The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1906-12-15
STORY OF THE DISCOVERY
OF THE CAMP OF WONDER

departure and then the rush was On.
Livery teams. delivery wagons. saddle
horses and even burros were pressed
into service. for every means of making
speed OF of carrying supplies was at a
premium. and Immediately the road was
lined with hurrying outfits.
we saw them as they carne pouring
over the summit that night, Higgins in
the lead on a foam covered horse, close
~ followed by Virtue q Fortune. good
company for any man, IL it was n mere
happening that they were on the road
when the rush began.
Some of the boys hardly waited to un-
hitch their tired teams before they
were out in the hills locating. Others,
believing that to locate at night would
only cause confusion, made camp and
soon a score Of camp fires twinkled
around the "charter-oak." as we called
the lone pine tree out in the fiat. Such
was the birth of Wonder.
The true meaning of western hospital
ity was amply illustrated then. Some
of the outfits had come in without food
or water for man or beast, and some
were without bedding, but everyone
divided with his neighbor and we piled
into ben four thick. That was the night
of the 30th of May.
Wonder now is a town of about six
hundred inhabitants, with well laid-out
streets, neatly painted frame stores,
brokers' offices, bank and dwellings. The
telephone, a continuation of the Fallon-
Fairview line. is the most recent and
important acquisition. A regular stage
line via saltwater will be running
shortly and the enterprising townsite
agents will 500 have a fast auto serv-
ice. Our water pipe for the six mile
line from Bench Creek is coming by a
special train of five cars straight
through from Pennsylvania and it must
be here soon for they are digging the
trench now. Such is the transformation
effected in six months, but six months
is a long time in Nevada ~nawa6ays.
The district. so far as it is now
known, is about six miles in length
The formation is the same as that in
which so much wealth has recently
been discovered in Nevada, tina is,
eruptive lows which are generally
called ~porphyhies and which are made
up of andesites, rhyolites, dacites, etc.
The ore is found in veins. or more prop
erly speaking, siliceous dykes or reefs,
which are the result of the highly at
tractive action of hot, siliceous, mineral
bearing solutions upon the country
rock. That the mineral bearing rock is
a replacement quartz Oike that of
Tonopah) is evidenced by the finding ef
the original porphyry intimately assoc
ciately with the ore and forming part
of it; and every stage of the graduation
from the country rock to the richest
ore-carrying quartz can be easily trace
able. Many of the vents through which
the solutions circulated must have pe. II
fissure-like in their proportions, for the
ore bodies are, in some places, ten to
twelve feet wide and that at the COM
paratively shallow depth attained in
such a new camp.
The gold occurs partly free, but so
whitened by alloying with the silver
that it is easily mistaken for the sui
phides of iron at first glance. The
silver occurs to a very slight extent as
but by far the greater amount
is found as a rich, blackish gray sui
phide. The chlorides, such as ruby and
'horn," are very plentiful. The bromide
is present too in small quantities.