The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-26
Chicago Tribune.)


as easy as gold dust is converted into
coin. The supply is inexhaustible and
the demand is ceaseless and without
limit. Consequently 1t is worth great
many millions of dollars. The owners
would not trade it for the richest gold
mine in the world. There was a time
when 1 owned every inch OF this Won
derful treasure-every drop of its rich
waters from the surface to the bed Of
wealth, 400 feet below.
/ sold it for s1.000,o0 For sixty days
l was a millionaire. Yes, for two
months l sat. walked and slept reveling
In dreams of luxury and planning to
enjoy illimitable wealth.
Looking back at that period ] now
am satisfied that those were sixty of
the most miserable days Of my life
Happy, peaceful hours did not come
again until 1 fully realized that my
million was gone from me ana my heirs
forever.
It all happened in the old bonanza
days of Nevada. Virginia City, on a
mountain top above the clouds, was
crowded with the widest, gamest and
most desperate set of miners, mine
owners, prospectors and gamblers that
ever before collected in any one camp
on the Pacific coast. Fortunes were
made and lost in an hour. Men who
drove carts or handled shovels one day
were millionaires the next. The flight
of time was not noticed. No one knew
or cared whether 1t was day or night.
The narrow streets were damned at
midnight One morning Consolidated
Virginia was selling at $3.50 share.
At midnight these same shares were
worth IS, 000 A secret had leaked out
They had struck a bonanza in the lit
tie mine. 1t was a real bonanza OF
solid silver. The miners said 1t was as
big as a house"
There was a scramble for these
shares. Many of them had been given
to miners for labor performed in the
mine. Porters, hod-carrters and dray-
men had shares in the almost unknown
mine. A servant girl drew from her
bosom enough of them to make her rich
beyond her widest dreams.
Micky Doran craWled from dugout
in the side of the mountain and nght-
ing his way TO the side Of man ne
knew asked the cause of the excite
ment.
consolidated Virginia is worth 5000
share" shouted the Irishman's &C
quaintance.
Later in the day Micky and his wife
Biddy were seen on the cars en- route
mine shares for a fortune. Each chung
close to a stout barley sack. The
sacks were soiled and heavy, and no
one suspected their contents. The
lucky Irish pair were going to old Ire
land in a hurry and they were carry
ing about $4,000 In coined gold. What
would IL have been worth to have seen
them pouring this glittering gold out on
the dirt floor Of an old cabin on the
roadside six miles from Belfast, Wnere
lived Micky's old father and MOTHER
1 went through all this. scarcely eat
ing or sleeping-hardly knowing the
difference between day and highland
/ emerged from II sick, sore and de-
spondent. 1 had lost money.
One morning 1 put on my hat and,
shaking the gold dust Of Virginia City
from my feet, 1 walked down Six Mile
Canon with two bits in my pocket,
singing My Name 1t Is Joe Bowers,
Ali the Way from Pike"
Silver quarters were the smallest
coins in circulation. There were no
dimes nor nickels in our booming, be-
loved Washoe Only a tendeTfoot dared
TO intimate any knowledge of small
coins
Two days afterward 1 stood in the
door of a little cabin on the shores OF
Soda Lake and shook my fist at the
smoke Of the Bonanza mines, where
James, Sharon, Fair, Mackay, Flood
and O'Brien were harvesting their
millions. 1 knew there were millions IN
Soda Lake, and that gave me nerve.
Nerve was what 1 needed-it took
nerve to stay there. 1t was the most
desolate region that any mortal ever
looked upon, a cloudless. rainless, lin
itIess waste of burning sand.
1t is the bed of an old sea, where
gulls still hover above the foaming
waters, with bands of bowling Wolves
prowling along the beach. Far away in
the west one can see the outlines OF
the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas
Toward the rising sun are two SHIN
mering spots like the deceptive mirage.
These are where the great Carson river
spreads out and yields 10 the parched,
thirsty sands of the mighty desert.
1 imported a half dozen Cinnamon
and set them to constructing watts, 80
by 40 feet and one foot deep. These
were filled with the water of the lake
Then 1 sat down and watched the
Chinks and nursed a fine lot Of home
made dreams. all lined with gold.
We were waiting for the burning sun
of the desert to do the rest The sun
performed it's part well. At the end
of thirty days the water had assembled
to the skies and left a sheet of soda
about four inches thick on the bot
tom of the watts. 1t stood all the tests.
1t was pure soda, as white as snow,
and superfine.
Monte Carlo shouting, THE world is
mine" was not my equal when IT came
to measuring enthusiasm and fortune
with me on that eventful day. 1 wined
and dined the Chinks and made them
dance In the moonlight. Once more
were in sight. Soda COM
manded a good price both in Europe
and America, and there was no limit
to the demand. The railroad was only
fifteen miles away and transportation
facilities were within easy reach.
Four hundred acres of water 400 feet
deep and thick with soda to the con-
of syrup. 1t evidently was in
I undertook to calculate
the value OF all in sight in dollars and
cents. The result appalled, me. 1 could
have bought a half a dozen empires
and had enough left to drive the Roths-
childs off the earth and set up in op-
position to the Bank of England. But
was restless and awful lonesome and
L needed another shirt bad.
About this time a shrewd little man
came along who INTERCEPTED a bracer
into my system. He was a prospector
a chemist, and a man of science. He
came from San Francisco and had been
sent ont 70 the wfids OF Nevada hr