The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1906-01-19
THE LAND OF HEARTS DESIRE
Manhattan Is the Mecca Toward Which Hundreds Of Stout Hearted
Pilgrims are Turning Their Steps IN the Hope Of
! assJ aasssg Realizing Their Golden Dreams

monotony of its surface save seanty
clumps of mesquite, anaemic pines AMI
Jagged buttes, whose slopes and crests
are lined with the erenelated outcrop
of its gold laden veins, the Manhattan
district was simply a name, and its pos
sibilities were known to none but a few
hardy prospectors, who, with the insist
emit patience of their class, were delv-
ing away in the hungry looking forma-
ton. Today its Businesses are the abid-
ing place of a thousand toiling, striving
men who are Drawing the wintry blasts
and penetrating to the very heart of its
reckoning finger of the Goddess of
Fortune. The silence of the centuries
has been broken by the tramp of
Argonauts and the hills are yielding
long treasured wealth beneath their re-
~sistless touch.
The transformation is as complete as
though years instead of days had
passed since the hour when the magic
influence of Gold first started the rssh
to the newest of Nevada Ell DoTados,
and a tented city has sprung up in a
night where before was naught but the
oppressive solitude of the forsaken
places of earth. Hundreds of mining
mariners-men who have ground
sluiced and scratched chilblains in thu
Klondike, and who have left the i'm
print of their restless feet on the sun
scorehed, scoriac buttes of Death val
ley-strive for place on the trail lead
ing to the new "diggin's' with the
tenderfoot just entered in that most
fascinating of all races, the miners
futurity. The zest and excitement have
just begun and each day witnesses
scores of outfits treking across the
desert towards the goal of hope abund-
ant.
Manhattan is as yet too new a sta
tion on the prospector's ~unending trail
to predict it's future with certainty,
but its possibilities seem as great as
those of Tonopah, Goldfeld and Bull
frog. It's reefs resemble some vast
crustaceous conglomerate rather than
an ore deposit and in appearance would
offer more in the way of attraction to
a conchologist than to a geologist. In
cidentally they lend added force to the
truism that gold is where you find it,
which is after all the main factor when
a camp is mad with the gold thirst.
That there is gold at Manhattan, and
gold a plenty, is indisputable, and it
appears probable that the district will
become one of the important mining
%centers of the world.
s. E. Vermilyea, a prominent Gold
field attorney, and Harry Hudson, for
years a prospector and freighter on the
desert, were pioneers in the new camp
and were in fact the first operators to
send out a shipment. The ore was
mined at their lease on the Stray Dog
claim, later purchased by Mr.. Yer
milyea, and was sent into Tonopah ac-
companied by an armed guard. There
were 17,4S1 pounds in the consign-
ment, about sa tons, and the sample
returns show that the selected or first
grade rock, consisting of 1882 pounds,
had a gold value of $1,171.06, about
$3.50 per ton; the second class rock,
consisting of 1929 pounds, contained
a gold value of $~1,207.61, about 500
per ton; the average grade of the en-
tire shipment being about 1885 to the
ton.
Mr.. Vermilyea returned from a visit
to Manhattan last Monday night more
than ever convinced of the camps
stability and future. He considers it
to have the best surface showing Of
any district in Nevada and believes
that both veins and values will hold
with depth. In speaking of it's posi-
bilities to a reporter for The News Mr..
Vermilyea said:
"About two months ago when l first
went to Manhattan there were two
board cabins and a few tents on the
townsite and a population OF from %
to 100.
ssThe present population is about
1900, there are more than $50 wooden
buildings and hundreds of tents. The
camp is adding to its inhabitants daily
and if transportation by rail were to be
had the influx would be in excess of
100 persons per day. At present the
larger proportion of those going in Is
composed of Goldfeld and Tonopah
people but the news of Manhattan's
riches is being rapidly disseminated
throughout the country and within the
next six weeks l expect to see a great
rush of outside people to the new