mining storms pass
away about as suddenly as they rise, leaving only ruins to tell of the
tremendous energy expended, as heaps of giant boulders in the valley
tell of the spent power of the mountain floods.

In marked contrast with this destructive unrest is the orderly
deliberation into which miners settle in developing a truly valuable
mine. At Eureka we were kindly led through the treasure chambers of the
Richmond and Eureka Consolidated, our guides leisurely leading the way
from level to level, calling attention to the precious ore masses
which the workmen were slowly breaking to pieces with their picks, like
navvies wearing away the day in a railroad cutting; while down at the
smelting works the bars of bullion were handled with less eager haste
than the farmer shows in gathering his sheaves.

The wealth Nevada has already given to the world is indeed wonderful,
but the only grand marvel is the energy expended in its development.
The amount of prospecting done in the face of so many dangers and
sacrifices, the innumerable tunnels and shafts bored into the mountains,
the mills that have been built--these would seem to require a race of
giants. But, in full view of the substantial results achieved, the pure
waste manifest in the ruins one meets never fails to produce a saddening
effect.

The dim old ruins of Europe, so eagerly sought after by travelers, have
something pleasing about them, whatever their historical associations;
for they at least lend some beauty to the landscape. Their picturesque
towers and arches seem to be kindly adopted by nature, and planted
with wild flowers and wreathed with ivy; while their rugged angles are
soothed and freshened and embossed with green mosses, fresh life and
decay mingling in pleasing measures, and the whole vanishing softly like
a ripe, tranquil day fading into night. So, also, among the older ruins
of the East there is a fitness felt. They have served their time, and
like the weather-beaten mountains are wasting harmoniously. The same is
in some degree true of the dead mining towns of California.

But those lying to the eastward of the Sierra throughout the ranges of
the Great Basin waste in the dry wilderness like the bones of cattle
that have died of thirst. Many of them do not represent any good
accomplishment, and have no right to be. They are monuments of fraud and
ignorance--sins against science. The drifts and tunnels in the rocks may
perhaps be regarded as the