Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1914-10-20
MARK TWAlN'S STORY OF VIR
GINA CITY IN 1868.

The year 1868 was perhaps the very
top blossom and elimination of the
flush times" Virginia swarmed with
men and vehicles to that degree that
the place looked like a very hive.
that is, when ones vision could pierce
that was generally blowing in sum-
mer. 1 will say, concerning this dust,
that if you drove ten miles through it,
you and your horses would be coated
with it a sixteenth of an inch thick
and present an outside appearance
that was a pale yellow color, and your
buggy would have three inches of
dust in it, thrown there by the wheels.
The delicate scales used by the assay
ers were inclosed in glass cases in
tended to be air tight, and yet some
of this dust was so impalpable and
so invisibly fine that it would get in,
somehow, and impair the accuracy of
those scales.
Speculation IA riot, and yet there
was a world of substantial business
going on, too. All freights were
brought ver the mountains from Cal
ifornia (150 miles) by pack train part
ly, and partly in huge wagons drawn
by such long mule teams that each
team amounted to a procession, and
1t did seem, sometimes, that the grand
combined procession of animals
stretched unbroken from Virginia to
California. Its long route was trace
able clear across the deserts of the
Territory by the writhing serpent of
dust 1t lifted up. By these wagons
freights over that hundred and fifty
miles were 5000 a ton for small lots
(same price for all express matter
brought by stage), and 500 at ton
for full loads. One Virginia firm re-
ceived n hundred tons of freight a
month, and paid $4,000 a month
freightage.
In the winter the freights were
much higher. All the bullion was
shipped in bars by stage to San Fran.
cisco "a bar was usually about the
size of two pigs of lead and cantained
from $500 to $4,000, according to the
amount of gold mixed with the silver)
and the freight on it (when the ship
ment was large) was n and a quar
ter of its intrinsic value. So, the
freight on these bars probably aver
aged something more than $25 each
Small shippers paid two per cent
There were three stages a day, eacf
way, and l have seen the OUTGOING
stages carry away a third of a tor
of bullion each, and more than once
saw them divide a two-ton lot ant
take 1t off. However, these were ex
~traordinary events. Two tons of sill
yer bullion would be in the neighbor
hood of forty bars, and the freight OF
it over $1,000. Each coach always car
rted a deal of ordinary express mat
ter beside, and also from fifteen t.
twenty passengers at from $25 to s3t
a head. With six stages going all tn,
time, Wells Fargo &c Co.'s Virgini;
City business was important and Iu
cratiye.
All along under the center of Wiz
ginia and Gold Hill, for a couple o
miles, ran the great Comstock silve
lode-a vein Of ore from fifty to eigh
ty feet thick between its solid wall
of rock-a vein as wide as some O
New York's streets. l will remin,
the reader that In Pennsylvania a Goa
vein only eight feet wide is consider
ed ample.
Virginia City was a busy city O
streets and houses above ground. Ur
der 1t was another busy town, dow
In the bowels Of the earth. where
great population of men thronged Il
and out among an intricate maze O
tunnels and drifts, fitting hither an
thither under q winking sparkle O
lights, and over their heads towere
a vast web of i~nterlocking timber
that held the walls Of the Quilted Con
stock apart. These timbers were a
large az a mans body and the frame
work stretched upward SO far that n
eye could pierce to It's top throug'
the closing gloom. 1t was like peel
ing through the cl~ean-picked ribs an
bones Of some colossal skeleton. In
agine such a framework two mile
long, sixty feet wide, and higher tina.
any church spire in America. Imaf
Inc this stately lattice work stretcf
ing down broadway from the 81
Nichols to Wall Street, and a Fourt,