The San Francisco call., 1898-04-14
THE BRUNSWICK
 OPENS DEEP A Complete Agreement With the Comstock
 Tunnel Company.
Possible Turning Point in the Fortunes of the Famous
 Old Camp.
Now Prospecting the Great Bruns- wick Lode Will Begin 1900
 Feet Down.

The famous, sleepy, old Comstock re- ceived yesterday the first definite injec- ton of the new life blood which all Com stockers have an abiding faith IS sure to give the old camp a great resurrection some day.
 Late Tuesday afternoon Franklin Leonard, president of the Comstock Tun- nel Company, and number of the lead ing representatives of the Comstock com panies interested in the Brunswick lode, reached a complete agreement as to an important contract, by the terms of which these companies may and will go to pros pecting the Brunswick lode from the Comstock tunnel.
 The agreement contains an enormous mass of details Briefly, it gives the con tracting companies the right and every facility to run prospecting drifts along the lode on each side of the tunnel and to drain their workings, haul out their ore and waste rock and generally to op- crate their mines through the Comstock Tunnel
 Where the tunnel passes through the Brunswick lode it is about 1900 feet below the surface, and several hundred feet lower than the deepest shaft now on tne lode, that in the Chollar claim. The prospecting work so far done on the Brunswick lode has Leen done from the surface wholly, and what little has been done has not developed any ore bodies of great importance.
 Now prospecting can begin at depth of 1900 feet and besides can be carried on on a vastly cheaper scale than operations from the surface. There is every promise now that some of the companies will go right to work running drifts north and south from the level, and it should not be be very long before they show what the Brunswick lode is made of and whether or, not the abounding faith in 1t which | fills Virginia City is justified.
 The companies who become parties to | the agreement are the Gould & Curry, | Savage, Consolidated California & Vir- | ginia, Best & Belcher, Hale &. Norcross, l has been arrived at as far as the com | panies mentioned and President Leonard are concerned The agreement awaits | final ratification by the trustees of the l Comstock Tunnel Company in New York, | to whom 1t will be forwarded at once, and also by the Union Trust Company of New York. trustee. for the income bond holders. As President Leonard is the heaviest holder of the stock and bonds or the company, and has acted here in accordance with a resolution adopted by mal1ty which will be promptly attended l to on the arrival of the papers in New York and reported by telegraph.
 President Leonard last evening declined l to say more than to confirm the news in general way.
 'I regard the agreement as one that will be mutually beneficial to my com pany and to the mining companies con cerned,' he said. From their stand point. it will greatly reduce the cost of | development. I have been laboring for two years to bring this about, and I am 1 glad that it is about accomplished It Is the only practicable and economical | way to prospect .4le lode.
 When this matter is finally off our hands, as I expect 1t will be with the ratification by the trustees in New York, the way will be opened for the other waiting enterprises-the drainage of American Flat and Silver City through the Comstock tunnel. It is too early to say more about these projects than that they may now come actively to the front To them this enterprise of the Bruns- wick Lode has been a stumbling block which is now removed"
 | Comstockers will be deli~hted to know l that there Is at least definite prospect of deer, operations on the Brunswick lode | with all its possibilities of success and failure, and it's possible bearing on the re- sumption of deep. mining on the Com- stock, the S000-foot tunnel to Silver City and the S0O0-foot tunnel which may yet allow mining to be resumed in the rich | but wet veins of American Flat This
 final reaching of an agreement is regard ed as turning point in the fortunes of i the ComStock