WH WASHOE REVISITED. [Third Paper.] HEN you visit a friend in the country he the back-yard, and shows you his fancy boar or usually displays his interest in your pleasure improved style of ram. Some hospitable genby inviting you to take a walk in his garden. He tlemen connected with the Ophir, having none shows you his fruit trees and cabbages; dilates of these attractions about their premises, invited upon the productive qualities of his soil; sur-me, on the occasion of a visit, to take a ramble prises you with the growth of his pumpkins; excites your astonishment by the magnitude of his squashes; and if you happen to be interested in stock, takes you by the arm, conducts you to through their subterranean garden. This is a compliment paid to visitors from distant parts of the world, and is considered a satisfactory substitute for the civilities available in other were. ladder. All along the range of these various ladders was a shaft, in which a ponderous piece of machinery appeared to be engaged in hoisting out water from the bottom of the mine. The holes through which we descended were so narrow that it was sometimes difficult to tell which was the ladder and which was the machine; but I continued to keep a firm grip of the ladder and let the machine look out for itself. When we got into this last hole, we squeezed through a trap-door and went down still further by another ladder that led to another, and then another, and so on till we reached another. I have no idea how many ladders there All I know is, they stand very straight up, and keep fearfully close to the machinery that drags up the water. I saw a good deal of rock and earth by holding the candle close to the sides of the subterranean excavations through which places. It was a little trying to the muscles, we passed. Whether the rock contained the silthey admitted, but would amply repay me for ver, or whether the silver was contained in the loose the trouble. As to risk, it was trifling. Vis- earth, or whether they both contained it together, itors to other mines now and then got their is a matter not to be recklessly or inconsiderskulls crushed, or tumbled down shafts and ately divulged. The interests of this mine are were mashed, or became nervous and fainted so extensive and multifarious that no man who into the machinery; but nothing of the kind values his reputation will jeopard it by disclosing was common in the Ophir. As a preliminary facts which must either elevate stock to the measure I was kindly furnished with a suit of detriment of purchasers, or depress it to the detrough outer-garments, somewhat dilapidated by riment of sellers. I therefore keep my own frequent contact with different colored ores, and counsel. This much I may state: that the the drippings of candles and whitewash, but scientific gentleman who accompanied me was good enough for general protection. Into this continually holding his candle against the dripancient suit I speedily dived, and was so dis- ping rocks and banks of earth and ejaculating: guised that when I looked in the glass my first "There! you see it; hornblendic, feldspathicimpulse was to turn round and knock down the graniferous! Casings distinctly marked-Dip miserable satire that stood in my boots. I was forty-five degrees. Here again- very rich! next provided with a candle and directed to hold Don't you see it? And here! and here again it between my fingers, so as to reflect the light-eh?" I certainly saw something. The reader from the palm of my hand. Thus accoutred, will kindly consider me speechless with amazewe climbed a bit of a hill, and entered a hole somewhere, which we began to descend single file by means of a ladder. At the end of the ladder was a small bit of ground to stand on; and then another hole in the ground and another A SHAFT. ment. What I did see in those subterranean tunnels; the gloomy passages through which I navigated in pursuit of the scientific gentleman, whose motions were frightfully rapid; bobbing my head against timbers and sharp points of overhanging rock; doubling up and twisting around corners; the piles of ore, more or less valuable, that I stumbled over in striving to catch up with my learned friend; the color of the veins that dazzled my vision under the inspiration of his disquisitions on the feldspathic and hornblendic; the prodigious quantity of something in that line that darkened the highways and byways must remain at the present writing a profound secret. A memorable tour that was. Never in this world can I forget the Ophir! Once when I was at the bottom creeping through the bowels of the earth, some cars laden with ore came rumbling along. "Stand aside, gents!" cried somebody, and I tried to stand aside. But who in the world can stand aside when there is scarcely foot-room for a goat? Here was a passage about five feet wide, at least three of which was taken up by the railway and cars, and the rest by heavy timbers. I hugged a dark, wet wall; it was not near so comfortable as other substances I have hugged in my day. The cars scraped by; my bones were not crushed, and that was just all. Pleasant place that for a promenade! To be rolled out, squashed, or cut in segments may be a very trifling contingency to scientific gentlemen and experts; but I prefer the contemplation of the heavenly bodies from the surface of the earth. I really can not remember how many dismal passages we went through. We explored the sixth story, the fifth, and several others, which had the same general aspect of mud and mineral. In one shaft the workmen above were pitching down loose earth and rocks to be run out through a tunnel. This we climbed by means of a very long ladder. It was good exercise for body and mind. The ore came tumbling down more or less all the time, and I had faint hopes some large mass would not fall on my head before I reached the top and carry me to the bottom. The accidents that occurin this way are numerous. Recently two miners, ascending a shaft in one of the VOL. XXXI.