Newspaper Clippings, 1883 - "From Eastern Nevada"

TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE

Sunday……….July 22, 1883

FROM EASTERN NEVADA

Outraged Austinites in Nye County Jail—Some Interesting Items Concerning Ore Working by the Stedefeldt Process—Chlorination and Chloride—Pans and Quicksilver—Silver Bricks—Boilers and Steam Tubes—Model Workshops—A Very Complete Sort of an Establishment for Eastern Nevada.

[Correspondence of the Enterprise]

AUSTIN, Nev., July 20, 1883.

A ponderous bit of sensational news comes from the headwaters of Reese river. Three of Austin’s best-known citizens have been caught out, bounced and outrageously dealt with. No blood has been shed as yet, but how much may be is merely a matter of time and quantity. The way of it is this: The other day the three prominent Austinites aforesaid—Allen, Mason and Craycroft—went on a hunting expedition up stream. They were well fitted out with beverage, grub, ammunition, fishing lines, fry-pans, blankets, and a nice two—horse outfit, and expected to have a continuous game feast for three weeks. They found suckers and trout enough in the river, but wild fowl and small game were not at all plenty. Unconsciously and innocently they strayed onward and upward, and got over the line into Nye county. Suddenly a force of armed men pounced upon them, and they found themselves in the hands of a Sheriff and posse, arrested on charge of violating the game law. Such an idea never struck them while they were within the borders of Lander county, but the vigilant officials of Nye saw and improved their opportunity. Our three hunters were ruthlessly dragged off to the bastille in Grantsville, and all their property, beverage and all, confiscated. At last accounts they were rigidly held in durance vile, and had sent here for some of their friends to bail them out. They are apparently in a bad scrape, but will doubtless be able to prove that with all their shooting they killed no wild game. If tame ducks and calf meat have really been found in their possession, however, they or their friends may be made to contribute heavily to the financial resources of Nye county. But they are all gentlemen of undoubted personal courage, and if they have been imposed upon by this matter, nothing but blood can wipe out the foul insult. Further intelligence from Grantsville Jail is anxiously looked for.

A BUSY INSTITUTION.

For nearly nine months the Manhattan mill has been running almost continuously, and the present run will be recorded s the longest it has ever made. Being the only working mill in the district, all the ore produced from the mines of Austin and vicinity are brought to it for reduction, and some lots even come from a considerable distance. Jefferson Canyon, for instance, seventy-five miles away. It is a dry-crushing, twenty-stamp mill, and works the ores by the Stedefeldt process. Each of the twenty stamps weighs 1,000 pounds, and strikes nearly 100 blows a minute, making the dust fly at an extremely lively rate. When so many separate lots of ore are brought in from the various mines and localities for working, a very complete and careful system is called into requisition to keep them separate from each other until they have got through the batteries. And this is done very effectually and satisfactorily. The twenty stamps are arranged in four batteries of five stamps each, working side by side, thus allowing four separate and distinct lots of ore to be milled at one and the same time, if required. By frequent sampling of the pulp, as it passes through the battery screens in the shape of a dry powder as fine as flour, the assay value of each separate lot is ascertained and its bullion yield determined. Thus each battery can be run on separate and independent lots of ore, or all four be employed on a single large lot. After passing the batteries, however, separate working cease, the pulp being carried forward collectively through the rest of the process.

CHLORINATION.

From the batteries the pulp passes forward to where a small two-stamp battery supplies it with pulverized salt, and it is mechanically mixed therewith to the extent of ten per cent., more or less, according to the richness of the ore, the richest ore requiring the most salt. Thence it passes through an elevator to the top of the chimney-like furnace, and these screens, mechanically moving past each other, allow the pulp to sift and drop evenly down through forty-eight feet of fire flame to the bottom. This is a decidedly hot fire, created by two charcoal furnaces, on opposite sides, near the base. The heaviest and principal portion of the pulp dropping down through this column of fire, experiences the chlorination process in so doing, and falls in a red hot pile at the bottom, changed from its sulphuret character to a chloride. Thence it is drawn or hoed out through a small door, every hour, for transfer to the pan and amalgamation department.

FLUE DUST.

Although, as before remarked, the heaviest and principal portion of the pulp drops to the bottom of the furnace, a considerable and valuable portion is carried elsewhere by the force and draught of the flaming furnace. The flue turns just beneath the pulp screen, at the top, and passes downward and backward through a series of dust chambers, contained in a substantial brick structure seventy feet long by sixteen wide and ten or twelve feet high. There are sixteen of these chambers or compartments, and the flame and head of the furnace, laden with light, rich ore dust, passes zigzag through the entire series, and thence through outside passages to a huge brick chimney eighty-five feet high, which finally carries the heat and smoke to join the general atmosphere, the distance thus intrisically traversed by it from the furnace being over 500 feet. This, of course, is to give the pulp a chance to settle. Through convenient doors in the dust chambers and passages the captured pulp is drawn out once a month and taken to the pans. And it furnishes the finest of the bullion. This Stedefeldt furnace was the second erected in the State, the first being at the Auburn mill, near Reno.

