Year: 1878

The Virginia City (Nev.) Enterprise
SAYS: At the C. and c. shaft there is a
large room in which the miners change
their clothing on going into and COM
inc out of the lower levels. On coming
out of the mine their clothes, wooden
shirt and pair of wooden drawers or
cotton overalls, are reeking with per-
spiration and are more or less soiled by
the dust that has settled upon them. In
the changing room is q large trough
with a supply of hot and cold water.
Here the miners wash the clothes they
have worn in the mines before leaving
for their homes, hanging them upon
racks to dry in order that they may have
clean clothes when they next go down
into the lower levels. In this tank or
trough some 800 men daily wash their
clothing when going off shift and in its
bottom there collects about fifty pounds
per day of sand and clay. Yesterday
Colonel Fair had the curiosity to have
the Assayer of the Consolidated Virginia
Assay Office, Henry G. Elder, make an
assay of the sediment deposited in the
washing tank, and the following is the
result: Gold per ton, $12S.6O; silver,
$130.50, making total of $259.1O per
ton for the dirt washed out Of the shirts
and o'verallS of the miners. Hereto
fore the washings of this trough have
not been saved, but they will now prob
ably be taken care of by some one, as IN
the course of a year they would amount
to quite snug little sum. ...


In the large jewelry manufactures
the world over, where the wOrkmen
handle and file and burnish gold and
silver, they are required to wash their
hands in marble tank, and the amount
of the precious metals saved in this way
in the course of year is something as
tonishing.


We are now able to see that since the
opening of the mines Of the Comstock
half q dozen large fortunes must have
been soWn broadcast over the country
by the winds. The amount Of ore that
would stick upon the clothing of the
miners is as nothing compared with
that blown off wagons and cars by the
winds. The fine ore thus
blown away is generally of
the richest character. From a train of
forty cars in going from this place to
the mills on the Carson River through a
"Washoe zephyr" the loss would prob
ably not fall short of a ton. Of late,
however, the precaution has been taken
of securing the fine ore by wetting down
the loaded cars before the departure of
the trains from the ore-houses.


In the early days, when hundreds of
teams were engaged in hauling the rich
ores of the Ophir to Washoe Valley, the
wagons being all day on the road, i'm
mense amounts must have blown away,
as in crossing the mountain and wind
ing around the points of the hills the
wind often blew hard enough to scatter
not only the fine particles of ore, but
also Jumps of considerable size from the
wagons, piled and rounded up as they
generally were,


1t could harRss be expected, however,
that in those days any one would think
of the fine ore blown off the loaded
wagons when no one paid any attention
to the Jumps that were rolling off, and
when it was not unusual iOr teamsterS
to stop and fill up chuck holes with the
rich ore upon their wagons. As men at
that time did not think of saving the
tailings running to waste from the mills,
and almost as rich as the ores that went
under the stamps, we can hardly find
fault of them for paying no attention to
the ore blown from the wagons and
scattered along the roads by the team
sters. Now, however, although late in
the day, we are becoming wiser, and
find that even in the washings of the
dirty clothing Of the employees Of one
mine there is little bonanza of about
$4,000 per annum.