Bisbee daily review., 1909-02-06
FAMOUS TUNNELL
 MENACEO BY FIRE
Old Sutro Tunnel Is Eleven Miles Long and Cost Close
 to S5,00G,000.

rom NlTGl1fa Cltg- NeNalaf cOilieS word that Sutro's tunnel is on fire. and that after an all nights battle the men wpre able 10 get within one hundred feet of the fire on the east side. holding the blaze in the combi- nation shift While the damage re- ported is not only costly or extensive the fact adds another item to one of the most famous Of the known big mines of the United States. This news item calls to mind the history Of the building of Sutro's tunnel, conceived in the brain of young Sutro in the ear ly eos of the last century, and com pleted ten years after work was begun at a cost of s5.000.a0 plus one mans ability to stick to one thing-like d postage stamp-till he got there.
 Among the many books provided by the Copper Queen library and read ing rooms for the public of Douglas, there is one that should interest, in struct. cause and fascinate every reader who cares to follow the early pros pector. and his side partner. the trap per, over, through and in the noun tains of Nevada and California. Many a young man just waking uD to the wonders of this great mining world of the west, and even many of those who have even followed the business and heard the story from the old prospectoT and freishter, finds it diff iicult to realize the marycls of the discovery of the olG Comstock lode. whose possibilities prompted tie building of the Sutro. tunnel.
 Horace Greeley's words of 1858 sound like a prophecy now that nearly sixty years have passed over the min ing world of the Rockies. Greeley had stopped in his trip from New York to California 10 make a speech on the plaza Of Placerville. in which he ut- tered these words:
 T have come across . desolate and terrible country. . land seemingly worthless forever-the great American Desert-but l believe that the Al mighty has created nothing In vain, and as I have passed over this awful region the thought has fixed itself in my mind that. since it is certainly useless for every other purpose, It may be land of vast mineral wealth. If that be so. it will take a hundred thousand California miners a hundred
 
 Now after nearly sixty years of ups and downs. of legal fights, as well as miners battles, the history of the "0---"'oc'r lode Is brought to our at tention by a fire in that tunnel t"at c,s, sutro twenty years of his life. -'--~ -~ s5 n9n 00O in casn, and which is close to seven miles in length. T l.s,.,y as portrayed in a book, "A Story of a Mine" by Chas. Howard ShiDn. Is being repeated all around our doors. Even legal difficulties ovcr , our mines arise from causes as seem ingly useless, as when the miner will fully ignored. or dared 10 override the mandates of the ''metes and bounds Of the law.
 Henrv ThoTnaS Page Comstock. cal- ed "OLD PANCAKE" was a real
 buffer of his day. combining shrewd- ness. vanity ignorance and spasmodiC
 energy so evenly that he left his uame to a discovery of gold unrigaled | in influence in the mining world. The book abOunds in stories of a | rospector, miner. iTeishter. who is ' today out of a job because the ste7m | cars have conquered the mountains I and of the latter 0ay capitalist and more recent prospeetor, ;n a style so enchanting that for the time you are | one of those early miners. finding. test ing and working the ores after the crude methods Of their day, instead of by the present day methods arrived
 at bv rrocess of experimenting, yet l to reach perfection through the 1 s3Tle process-for no man can see the ] sa. -z | his discoveries. The mastery of the
 mechanical problem of that day Is no less of a trial in this. Many is the ! superintendent who asks as did those old ComstOckers-what would you dc if you had a quartz lode fifty or sixty 1 feet wide? How would you tim0ei lit?
 After a life in this work young Su