Year: 1878




granite or sandstone. When its tex
turo is more gradually examined,
however, scintillant specks are dis
covered in it: it is heavy and brittle,
and the predominant gray color is
streaked with dark-blue or black. A
mineralogist would not be at a loss 10
know why it is preserved, for it is q
piece of unusually rich silver ore, ta.
ken from the celebrated Ophir mines
Of the Comstock lode. Virgin silver
is scarce, and it is in the form of this
fragment that the metal is found
which is used in the new silver dol
lars now current.


The fabrication of these coins,
which are rapidly taking the place Of
the old greenbacks, and, despite their
absurd design, are much pleasanter
to handle, is to be described in this
article; and the beginning Of our
history takes us into a mysterious re-
gion where spring, summer, autumn
and winter are the same, where night
is perpetual, and the inhabitants toll
in gray and sunless dusk. This
wonderland is more than six times as
many feet below the surface as the
Goddess of Liberty on the dome Of
the Capitol, at Washington, is above
it. 1t is threaded by narrow laby-
rinths scarcely wide enough for q
mans passage, and honey-combed by
dismal cayerns. The heat is more
than tropical, and the air is sulphur
Gus. Never venture to explore it,
timid reader but be content to learn
what you may of it in the city which
thrives in the light Of day two thous-
and feet above its deep and sinuous
ways. Palpitating from exhaustion,
we once stood in its heart with .
consciousness that we were about to
make some soul-sacrificing compact
with his highness in red. Lanterns
fl!ckered in the distance and disap-
peared, and gnomes, stripped to the
waist and still sweating from their
toll, emerged like phantoms from the
solid rock that imprisoned us, and
seemed to melt in the unreal perspec-
tive-seemed, for much was seeming
here to our visions that were used to
the transparent honesty of the sur
face-and the gnomes were, in fact,
not grotesque offsprings to the super
natural, but human laborers, with
expansive chests and leathery hands.
Our voices and every other sound
seemed to run off upon heavy,
rumbling wheels through the
dim corridors. A mist seemed to fill
the caverns; the enormous shadows
seemed to come and 60 without Civ
ing an account for themselves in sub
stance but in all the bewilderment of
the fantasy, the awful reality of our
inclosure never escaped u.s. The roof
OF our prison was mountain two
thousand feet high, and the floor
rested upon the incalculable massive
ness of rock, which is strong enough
to restrain the fierce heart-burnings
of the globe. Both the floor and the
roof were silver to an uncertain
thickness-silver of the kind seen lin
the fragment brought from the Ophir,
with the same scint.llant specks and
streaks of dark-blue in it. This, in
brief, is the genesis of the new dol
lars.


As the ore is sextracted, it is carried
in small iron cars to the surface and
wheeled to the reduction mills, where
1t is delivered through chute pro-
vided with q seive. The pieces that
pass through the interstices of the
sieve, which are three inches square,
60 directly into the receiving bin be-
low, while the coarser pieces are di-
verted into the rock-crusher and
broken before they are restored to
their smaller fellows. From the bin
the ore is fed to the stamps" by
which it is pulverized in immense
iron boxes and turned, by the addi-
ton of water, into q seetbing, milky
looking liquid. The next is reached
in the amalgamating-room, where it
is deposited in the shape of fine,
glittering sand, and put into pans
which are heated by steam.


When it has been steamed and
ground for two hours and half,
some salt, sulphate of copper, and
quicksilver are mixed with the pulp
which the ore has become and at the
end of five hours the ore and the
quicksilver are drawn off into set
tling pans. The silver separates from
the ore in the amalgamating pans, be-
ing changed from chloride and sui
phuret to metallic form by the &C
ton of the salt and sulphate of cop
per; and it then unites with the
quicksilver, which clings to it with
the tenacity of very poor relation.
The object of all grinding and wash
ing is the removal of the earth, some
of which remains, and is not finally
eliminated until the metal is passed
through bag of heavy canvas, sus-
pended in strong box with an iron
lid. While it is thus inclosed, much
Of the superfluous quicksilver flows
away from it, and as pasty mass, it
is transferred into hydraulic strain
era cylindrical iron vessel, in which
a pressure of one hundred and fifty
pounds to the square inch is applied
to it. Three-fourths of the mass are
still quicksilver, and it is next put
into retort, where the application
of heat drives out the mercury and
leaves the boiling silver, which is
moulded into bars or bricks, almost
ready for coinage into dollars.