The San Francisco call., 1898-04-06

lidllIOdu-NIllNll, py LIN 'N-'' pays the best wages of any railroad Tn the United States-curves up through the valley of the Carson River, and, with many a turn, winds it's way up the mountains to Virginia City. The majestic beauty of the mountain seen cry in this part of Nevada is sufficient of itself to make this most famous mining country known the world over; but the two drummers who sat in the rear of the car were blind to the suc- cession of wonderful views the bare brown mountains, topped by glistening snow-capped Sierras behind present. The beauty of utility was the only beauty that appealed to them.
 And the town which called forth such an encomium from the tongue of shrewd experience?
 Is Virginia City.
 For years now, since the early glortes of the Comstock departed. it has been . condoIed with and pitied. In fact, with all it's might it has had to resist being buried alive. So dead have those un- dertakers, the financiers, declared the Comstock to be.
 But the Comstock Is not dead. De spite the hard times it has passed through, it still conserves energy enough to round the corner of its ad versailles. and even now it is on the road to better times.
 No one can tell what the future of this greatest of mining camps is to be. The millions which it has poured into the worlds treasury are only half of what lies hidden up there in those won 1 -f,,1 t.,i, hn olax rlCt nf old miners will tell you
 If l had three millions" said the most conservative, the most cautious mining man in Virginia City the other day-that he is the most conservative is proved by the fact that he is one of the few who have resisted the torrent of speculation and is in consequence, a rich man to-day-"if 1 had three mill lions l would invest two-thirdS of what I had in the American Flat and Silver City country. There isn't so safe, so profitable an investment for capital in the world to-day"
 Now that the difficulties which pre- vented the Comstock Tunnel Company the successors of the Sutro Tunnel Company - and the various mining companies from joint action in devel- oping the mines at present active have been overcome, the ComStock's pros poets are distinctly brighter. The Con- solidated California and Virginia has been disposing of it's waste rock, and paying royalties to the tunnel company for some time past. This, the natural, the most economical course, will now be adopted by six of the greatest mining properties, and prospecting on the Brunswick lode with the development of hitherto unopened ground will fol- low.
 But the increase of work on the Brunswick lode, on which Expert Ire Ian made. so favorable a report a few weeks ago, is not the most important consequence of the peace pipe smoked in San Francisco last week by repre- sentatives of the seven mining compa- nies-Fran1lin Leonard for the tunnel company and William Sharon, delegate at !s.rge. If the good understanding at present established between the powers that control the Constock's destiny en- .dures new era of activity will be in. augurated which will vie with the hal cyon days. when to be a Comstocker was to be king of finarce-present or prospective.
 The Silver City country lying to the south of Virginia City and Gold Hill is an undiscovered country, upon which the eyes fmining men look longingly.