the Big Bonanza ore. So they went back
to the main shaft and sank down to the
1,500 foot level, working, as they after
ward found, below this eccentric deposit
on the side of Mount Davidson. Find
ing that they were striking no pay dirt,
they went back to the 100 foot level
to rework the Big Bonanza.
1t was then that this compressed tim
ber was found for the first time, so far
as is generally known, in the history of
the world. These timbers were II by II
inches, and were the ones that were used
in the square sets when, in 1874-5-67,
the Big Bonanza was worked. But when
they returned some years later to rework
the Bonanza, instead of being II by
II inches, the timbers were about 4
inches in width, because while they had
been working on the lower level the side
of the mountain had been sliding down,
imperceptibly of course, but actually, as
subsequent comparison of the condi-
tion Of the first drift showed.
When the miners left the square
sets" on the LOO foot level in 1877,
many of these side galleries had been
completely filed in with heavy timber
in order to make solid the resistance
against the encroaching weight. As
result these little tunnels, instead of be-
ing filled with the original ore which
bad boo,, talyon Ou} ruero colid roaccoc
Of timber. The proportionate strength
Of the timber and the ore was plainly
shown in that the timber was crushed to
a consistency which made it lose all
semblance of wood and take on the ap-
pearance of stone OR onyx, and if there
had not been surrounding this big body
of ore the dreaded creeping clay" the
chances are that the side of the noun
tain would have remained decently still.
It is generally believed that this aw-
full power Of moving earth has been no.
ticeable in the entire Comstock lode,
principally because the lode is volcanic
tissure and not quartz ed, in many
cases even around the compressed TIM
bers, there has been found deposit Of
quartz, showing that nature is still at
work on this same lode, but the knowl-
edge Of the direction of her labors
would mean fortune to any man.
It costs thousands of dollars to timber
mine and millions of feet Of lumber.
Owing to the aggravating persistency Of
the side of the mountain where the
Comstock lode is situated, the mines
there require moro than usually heavy
timbering, and in nearly all Of the cases
where the heavy timbers have been nee
essary to prevent tho encroaching of the
"creeping clay" it has been found aft
erward that the wood has been subjected
to SO severe pressure that it looks more
like stone than wood. San Francisco
Chronicle.
Natural History of Orators.
The natural history of the orators and
scribes of France is just as extensive and
peculiar as that of some of our men OF
the pen and the tongue. Not long ago
one of these gentlemen talked of the ser.
pent's cold hand, and to another the
hand Of the bird of prey was just as
cold. And now here is a third orator,
who recently delivered himself of the
following phrase: Perhaps M. Sebas-
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