THE PAN DEPARTMENT.

From the furnace the chlorinated and chloridized pulp, after being cooled somewhat, is run on cars into the pan room near by. This department contains eight pans. With a settler to each. The pans are five feet in diameter by two and a half feet deep, and are simply plain pans with wooden sides and iron bottoms, and provided with the usual style of mullers, making sixty-eight revolutions a minute. The settlers are similar in style, six feet in diameter, with wooden mullers or agitators, making fifteen revolutions a minute. Each pan works a ton at a charge, occupying eight hours for each charge, or three charges every twenty-four hours. About 600 pounds of quicksilver are used to each charge, and even up to 1,000 or more in case the ore is unusually rich. More or less salt, as required, is also used in the pans, together with cyanide of potassium, scraps and borings of iron and other desirable chemical agents. The amalgam is all placed in a large and very substantial cast-iron strainer and the surplus quicksilver very speedily forced out of it by hydraulic pressure. The

RETORTING AND MELTING

Department, which adjoins the pan room, is very conveniently [illegible] and certainly gives very gratifying results. It contains three large retorts and two melting furnaces, and every day or two, according to the richness of the ore worked, turns out a shipment of ten nice bricks of silver bullion worth a thousand dollars each. Charles Durning is Superintendent of the mill, and has been for many years, having been an active and respected resident of Austin since 1864. It keeps him pretty busy looking out for the different departments of the institution under his charge, but he is fully equal to the task, and understands his business.

THE MOTIVE POWER

Running the entire mill, as well as furnishing power to some other outside arrangements, is supplied by one of the best and most effective steam engines in this section. It is a Putnam valve horizontal engine with eighteen-inch cylinder and forty-two-inch stroke, rated at 140 horse power. The fly wheel is eighteen feet in diameter, and weighs 14,000 pounds. This engine is from the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, and with its bed, eighteen feet long, must have been a very ponderous affair to freight over the Sierra and across the flats before the advent of the railroad. The boiler room contains three pairs of tubular boilers, two sets of them in constant use and the third kept in reserve. One very effective feature here consists in the recent adoption of six-inch upright columns of team pipes, nine on each side of the fire boxes or furnaces. These are connected with the boilers, and are of very important assistance in getting up steam. There is no trouble in getting up all the steam required, and more, too. A great saving of fuel is also effected. About seven cords of nutpine wood are burned daily. The Chief Engineer in charge of this department is Eph. Wagar, and he takes a very evident degree of pride in it.

THE MACHINE SHOPS.

The numerous mining works naturally created a demand for an establishment right here where repairing could be done and machinery made without having to send hundreds of miles for that purpose. The result was that from a small blacksmith shop the present extensive and very complete establishment has grown by frequent and judicious additions. It contains big forges, a steam hammer, lathes, planers, turning, drilling and sawing machines, all of the latest patterns and the most substantial description, and any work required can be turned out at short notice, from a six-foot hoisting reel to a big steam engine. Moreover, as has been before remarked, just as well finished and effective work can be turned out of these shops as from any establishment this side of San Francisco. A. E. Johnson is the master mechanic in charge of this department, and under his efficient supervision constant improvement is shown.

THE FOUNDRY,

Which is conveniently situated near by, is under the charge of James Lovell, a very competent and skillful workman. It is not so extensive as some of the San Francisco foundries, but what work it does turn out is first-class and fully up to the requirements. It was a good idea on the part of the Manhattan company to thus establish their own shops where they could do all their own work as required and make all necessary repairs instead of having to send so far away in case of accident or for any new work required. The necessities of the isolated situation, however, prompted the practical adoption of the idea.

OTHER DEPARTMENTS.

The assay office of the company, across the road from the mill, is properly furnished in all its details, and is engineered by Jacob Trolson, who also acts, when occasion requires, as surveyor in and about the mines. The main office of the company, also near the mill, is a very unpretentious structure, but a large amount of very responsible business is transacted therein. M. J. Farrell is chief clerk in charge and has been for numerous years. John Frost, the old original locator of the mines, still presides over them in the capacity of Superintendent of the machinery of the various works, both above and below ground, and is a very efficient man for that responsible position. The whole mines, mil, workshops and all connected with the Manhattan Company, are under the superintendence of Melville Curtis, a very wide awake sort of a gentleman. His work and success tells its own story.

ALF. DOTEN.

TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE

Sunday……….July 29, 1883.

FROM EASTERN NEVADA.

Impending Cloud Burst—Fire-proof Precautions—Good Milling—Five Thousand Dollar Ore—Reese River Millions— Judicious Management and Consequent Prosperity—Sensible and Squarely Practical Mining—Judicious Dead Work—The Telegraph Strike—Indian Troubles—Democratic Strategy.

