Town lots soared up to
prices that were amazing.
The great "Comstock lode" stretched its opulent length straight through
the town from north to south, and every mine on it was in diligent
process of development. One of these mines alone employed six hundred
and seventy-five men, and in the matter of elections the adage was, "as
the 'Gould and Curry' goes, so goes the city." Laboring men's wages were
four and six dollars a day, and they worked in three "shifts" or gangs,
and the blasting and picking and shoveling went on without ceasing, night
and day.
The "city" of Virginia roosted royally midway up the steep side of Mount
Davidson, seven thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea, and
in the clear Nevada atmosphere was visible from a distance of fifty
miles! It claimed a population of fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand,
and all day long half of this little army swarmed the streets like bees
and the other half swarmed among the drifts and tunnels of the
"Comstock," hundreds of feet down in the earth directly under those same
streets. Often we felt our chairs jar, and heard the faint boom of a
blast down in the bowels of the earth under the office.
The mountain side was so steep that the entire town had a slant to it
like a roof. Each street was a terrace, and from each to the next street
below the descent was forty or fifty feet.
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