Year: 1869

AL AZ once region OF country IN tne neaIt O
the new State of Nevada has risen into great i'm
portance This region is known as the White Pine
District of Columbia. It is remote from ciyiliza
ton, it is rugged agglomeration of mountains
rising from six thousand to eleven thousand fee
above the level of the sea it is very cold in the
winter season, and but few of the comforts of life
are to be found there; but it is at this moment the
point of supreme attraction on the American con
tinent. The magnet is one of the precious metals
The lodestone is an inexhaustble lode of silver


The rush of adventures to this region is said to
be altogether unexampled. The ''auri isacra flames
which took hundreds Of thousands of people to
California, was as nothing to the ''argeai sacrd
James, that carries miners, laborers, merchants,
spectators, men of all kinds to White Pine.


In point of fact, all the accounts we receive oi
the district well warrrnt the belief that nothing SO
rich as the White Pine Silver Mines has ever been
found on the globe. For hundreds of years the
flow Of silver coin has been setting in one steady
current from the western nations to China, with
no returning ebb, until the Celestial Empire has be.
come one vast storehouse of silver guilders forms,
thalers, caroluses and pistareens. It would seem
as if, ages before commerce had begun piling up
the worlds treasure at the worlds end, nature
had selected the mountains of Nevada for her de-
pository of pure metal, and there certainly it lies
in one great precious mass to stimulate the enter
prise and tempt the cupidity of man.


The report of B. W. Raymond on the Mineral
Resources Of the States and Territories" made to
the Secretary of the Treasury and just printed,
gives us some most interesting facts and figures
concerning the White Pine silver region.


There are many mines in operation there, more
than fifty mining companies having been organic
ed in San Francisco alone for working them, and
ofevery one the story reads like fairy tale Dis
covered only eighteen months ago, the light has
as yet hardly broken in upon the richest veins.
Yet $1,000 ton is not an extravagant yield, and
we are prepared to believe anything that may be
said of the results hereafter.


Here is the keystone Mine, for instance. A
mere lad, John Turner, one of the party that orig
nally explored it, struck his pick into what SEEM
ed to be bed of putty, but what proved to be
pure chloride of silver, worth from $4,000 to
$25, 900 toni Even the correct and sober style
of Mr. Raymond, writing officially and prosaically
to the Secretary of the Treasury breaks out into
certain luminous poetry as he enter 8 the cave Of
Aladdin, otherwise known as the Eberhardt Mine.
'Decending the shaft on rope" says he, I'VE
found ourselves among men engaged in breaking
down silver by the ton. The light of our candles
disclosed great black sparkling masses of silver ore
on every side The walls were silver, the roof over
our heads silver the very dust which filled our
lungs and covered our boots and clothing was a
great coating of fine silver. y


These are but few of the wonders that are told
of the White Pine District Cities are rising there
like exhalationS. All around Treasure Hill, which
is the site of the most extraordinary Of these silver
deposits, shops, warehouses, lager beer saloons
are going up and in another winter there will pos
sibly be opera bouffe.


Treasure Hill is at this moment difficult Of &C.
cess from the Atlantic border, but with the COM
pletion of the railway to San Francisco, it may be
reached in six or seven days from New York ly-
ing, as it does, only one hundred and twenty-five
miles from Elko, which is station on the Central
Pacific Railroad. Coaches now run from Elko to
the mines; but branch railroad will ere long
transport travellers to the spot and bring back the
valuable ingots to be conveyed to the centres Of
commerce.