would soon be reached to their wealth, sold out their shares severally, the total amount paid to all of them being $70,000. A one sixth share in the mine is said to have been traded off for an old blind horse. In a short time twelve companies were operating on the great "Comstock lode." In as many years it had yielded $145,100,000 in silver. Later (1873) when the wedge-shaped ledge known as the "Big Bonanza" was found

deeper in the earth there was taken from it about $35,254,507 in silver in a single twelve-month.

The Overland Trail to California, with its offshoots southward from Cheyenne, Wyo., to the Denver-Pike's Peak region, and northward from Fort Hall into Oregon, saw Colorado hundreds of emigrants after 1854 willing to try gold mines their luck for shining gold elsewhere than in

California. Of these Colorado received her share, but, with the exception of some slight success in 1859-1860 in the valley of Boulder Creek, north of Denver, no prospect of great success came until diggings in Clear Creek Valley in the mountains west of Denver were discovered. Here, at "Chicago Bar" and oppo

site the present Idaho Springs, valuable deposits were found. The prospecting in "Russell Gulch," "Illinois Gulch," and "Nevada Gulch" in the same drainage area soon became famous; and from the many streams in Clear Creek and Gilpin counties placer mining brought forth about thirty millions in gold in the years 1859-1863, at which time the field was exhausted until capital and machinery came to place mining on a scientific basis; with such facilities the output crept up to five and six million a year in 1871-1872.

Clear Creek mines

The same deception practiced by Nature in Nevada of hiding her silver in black quartz misled, also, the early Colorado gold-hunters. What passed for mediocre gold mines were really silver mines of enormous value. In the summer of 1864 what was believed to be a silver mine was discovered high up on Clear Creek's tributaries in Gilpin County. Professor N. P. Hall of Brown University was sent to test the mine; his report led to the establishment of the Boston and Colorado Smelting Company with a capital of $275,000. A furnace was erected near the present Central City. The product of the mine rose from $300,000 in 1868 to $2,250,000 a decade later.

Famous developments followed in the San Juan country on the Continental Divide between the waters of the Rio Grande and the Rio Dolores, where over a thousand lodes were claimed to have been discovered by 1874. One hundred and fifty tons of selected ore from the Hotchkiss Mine in Hinsdale County sold in San Francisco at the rate of $40,000 per ton. In the Begole lode in Ouray County, just to the northward over the Divide, one hundred ounces of silver with 40 per cent. lead per ton were being mined.

The Leadville mines

For years in the upper Arkansas Valley, in the present Leadville region, miners had been accustomed to move out of their way heavy boulders of no seeming value. In 1876 W. H. Stevens discovered a lead mine on the south side of "California Gulch" a mile north of the present city of Leadville. When assayed the ore of this "Rock Mine" showed from twenty to forty ounces of silver to

the ton. Here quickly arose the "Rock," "Adelaide," "Iron,” and other mines; in two years the latter mine paid a profit of a quarter of a million above expenses. The first house was erected in Leadville in June, 1877; two years later the city post office was issuing money orders at the rate of $355,911 a year. The average daily output of mineral from the mines in the Leadville region in the first six months of 1885 was ten thousand tons.

Gold and silver were discovered in Oregon in 1852 and for eight years placer mining was prosecuted successfully in the Blue Mountain and Rogue River districts; later

quartz mining was engaged in. Montana, now Mining in Oregon and famous as a great copper-producing region, found Montana the "knight of pick and shovel" prospecting in Deerlodge County as early as 1852 with some success; national attention was, however, directed thither in 1863-4, with the unearthing of the "Alder Gulch" and "Last Chance Gulch" diggings; in the last year of the Civil War eighteen Idaho mines million dollars' worth of gold and silver was mined

in Montana. Idaho, that veritable El Dorado of minerals, welcomed the placer miner in 1860 and in half a century gave the world well along toward three hundred million dollars' worth of gold; in baser metals the fame of the Coeur d'Alene mines is world-wide. In 1874 gold was discovered in the Black Hills in South Dakota and the towns of Deadwood and Lead became famous for their "diggings" and the Mining in the Black rush of immigrants thither. The Homestake Hills and Mine at Lead, S. D., is now our richest American in Arizona gold mine. Spaniard and Mexican found the

gold and silver deposits of Arizona in earliest days. In the decade after 1858 placer mining in the valleys of the Gila and Colorado rivers attracted thousands while the silver lodes at Tombstone flourished from 1879 to 1886 and more recently have been largely developed. The "Copper Queen" at Bisbee from 1880 on, with other copper mines in the Globe, Morenci, and Jerome districts, has made Arizona the leading state in the Union in that branch of mining.