[Correspondence of the Enterprise.]

AUSTIN, Nev., July 27, 1883.

For several days past ponderous clouds and deep muttering thunder, raging angrily across the timid blue sky, have given ominous portent of the coming cloud burst, but as yet the aforesaid cometh not. Each day the old Reese River Pioneer cocks his weather eye up at the troubled afternoon sky, and promisingly shakes his grizzled locks as he tells you about the terrible cloud burst and flood of August, ’78, which just swept Austin from head to foot. And all along Main street the store and saloon keepers get their little flood gates ready to place in their doorways to keep out any repetition of the aqueous-fluvial calamity which so detrimentally invaded their premises on that memorable occasion. The Johnny-come-latelies and tenderfeet, gazing philosophically upon the daily threatening sky, laugh scornfully at the few drops of rain reluctantly squeezed out, refuse to believe that there ever was any cloud burst here at all, and are willing to believe that the whole disastrous yarn is a diseased dream of the old R. R. P. aforesaid. And the old R. R. P. secretly hopes that a devil of a cloud burst will come soon, to vindicate his veracity and the honor of the town.

PREPARED AGAINST FIRE.

The people of Austin seem more careful as regards precautionary measures against conflagrations than anywhere else in the known world. Foul or defective stovepipes and chimneys create frequent fire alarms in all wide-awake communities, but not so here. Maybe the wood does not form any inflammable scale or soot, on the inside of the stovepipes, or the people themselves do not feel able to afford the luxury of being burned out, and therefore are more careful than the people of other communities. Our Volunteer Fire Department is well organized, and prepared ready for a rush at the first tap or toot of a fire alarm, but for nearly three years past not so much as a China wash-house or a Summer kitchen has called for the hose-carts to roll. There are plenty of hydrants advantageously distributed, plenty of good hose, plenty of water and plenty of active and experienced firemen, but nothing in that line is ever needed any more. A fire at the Manhattan mill could easily prove an extremely serious disaster to the mining and all other interests of this place and section. The buildings, consisting of machine shops, foundry, coal house and other extensive buildings connected with the mill itself, would culminate in a huge mass of destruction, were it allowed a fair show to that effect. But ample preparations are made against any such disagreeable possibility. Four hydrants, of the most approved style, with the best of carbolized hose attached, or ready to attach, are placed at the most advantageous points. Under a pressure of 285 feet, from the tank or reservoir at the Oregon shaft, streams from these hydrants can be thrown over any of the buildings. A powerful steam pump, connected with the main engine of the mill, can also throw two heavy streams, if desired. Hose Company, No. 2, of the Austin Fire Department, also have their apparatus housed near by, ready to run at a moment’s warning. It would get the advantage, in face of all these precautionary and effective preparations.

GOOD ORE WORKING.

Owing to the great loss of sulphurets by the ordinary wet milling process, the mills of the Comstock have only assured the working of ore up to sixty-five or seventy per cent. of its assay value, the rest passing off in the tailings. Here, at the Manhattan mill, the dry crushing and Stedefeldt chlorination process works the ore up to a much more satisfactory figure, eighty and eighty-two per cent. of the assay value being allowed by the company for the ores milled. This chlorination process completely destroys all the sulphurets, converting the pulverized ore into chloride. In this state it readily yields up its silver, and the loss on the tailings, flue-dust, etc., is comparatively trifling. In fact the tailings are too poor to be considered of any value. About 600 tons a month is the regular working rate of the mill.

SOME RICH ORE.

The ore in some of the characteristically small veins of this district are concentratedly and remarkably rich. Two and three thousand dollars per ton is not at all uncommon. Among the richest was a lot of twenty or thirty tons from the Dollarhide mine in 1875, the first-class of which worked $5,050 per ton, and the second-class over $1,000 per ton. On the 30th of last month a small lot from Cassidy’s Homego mine, Yankee Blade, yielded at the rate of $5,000 per ton. About $250 or $300 per ton, however, are the average milling figures. Since the first discovery of the mines of this district, twenty years ago, down to the present time the total bullion yield has amounted to over $20,000,000. During the working management of the Manhattan Company, a period of sixteen years, the mill has turned out to date the handsome sum of $16,052,414 25, and it is still sending forth the clean silver bullion bricks at the rate of a million dollars a year. This represents the total yield of Reese River District. The present condition and prospects of the mines warrant a continuance of the same prosperous yield for years to come.

SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT.

