The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1909-09-08

one will find a pretty mining town-a
place of brooks and trees and grassy
gardens-buf it Is the exception thai
proves the rule.
The desert is gray and brown
even its colors are sad and somber
The water is generally badly impreg'
natde with alkali and other objection
able matter; the scenery is monoton-
GUS; the days dusty and dreary; the
nights lonesome. The discovery o j
a great mine changes the lonesome
ness into humming activity; but with
the coming of many people ensue
other drawbacks. unsanitary con
ditions prevail; strange diseases
make their appearance; and fearsome
pidemics not only rob the argonauts
of life, but leave unsightly bodies
after death.
But, despite all drawbacks, find a
good mining camp and the camp will
find a population. And that popula-
ton will not be an ordinary one
either. There will be-as in all re-
mote and thriving communities
goodly portion of derelicts, of course.
No doubt some of the most aban-
doned rascals that ever emigrated
from Jerusalem could h ave been
found in the camps of Ophir in the
days of Solomon. But in the mining
camp will be found a greater pro-
portion of men of brains and ability.
During the height of the Comstock
boom. some of the greatest lawyers
and journalists of the Pacific Coast
were to be found not in San Fran
cisco, where they We're naturally to
be looked for, but in Virginia City.
The men who formed the basic
element of the community. too. the
miners who toiled for their four, dol
lars per day, could not be elassed
as common laborers. In those days
the great transcontinental railroads
linking the Mississippi valley with
the Pacific coast had hardly been
finished and the men who labored in
the mines were for the most part
those who had crossed the lsthmus
or the plains. Oh had rounded the
Cape. Courage and enterprise and
energy always enter into the com
position of a pioneer, and these quail
tiles are seldom unaccompanied by
a fair complement of brains.
And today, more than a generation
later, one will find conditions in the
far western mining camp about
the same-the quality of the popula-
ton depending somewhat upon the
quality of the camp: for camps of
primal grade, al a rule attract men
of primal quality, the inevitable over.
flow pouring into the lesser camps.
But in all the camps one will find
men of more than ordinary energy
and ability-men who might have
carved u successful careers fol
themselves in older communities ano
amid ~pleasanter surroundings die
they so choose.
What then. draws such men TO the
mining camps, there to spend, in
many instances. the best years OF
their lives?
Nothing else, in most cases. thSl
the desire to quickly win a eompe-
tency,, in the enjoyment of which
they may pass the rest of their days
in ease, amid pleasanter scenes and
more congenial climes. Some OF
them. it is true, become fascinated
with the false glamor of existence
in a lively camp, became infected
with a love for the feyerish life that
has its W peculiar charm for near
ly everyone that once tastes of its
deceitful waters. and make per
manent homes in the place where
alone they can enjoy the ort of life
for which they rave. Others car
ried away by the ease with which
money is made, squander it as fast
as it ONE in. never realizing the
moral of the fable of the ant and
the grasshopper, until some wintry
morning they awake TO find that the
tide of fortune has ebbed away from
the camp and them, W. TO return
and hat they are castaways, ma
rooned for the rest of their days
doomed TO that bleakest of ex-
.istences, life in a d~ecaying mining
camp, dying the slow. sad death oil
anemia.-Rcno Reyeille.