A Crossroads Resource
Unit VII: What, Then, Is This American? ca. 1865 - 1900
Question/Problem 4: What was the West like for miners, cattlemen, and
homesteader?
Miners' Reading #2
True knowledge of the nature of silver mining came fast enough. We went
out 'prospecting' with Mr. Ballou. We climbed the mountainsides, and
clambered among sagebrush, rocks, and snow till we were ready to drop with
exhaustion, but found no silver--nor yet any gold. Day after day we did
this. Now and then we came upon holes burrowed a few feet into the
declivities and apparently abandoned; and now and then we found one or two
listless men still burrowing. But there was no appearance of silver.
These holes were the beginnings of tunnels, and the purpose was to drive
them hundreds of feet into the mountain, and someday tap the hidden ledge
where the silver was. Someday! It seemed far enough away, and very
hopeless and dreary. Day after day we toiled , and climbed and searched,
and we younger partners grew sicker and still sicker of the promiseless
toil. At last we halted under a battling rampart of rock which projected
from the earth high upon the mountain. Mr. Ballou broke off some
fragments with a hammer, and examined them long and attentively with a
small eyeglass; threw them away and broke off more; said this rock was
quartz, and quartz was the sort of rock that contained silver. Contained
it! I had thought that at least it would be caked on t he outside of it
like a kind of veneering, He still broke off pieces and critically
examined them, now and then wetting the piece with his tongue and applying
the glass. At last he exclaimed: 'We've got it!'
We were full of anxiety in a moment. The rock was clean and white, where
it was broken, and across it ran a ragged thread of blue. He said that
little thread had silver in it, mixed with base metals, such as lead and
antimony, and other rubbish, and that t there was a speck or two of gold
visible. After a great deal of effort we managed to discern some little
fine yellow specks, and judged that a couple of tons of them massed
together might make a gold dollar, possibly. We were not jubilant, but
Mr. Ballou said there were worse ledges in the world than that. He saved
what he called the 'richest' piece of the rock, in order to determine its
value by the process called the 'fire assay.' Then we named the mine
'Monarch of the Mountains'.
From Mark Twain, Roughing It (New York: Penguin USA, 1962),
pp. 163-164.
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