Since the Manhattan Company has had the principal control and management of the mining situation here, substantial, well-grounded property has been the feature, and Austin still continues on a firm basis of general prosperity. Very few idle men are to be seen, regular standard mining wages are paid and things go along like clockwork. The company has paid dividends in times past, and perhaps may again in the sweet by and by, but considering the fact that these, unlike the Comstock, are purely silver mines, with no gold, it is pretty good to be able to square accounts liberally and keep going ahead all right. Especially so in the face of the long-continued twenty per cent. discount on silver, which would make a pretty good monthly dividend of itself. The cost of transportation to and from this isolated locality is no small item in the way of expense, but the main feature in practical mining operations here consists in sinking shafts and inclines, with competent surface works, at heavy expense, to reach and develop rich but very small ore veins which are unreliable in their general situation and character, and always calling for new and expensive explorations. A large proportion of the ores reduced at the mill are custom and tribute ores, and indeed had it not been for the adoption of the tribute system it is a question as to whether the mines generally might not have been a dead financial failure long ago. A large amount of dead work has constantly to be done, the management, very judiciously, while working present ore development, never failing to keep prospecting for more in the most promising direction. Moreover, a competent reserve fund has always to be kept on hand against occasional backsets and to tide over all adverse possibilities and contingencies. Thus it is that no assessments have to be levied, and present prosperity is more in favor of dividends than assessments. Few companies of any kind on the American continent are as systematically and judiciously managed, and operate as beneficially for the community amid which it exists.

DEMORALIZED TELEGRAPH.

The most disreputable institution in the country now is the Western Union Telegraph. The Associated Press dispatches were bad enough before, but since the great strike of the operators, they have become totally unreliable. Everybody used to remark what a liar the telegraph was, and now it necessarily has to subside into a helpless, hopeless state of moral mendacity, with nobody so poor as to do it reverence. Universal American sympathy is with the striking operators. Here in Austin we have only one, but he is a public object of interest, and we all sympathize with him. He is quiet and says nothing, which makes the public sympathy all the more intense. Should he conclude to send a blue streak of electro-dynamite through the wire and blow Jay Gould or any other bloated monopolist straight into the infernal regions, the people of Austin will unanimously applaud and indorse him.

INDIAN TROUBLES.

The Piutes residing on the hill-slopes, both sides of town, are in serious trouble. Bowel complaint, diphtheria, fever and other styles of sickness are among them, and they are losing quite a number, especially children, by death. The poor old medicine man has worked himself nearly to death, and howled himself hoarse, trying to cure or ward off these diseases, but now lies down and rolls in agonies of despair. They bury their dead and move their campoodies, but sickness and death follow them. Many are leaving for Humboldt and Walker as fast as the railroad will deadhead them through.

VINDICATED.

The three hunters from Austin, Allen, Mason and Craycroft, mentioned in my last letter as having been arrested and jailed in Grantsville, Nye county, for violation of the Game law, have got back to Austin. They got out of the scrape by special and ingenious diplomacy. The day their trial came up before the Justice of the Peace they went to $9 expense, and deliberately got every man in Grantsville, except the Sheriff and Justice, blind drunk. The witnesses for the prosecution magnanimously swore they didn’t know anything about the case, and the jury hilariously pronounced them "puffeckly in (hic) scent," declaring that this arrest was an outrage on American civilization. Allen is going to run for Governor next time and considers Grantsville already canvassed in his favor. Anyhow he knows it will only cost $9 to canvass it again whenever he sees fit.

ALF. DOTEN

TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE

Sunday……….August 5, 1883.

FROM EASTERN NEVADA.

Frozen Pioneer Truths—The Indian Troubles—Doom of the Howling Doctor—A Dog-Gone Conclusion—Bandaged Bangs—Rich Ore in Narrow Streaks—Detrimental Dust—Austin and Comstock Dump Pickers—Four Knights Templar.

[Correspondence of the Enterprise.]

AUSTIN, Nev., August 3, 1883.

One of the chief characteristics of the genuine Reese River Pioneer is his truthfulness. He looks upon a lie as a rotten egg. George Washington might be able to hatch it out with his little hatchet, but he would disdain to even make the attempt. The Pioneer delights in frozen truths even in hot weather. Only yesterday Mr. Dadd, who arrived here among the earliest sufferers, and is a relative of Bill Dadd the Scribe, in the course of a conversation about the weather, informed me that notwithstanding the regular ninety degrees we have been sweltering under the last two months, and which state of heat is usual every Summer for several months at a time, ice is liable to form most any night. In fact, he says that over on Birch creek, a dozen miles from here, there is a big bluff of solid ice over a hundred feet high, which never thaws out. It is a prehistoric glacier which was there long before he arrived in the country. "Why," said he, warming up with the subject, "in August, '63, me and old Reese was a campin’ down on the river, where Birchim’s ranch is now, amongst the tules, and we found it mighty cold sleepin' under three pair o' double blankets. In fact, we found our coffee-pot skimmed over with ice every mornin', and it a settin' close by the fire. The coffee was all the clearer for it, howsomever."

SICKNESS AND DEATH.

