Show REVIVAL OF VIRGINIA CITY it will be of great interest to mining men the world over to learn that with the advent of the installation of electric power and the placing of the most extensive electrical machinery plant in the world the future of virginia city nevada is brighter than it has been for I 1 years years possibly brighter than ever the mining minina and engineering r review and electrician of san francisco is authority for the statement that the electrical machinery for the big power plant at floriston floreston Flo riston on the truckee river but a short distance from virginia city is nearly comple completed Led and that the current will be ready to be turned on about the middle of september the power will be derived from the plant of the truckee river general electric company the primary ob eject j act bein being the furnishing of electric energy to the great areat comstock mines the mines that caused the whole world to marvel at their apparently parent ly inexhaustible capacity and richness the original discovery was made in the ophir in june 1859 when less than 40 tons of ore having been hauled to san francisco it was settled for on the basis of 2947 per ton then followed the wildest excitement of modern times beside which the klondike and cape nome craze pale into insignificance C 1 the savage hale and norcross chollar potosi gould and curry yellow jacket crown point belcher imperial and other discoveries followed in quick succession succeSS iOD and the mines yielded in the ten years following oo in 1873 the big bonanza in the consolidated virginia was struck and the excitement grew in proportion capital was pouring into the new camp and virginia city a small camp among the sage brush and sand began to assume the proportions of a great city with a population of or more the excitement reached its zenith when it became known that millions in gold and silver were being extracted extract pd from this strike it is a fact that between the years 1873 and 1882 were taken out from the bonanza the strike was made at the 1167 foot level then came the question of draining the lower levels of the mines and the time produced the genius adolph sutro projected the grat tunnel known afterwards by his name the tunnel was started in the valley of the carson river and ran for a distance of feet in a northwesterly direction when it struck the savage mine at a depth of 2640 1640 feet subsequently all of the mines on the lode were connected with the tunnel but when it was completed the deepest shaft had reached a depth of only feet so that the tunnel was of little use at that time in brainin draining the mines but it will remain a greaten great engineering ri feat the wonderful difference in the cost of steam power and electricity is so great that the con census of opinion among among the old timers is that the low grade ores in the upper levels can be worked to a tremendous advantage and profit that there is yet a great amount of ore in the old workings is well known and that there is ore to the value of hundreds of millions below the present workings Z is the opinion of practical min mining ingmen men As asan an instance irmay it may be referred to that at the time of the fire in the consolidated virginia rich ore was being being taken from the bonanza but at that time the workings 1 nas 0 were and closed and have remained so up to the present it is estimated that the mines of the comstock lode have produced in gold old and silver nearly |