The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1918-02-09

f1eTudu Ldui6, tuc "CiA-hhS"h
mining man, and whose intimate
familiarity with the Comstock for
all the many years past makes him
an authority on its fascinating his
tory and possibilities, has written
the following glimpse into its past
achievements and its tremendous
future possibilities:
1t is and always has been a most
surprising thing that mine operators
here have paid so little attention
to the great Comstock lode, one of
the greatest mineral lodes ever dis
covered in America, and lying right
before their door. Mining opera
tors retain engineers to look for
mines the wide world over while
they could reach this mining region
with hardly any expense and no
hardship. But it always seems that
the farther away and the more iso-
lated the property, the better it ap-
pears. Many times those in con-
troll of the North End and Middle
mines thought that the end had
some and that no further orebodies
would be found at the deeper
levels.
In 1886 those who controlled the
Comstock mines concluded to stop
pumping and abandon the lower
levels. The opinion was common
that this will be the last of the
Comstock lode; never will there be
any great rise in its stocks again."
But what happened? In 1886 a
great orebody was found in the Con.
Virginia ground and n of the
greatest excitements in years took
place; Con. Virginia going from 25
cents to $50 and others in proper
ton.
There we're several times after
ward that the new o%rebodies were
found but the water gradually flood
ed all the mines to the level of the
Sultro tunnel and all deep mining
was abandoned for many years.
There were a great number OF
brokers of the San Francisco
stock exchange who had become
interested in the various Comstock
properties who always felt hat 1t
was wrong to ever have stopped
working the lower levels. These
founded an organization called the
Pumping Association to jointly in
stall a pumping plant in what Is
called the G. & c. shaft, and in the
Ward shaft, the former to drain all
the North End mines and the latter
to drain what is known as the
South End mines.
A system of pumps was installed
in the c.. & c. shaft and in the
Ward shaft, the former is still run
ming and is now, in conjunction
with the electric sinking pumps
keeping the water down below the
29OO-foot level. The Ward shaft
pumping plant proved a failure and
was abandoned many years ago.
Another matter of Importance
was to bring in electric power from
the Truckee River, the F~leishhack-
ers being instrumental in that, and
IL it had not been done the lower
levels today would be a sealed
book.
After years of hard work and
many times feeling that the D
loot level of the North End mines
would never be reached, the end
was achieved and the reward was
the uncovering of al orebody in
the Union Consolidated 240O-foot
level which has every indication OF
producing hundreds of thousands
of dollars and is likely to pay divi-
dends for several years to come.
But 1t is not alone in the Union
Con. that there are great chances
of developing orebodies of CONNER
cial value. Con. Virginia on the
27OO-foot level; Mexican on the
$500 and 2900-foot levels; Ophir
on the 21OO-foot level and Sierra
Nevada on the 2500-foot level are