As stated in my last, the Piutes are in trouble. So many deaths have occurred among them of late, from diphtheria, bowel complaint, etc., that scores of them have left in search of a more healthy locality. There was a general exodus of them on Monday last from the hillside south of town, all packing up and leaving for Stillwater. They did not neglect to take along with them their howling doctor, which was a satisfactory circumstance. He did not want to go, for he knows they intend to drown and cremate him in case of any deaths continuing among them at Stillwater. Mrs. Cook’s old dog "Bing," named after Bing Williams, the noted pugilist, died this morning from eating too much strychnine. Bing was as large and brave as a sheep, and his mistress admired him for his many noble qualities. He was death on cats, although he never caught or killed any. One cold, stormy night last Winter, old Bing got a couple of cats treed under the house. He couldn’t get in there, and they couldn’t get out, for Bing’s vigilant nose stopped the hole. They clawed a comfortable bed in the dirt, and snored the happy hours away, while poor watchful Bing laid out in the snow and nearly froze to death. Dear, faithful old dog, like a burned-out stove, or a cigar stump, as the newspapers always philosophically remark, when an old pioneer dies, "Peace to his ashes." But may his canine ghost haunt the midnight dreams of his heartless poisoner.

BANDAGED HEADS.

Speaking about prize-fighting, the few homely young ladies in Austin wear big bandages tied around their heads every day, and so do all the homeliest married women. Like prize-fighters after a battle, they wear bandages over the bangs on their foreheads. But they are not so belligerent and domestically quarrelsome as these bandages would indicate. They only wish to look pretty for an hour or two in the evening, so they tie up their heads and look viciously hideous all day. A blonde, or a red-haired woman, looks especially interesting with her head thus bundled up.

YANKEE BLADE ORE.

A dozen tons or more comes in every week to the Manhattan mill from the mines of Yankee Blade, three or four miles north of here. The ledges there are small, and possess the same general characteristics as these here in Austin, and they are of about the same degree of richness, but give better milling returns. The reason of this is that those mines are worked mostly by tributers and outside parties, who dress and sort their ore close in order to avoid extra cost of milling, transportation, etc. The principal mine is the Patriot, formerly the McCann, which shows a ledge six or eight inches wide, very rich in black antimonial and ruby silver. Ford & Johnson also have a little ledge of two or three inches, which skins out toward $1,000 a ton whenever they can manage to scrape out a ton. Jenkins' mine has a two or three inch ledge, which occasionally bulges out into a four or five inch bonanza, and his first-class ore mills over a thousand dollars per ton. But it takes a comparatively long time to extract a ton of ore from between its tough granite walls. To an old Comstocker, used to seeing hundreds of tons of ore handled daily, this reads ridiculously small, of course, but it must be borne in mind that these ore veins are exceedingly condensed. Each one of these rich little two to six inch veins equals a forty foot Comstocker, with the advantage of having less rock to handle, less timbering and far less expense generally. Pounds in the way of rick ore tell wonderfully sometimes in bullion results, particularly and notably in this section.

PULP POISONING.

The dry working, chlorination process of the Manhattan mill is rather tough in some respects on human lungs. Especially is this the case in the battery department, where the air is full of ore dust all the time. This pulverized quartz operates as a constant poison in its action upon the lungs, and slowly and surely lives have yielded to its effects during years past. The men employed wear a patent muzzle arrangement, breathing through a wet sponge, and have a peculiarly vicious, bulldog look to an outsider. Some lungs yield far more readily than others to the pulp dust. Some cannot stand it at all, while others stand this or any other department of the mill right straight along, without apparent detriment. Charley Durning, the Superintendent, who has been through all parts of the mill every day for the last sixteen years, shows no bad effects from it. James Robinson, the weigher and receiver, and general boss of the ore and battery room, has for a similar period inhaled tons upon tons of pulp with impunity, and as for James Sullivan, the oldest veteran of them all, he is only happy and comfortable amid clouds of chlorinated chloride from the furnace. He feels refreshed by his regular daily lung feed, grows younger on it, and outside the pure air has no nutriment in it for him any more. When he dies his corpse will assay $40,000 to the ton.

DUMP PICKING.

This is one of the peculiar industries of this locality, and furnishes employment to a large number of boys as well as men. In the mining or extraction of these small, rich ore veins, some of the ore is very liable to get among the waste rock and be dumped as such. Boys purchase or are given the privilege of canvassing the various dumps and looking out for any of these stray pieces of ore. They become very expert at it, and whenever a carload of waste is dumped they can detect at a glance any bit of good ore that comes rolling down. Men turn over old dumps for what good ore may have got astray in former times, and both men and boys pick over ore that has been cast away by those engaged in dressing or assorting it. All these dump-pickers find more or less lucrative employment at it. They bring their little lots of ore to the mill, and it yields from $150 to $500 to the ton, giving them $50 or $100 in the way of monthly wages. There is not so much chance, perhaps, for dump picking among the mines of the Comstock, yet even there we have seen many an industrious gentleman of Mexican or Spanish extraction making good wages picking about the croppings and old dumps, breaking and selecting rock with his little hammer. And some day, when dog-in-the-manger Superintendents or Directors will allow it, some of those ancient dumps will be turned over with profit to both mine-owners and dump-pickers.