-No. 182.-L mines, were struck by a dog and crushed to atoms. They were 175 feet from the bottom, and were going up in a tub. The dog tripped in attempting to run across the mouth of the shaft, and struck them at a distance of over 100 feet from the surface, carrying all before him. In another place we enjoyed a view of the wreck caused by the caving in of the Mexican. Here, to be sure, was a crush of matter! Timbers shivered and wrenched to splinters; rocks and masses of earth tumbled into chaos! Even where we stood the massive beams that supported the tunnel were imbedded in each other by the tremendous weight of the mass above, which never ceases to bear down upon them. It appeared to me that it settled as I gazed upon it. Beams of timber eighteen inches square seemed to offer but a feeble resistance to such a crushing weight. That this whole tunnel must cave in sooner or later is my deliberate conviction. Miners, like sailors, grow to be indifferent to danger. When the Mexican caved in there was a concussion of air in the Ophir that knocked down several of the workmen. One man, in the confusion of the moment, rushed frantically through "STAND ASIDE, GENTS!" en the falling mass of earth and timber, and, strange to say, escaped with a few scratches and bruises. He must have passed through 100 feet of this chaotic mass. The spot was pointed out to me, and I must say had my informant not been a scientific gentleman, givto mathematical demonstrations, I must have doubted the story. Timbers, rocks, and earth are crushed together in one vast conglomerate of rubbish. It is scarcely conceivable that even a rat could creep through it; yet this man escaped, and is now boring into more earth for a living. Having seen all the wonders of the Ophir, I was kindly permitted to select three modes of reaching the upper crust of the world: to climb up the ladders again, or be dragged up the "incline" by a steam-engine; or be hoisted up a shaft in a wooden bucket by means of a hand-windlass. The ladders I had already enjoyed; the incline I did not incline to, from a vague notion that the machinery might keep on turning after I got to the top and drag me into it, or snap the rope and send me whizzing to the bottom again; so I elected to be hoisted out by the handwindlass. Dispensing with the bucket, I put my foot in a noose of the rope; was hoisted away; bobbed against the sides of the shaft; scraped through a trap-door, and deposited on the landing-place. It was an interesting tour, and I was thankful to my friends, but more thankful still to Providence when I breathed once more the fresh air and enjoyed the pleasant sunshine of the outer world. Every city has its chronic nightmare, whether in the shape of flood, fire, earthquake, or pestilence. Every community is, or deems itself liable to some special calamity. The citizens of Virginia are troubled with a one-ledge the CAVE-IN OF THE MEXICAN. ory. It is the nightmare of property-ownersthe special calamity that threatens ruin to the speculators in Wild Cat. Naturally enough it is unpopular among the masses. No man who aspires to public honors can by any possibility succeed on the one-ledge theory. He must believe in a multiplicity of ledges; he must be sound on the Comstock as a basis, and sound on the great family of ledges supposed to exist in its neighborhood. The owner of feet in the Comstock can afford to be a one-ledge man, provided he has been successful in quieting the rival claims of squatters who have dipped into his and diabolical. Nevertheless, although there are few so daring as to violate the general sentiment on this subject, the question, with the vi springing up as much alive as ever, and can't be burned or flooded out either by fires of invective or oceans of vituperation. spurs; but he is interested in the prosperity of the city, and therefore will best consult his interests by being a many-ledged man. The editor of a newspaper may have doubts on the sub-tality of a seven-headed dragon, is continually ject-if editors ever have doubts on any subject-but he can have no doubt about the policy of retaining his subscribers and his advertising patronage. The more ledges the more companies, and the more companies the more notices of assessments. Hence it is the interest of the majority to put down and demolish the one-ledge theory; and hence it is popularly considered absurd, anti-democratic, monstrous, As an interesting feature in human nature, I may be permitted to say that, in general, you may determine a man's status by his views on this subject. Original owners in Comstock are oneledgers by nature and instinct whatever they may be by policy. Owners of outside claims, |