Surprise Package

The Comstock Lode on the side of Mt. Davidson at Virginia City, Nev., has always been a surprise package. Discovered in 1859, its glory holes enriched Sandy Bowers, an illiterate Missouri teamster, made his washerwoman bride, Eilly Orrum. Queen of the Comstock. Its abandoned workings, bought in 1872 for $100,000, in four years yielded $100,000,000 to its four new owners--Irishmen William S. O'Brien, James C. Flood, James G. Fair and John W. Mackay--father of Postal Telegraph's Clarence Mackay. In 1907 a fall of rock disclosed a $1,000,000 pocket of gold and silver. In 1912 another $1,250,000 pocket was found 2,500 ft. underground. But the Comstock's surprises have been growing scarcer, Virginia City more & more depopulated.

Andes-Consolidated Virginia Mining Co. lately bought an old house for $150, last week set unemployed miners to wreck it for firewood. One afternoon a wrecker rushed to the superintendent of the mine carrying a hunk of rock. It was silver ore, assaying $500 a ton. Hastily a small shaft was driven into the ground nearby; mining engineers rushed from San Francisco. The discovery of a "lost bonanza" was confirmed. Once more Virginia City was a boom town. Piute squaws came down out of the hills. Divorcees in fur coats motored over from Reno. But no lucky prospector stood to profit. The mineral rights of the whole area have long belonged to great mining companies.

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