AUSTIN’S FOUR KNIGHTS.

The Triennial Conclave of the Knights Templar, about to assemble in San Francisco, will be attended by many people from this section who desire to witness the grandest display of the kind that the Pacific Coast will be favored with in the nineteenth century. There are only four members of that knightly Order in Austin—Andrew Nicholls, J. R. Williamson, Henry Mayenbaum and Judge D. C. McKenney. How many of these four high-up Masonic gents will attend is not stated at present, but probably all will be "thar." Four better and more worthy resident members of this responsible community could not be selected. ALF DOTEN.

TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE

Tuesday……….August 21, 1883.

FROM EASTERN NEVADA.

Early Austin—The Mecca of Fortune Hunting Pilgrims—The Camels—Architectural and Statistical—Family Additions—Austin Comstockers—Autographic Album Atrocities—Choice Brook Trout—Old Sports—A Rich Strike and Waterbury Wind-up—Suggestive Statistics—Patience.

[Correspondence of the Enterprise.]

AUSTIN, Nev., August 17, 1883.

Like a properly constituted and well wound-up Waterbury watch, Austin continues to tick, roll and wag along with the rest of the world, and recent immigrant, especially those who [do] not believe in the historical cloudburst and flood of ’78 can hardly realize that twenty years ago Austin was the grand Mecca of the Pacific Coast, toward which fortune hunters rushed pell mell from all directions. Main street was blockaded with teams day and night, and there was hardly room for anybody to turn around. And among the features of the rushing pilgrimage, giving it a decidedly Mecca-ish appearance, is this recorded in M. J. Farrell’s address, delivered before the Society of Reese River Pioneers:

"I recollect the advent of the train of camels, and the crowds they attracted. They were hideously ugly, carried immense loads, and were engineered by a red-headed Oriental from county Cork. They were not impeded in their progress by blockades, as their presence as a terror to all the horse kind."

Of course the numerous pack trains of mules and donkeys took to the sagebrush in demoralized dismay when these awful looking beasts came stalking along with rod strides, humping their huge loads high in the air and assuming a proscriptive right to the road through their unrivaled ugliness. It is not recorded that they made many trips across the deserts to this Mecca, for the other pilgrims were naturally inclined to "mecca" row about it. We all remember how these imported camels and dromedaries were ranched and cultivated by some French Arabs on Carson river, and were used to pack salt and fuel to Virginia City in the early days, and how an ordinance had to be passed against their coming into the city in the day time on account of the disastrous fright they gave to teams on the roads, and in fact all other living animals. It is a comfort to know that these ungainly, unprofitable beasts have permanent evacuated this section, and are now roasting their humps beneath the red hot skies of Arizona. They would scare anything but a street locomotive.

AUSTIN ARCHITECTURE.

When Mr. Farrell arrived here, in April, 1863, there was but one house—unfinished—and a few brush shanties, but in five months, he says, 366 houses were erected, not counting tents and shanties. Professor Silliman enthusiastically predicted that Austin would have a population of 50,000 in ten years, and during the Summer of ’63 Mr. Farrell estimates the population at 10,000, which was as far as Silliman’s prediction ever reached toward fulfillment. It has dwindled since to less than 3,000. When the excitement died out and the reaction took place, some of the retiring multitude took away their houses with them, especially those who resided in tents. But they could not take away any of the original stone, brick or adobe buildings, or those made of mud and brush, nor the solid little stockades and dug-outs. Thus it is that Austin today contains more queer little antiquated dwellings than any other town of its size and permanency on the Pacific Coast. Many of the little stockades, made of poles or small logs stood on end and the chinks mudded up, still remain, with their roofs of brush and mud, old tin cans, shakes, etc., although many of them have been done away with in the way of firewood, or utilized in the construction of more pretentious yet not more comfortable structures. There are some very neat granite and brick buildings in Austin for business and public purposes, and for real comfortable dwellings there are numerous ones of the brick and adobe order of architecture which cannot be beat. No new ones have been built for some time, as the old ones are good and sufficient. But a very appreciable feature consists in the numerous additions to the original was of mud, adobe or brick, but later, additions have been made, to accommodate additions to the family—one after the other extending the roof and spreading out until many a dwelling or family encampment resembles an old hen spreading herself, trying to set on an unusual number of eggs.

COMSTOCKERS.