The mineral wealth of our great West has influenced the

world in many respects; some of its political effects will be noted in connection with currency problems which have faced the nation in recent years. These mines drew populations into regions which would not have been developed so soon, and created a great cordon of states fit to take their place in the roll of the Union. In most cases the flow of population, as we have seen, was directly due to discoveries of precious metals. The admission of Nevada in 1864 and Colorado in 1876 as states, coincides with the periods in which mines and mining claimed its thousands of adventurous manhood in the age of gold and silver.

READING LIST

Hough, The Passing of the Frontier, Chap. 5; E. White, The Forty-Niners, Chaps. 4-16; C. H. Shinn, Mining Camps; Bogart, Chap. 22; Paxson, Last American Frontier, Chaps. and 10; N. S. Shaler, United States, Chaps. 6 and 8; Shinn, The Story of the Mine; E. S. Meade, The Story of Gold; K. Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West, II, 255-284.

QUERY AND DISCUSSION

Trace on the map the three great transcontinental trails, Santa Fé, Overland, and Oregon. Describe the periods in which each of these saw the most activity. What was the first trail to your section of the country? Describe the changing methods of transportation used on or along it. How would such a rush of an excited multitude as described by Professor Royce into an unsettled region test "moral and social endurance"? Explain the origin of such laws as the "miner's inch." How far do you think English Common Law entered into frontier law making? What might have been the history of "Louisiana" had Napoleon known its mineral wealth? What great mining regions lay within it? Without it?

Section 50. The Farmer at the Ballot Box

As the prairie farmers increased in number and spread across the upland toward the Rockies this giant empire of sunflower, cottonwood, and sage began to acquire a population unknown in the days of mine and cattle ranch. The words "farm," "ranch," and "mine” indicate that there were diversified interests in this region; but as time went on it was found that there was room enough for cattleman and "nester," and that the

miner and "dry farmer" had like interests in water rights and irrigation. Thus a type of political solidarity was established. Yet by far the strongest bond uniting these Westerners was the old bond which had united every Physical solidarity "West" the unity which common want and of our struggle with adversity bring. This West was, great West too, a debtor region; almost all its building was

done with borrowed money. It demanded the cheapest money it could get and the most elastic. Many of its demands for redress from financial oppression, as had been true of every pioneer West, were impractical. The same human seed planted in similar soil always brought forth the same fruit-insurgency. When the heyday of western railroad building had arrived (the average increase between 1870 and 1890 was 6,000 miles per year) the prairie farmer had pretty well oc

of sectional

cupied the Mississippi Basin up to and into the Development border of the arid plains. The North and Middle identity West were now largely engaged in manufacturing

and commerce; but the South and the Far West formed a distinct agricultural empire vast in extent but rapidly filling with population. It was prosperous to a degree, but as soon as it, as a section, came into conscious existence, it found its prosperity was largely in the hands of the creditor East. Particularly was it dependent on railway financiers, The control of the creditor speculators, and stockholders. These controlled East the transportation of its agricultural products. The difference between this "West" and those which preceded it lay here: this was the last "West." Heretofore if pioneers in Kentucky or Ohio or Indiana became dissatisfied, they could pull up stakes and migrate to the newer lands toward the Pacific. There was no farther West now. These Westerners of 18701890 had, therefore, their backs to the wall. Theirs was the last ditch. They had to fight the thing out. It was a long battle and it is not yet over. They fought for many foolish things but they won many issues which our whole nation unanimously considers real assets. The record of these defeats and victories is, therefore, a never-to-be-forgotten story.