As a large portion of the first population of Eastern Nevada came from the Comstock, so now Austin contains many an old Comstocker, and frequent additions come from that quarter. George Laity, a long time well known resident of Gold Hill arrived a day or two ago, and has gone to work in the mines. He sees plenty of far richer and prettier ore than he ever saw in his mining experience on the Comstock, but infinitely less of it. He has been down in Arizona, and other barbarous localities, but is willing to swear that Gold Hill, and the rest of the Comstock, is God’s country, and its people the best in the world. But he has not been in Austin long. Comstockers very naturally assimilate and affiliate with Austin above or below ground.

MORE ALBUMMERS.

The autographic album ruction has not died out yet. Every young lady of from fourteen to forty-five Summers has her album, and industriously tries to get it filled with the autographic emanations of her personal friends, and people of note about town. Among the most recent coming under my observation are the following specimens:

"Be kind to thy mother; she Loves the best

Of all other friends on this earth;

They father's the next best friend that thou has,

And Austin’s the place of thy birth."

"When I am dead and in my grave,

And all my bones are rotten,

This little book will tell my name

When I am quiet forgotten."

"Remember me when this you see,

And bare me in your

minde—that a friend in

need is few indeed, and

Seldom that you find."

Oh, dear! Such dreadful taffy; such overweening vanity. The next Legislature should take this thing in hand. The last one was not capable.

TROUT FISHING.

On both sides of this, the Toiyabe range, are several good creeks or mountain streams of water, flowing into Smoky and Reese River valleys, which are well stocked with the natural brook trout of the county. These desirable fish are from six to ten inches in length, streaked with a blush of red on their sides, and taste just as delicious as the Eastern brook trout. The other day two of our local fishing sports, J. A. Wright and D. B. Starrett, rode out to Big creek, some eight or ten miles, fished awhile, and then crossed the summit to Kingston canyon, where they struck a good lead of trout. Wright himself, who is the boss expert in that line, caught fifty-two trout in half an hour. They brought home part of a wagon load and treated their friends.

STRUCK IT.

Our mutual friend Spykens has struck a two-inch bonanza of $20,000 ore out at Yankee Blade, and is prosperous. He buys his whisky by the gallon now, instead of smuggling it home by the pocket flask, as formerly. His nose is assuming an aristocratic crushed huckleberry color, and he has treated himself to a Waterbury watch. Yet he is not happy. According to regular requirements it takes just two minutes in each twenty-four hours to wind up a Waterbury watch; one that will run. That amounts to twelve hours in the course of a year, or one day of his life every two years. He feels miserable as he contemplates how much time he is thus winding and wasting away in keeping that Waterbury time piece agoing, and actually shortening the number of his days. That watch cost him only about $3, right straight from the factory. It is the best time-keeper in the world, yet he sees that it is costing him a serious portion of his life. Every night, as he winds it up before going to bed, he gets nervous, and feels that he is simply and literally Patience on a picket fence winding up a Waterbury watch. ALF DOTEN.

TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE

Sunday……….August 26, 1883.

FROM EASTERN NEVADA.

A Sage-Hen Deduction, and a Gold Hill Aquatic Proposition—A True Fish Story—The Grand Conclave at San Francisco—Austin’s Subclavian Portion of it—Some Explosive Beer—Impending Calamity—Nevada Beef—Butchers, Charity and True Benevolence.

[Correspondence of the Enterprise.]

AUSTIN, Nev., August 24, 1883.

"Now see here," said Mr. Dadd, last evening, "here's a proposition I want explained. It’s a well-known and established fact that a sagehen hain’t got no gizzard, like other birds—nothing but a sort of maw; no gizzard at all. I’m an old hunter and know a sagehen from a grouse and a hawk from a hand-saw, but blow me if I can reconcile all the discrepancies of newspaper talk. In the last year or two the papers have been tellin’ about the mines of Gold Hill bein’ flooded with water fillin’ ‘em up over a thousand feet, and now the same papers say them same mines has to shut down from lack of water to mill the ore. How’s that?"

"Yes, but the water simply floods the lower levels, and the ore is all being taken from the old upper workings, near the surface. This ore has to be taken down to the mills on Carson River for reduction. The river is always low at this season, but is lower than usual at present. That’s what's the matter."

"Haven’t they got any pumps in them mines?"

"Certainly; some of the finest and most powerful in the world are to be found in the hoisting works of the Comstock; pumps that are capable of raising a perfect deluge, and which can get that water out whenever the controlling managers see fit to have it done."

"They can, hey; then why the devil don’t they just turn their hoistin' works into quartz mills, and so raise the water and mill the ore all at one lick?" And the festive old Reese River pioneer gave a vigorous puff of his pipe, like a high-pressure Mississippi steamboat, as he wheeled around and strode off down street.

AN OLD FISH STORY.

How long fish may grow to be has been definitely ascertained and established long ago, but how long they may live has never been statistically represented and set down. The famous eyeless fish of the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and elsewhere in subterranean waters are well enough in their way. They never required eyes, consequently were not provided with those useful appendages, so useful to the horse buyer and other stock dealers, but here in Austin we have fish, who, "having eyes see not," and have not for the last sixteen years. Across the street from the Reveille office is a little old wooden building, bearing the pretentious sign legend of "United States Bakery." It never baked the United States, but in times past furnished bread for the Austin portion of the Republic. At the rear end of the bakery is a good sized tunnel excavation, about thirty feet in length, in the solid granite. It was made in the early days, and has been in use ever since, forming a very nice cool vault. In excavating this cellar or tunnel, near the back end or face, a small spring of pure cold water was struck, which flowed up through a crevice in the solid rock floor, and furnished a valuable supply for the bakery as well as for some of the neighbors. It has continued flowing ever since. A hole about three feet long, two wide and a foot deep, was made in the rock for the spring, which was kept covered with planks. Early in 1867 the proprietor one day procured a dozen small fish from Reese river, alive, and put them in this spring. They were of the red-streaked sucker variety, six or seven inches in length, and took very kindly to their quiet, dark little prison. This was sixteen years ago. Subsequently some died or were given away, and now only two are left. They still retain the same size, none of them having grown any longer, these two remaining being six or seven inches in length. There being no flies or any other species of insect in that cold, dark, closely shut spring, and no other food having ever been given them, these solitary confined little fish have merely subsisted on the clear running water, something which no other old Reese River Pioneer is able to brag of. There being rarely ever any occasion to remove the cover of the spring, hese little fish have never seen sunlight and scarcely even daylight for over sixteen tears. A new wooden boxing was put into the spring some four or five years ago, since which time it has not been disturbed. Of course no one may know how old these fish were when taken from the river, but they had evidently attained their full growth. Owing to the total darkness and seclusion in which they live, they look faded and old, but they have not lost the use of their eyes, and bid fair to outlive any of the two-legged Reese River Pioneers by a few hundred years or more.

CONCLAVICAL.

All who went from Austin to the grand Conclave at San Francisco report having a glorious good time in that Coty of Sin by the Golden Gate, and express no desire to come back yet. We read the elaborately glowing telegraphic accounts of the magnificent racket, and feel sympathizingly happy and excited. When our three Knights from Austin—Mc Kenney, Williamson and Nicholls—return, a grand reception awaits them. Everybody will be en masse; the Lander Brass Band will play "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," and other national airs and those Knights have got to march up Main street from the cars, doing the Conclave procession same as they did it at the Bay. Williamson must lead off as Commander of the Commandery, and the other two may follow in regular platoons and divisions. Austin’s subclavian artery throbs for the Conclave, and must have some of it.

GAMBRINUS ON A BUST.

Our local brewer of beer, whose name is Gus. Bauer, sometimes astonishes even himself in some things. On the 11th of June last he got a keg of double-extra good beer into his delivery wagon among the rest, and was passing along one of the upper streets, when suddenly a trouble occurred. The safety valve of that particular keg blew out, and created a serious commotion. All the other kegs went immediately overboard, and left room for that one keg to send a ferocious stream up about forty feet. The side wind of it blew Gus. off his seat, and a paralyzing stream went upward, baptizing the whole neighborhood. It subsided directly, and as soon as possible Gus. pulled that keg out of his wagon. There was only one gallon out of the twenty left in it, and that he gave to an old lady who lived close by, and who with the other astonished neighbors had witnessed the calamity. The beer looked flat and innocent enough then, and she put it into five bottles. That same night four of them blew out their corks, upsetting a shelf full of crockery above them, and sounding like the Fourth of July. She got a bit of baling rope over the cork of the fifth bottle, made a clove hitch around the neck, two turns under the bottom, and then hauled taut and belayed the end to one of the corner timbers of the cellar. Then she barricaded it safely with stove-wood and dry goods boxes, and sent for Gus. to come and take it away. But no; he delights in keeping her terrorized, and she wants to sell out and leave.

BEEF.

Perhaps you Comstockers may be in the full enjoyment of choice, tender sirloin and porterhouse steaks, and perhaps you may not, but here in Eastern Nevada is where the fullest enjoyment of those coveted luxuries are best to be had at the present time. The feed everywhere is excellent, and the quality of the beef and mutton is consequently “away up” in quality, yet not unusually so in price. The people of Austin are getting fat on good meat. Why shouldn’t they? Here’s where it grows. Yet everybody may not have the requisite coin to buy with. Our butchers, however, are liberally benevolent, and allow nobody to starve. Sometimes I think the butcher is the truest and purest charity man in any community, generally speaking. He is always giving away something substantial and nourishing in the way of meat scraps, soup bones, liver or something of the sort, that poor, impecunious humanity stands in need of. The lordly Piute chieftain always respects the boss of the meat shop, and even the hungry yellow dog does not always appeal to him in vain.

ALF. DOTEN.