Wealth of the Worlds Waste Places and Oceania | Page 4

and copper. Gold and silver are the mediums of commercial transactions, and copper is the chief medium for the transmission of electric power. These metals, therefore, are quite as necessary as are iron and steel. Moreover, this great waste, a seeming incubus on the face of the earth, is each year disclosing more and more of its mineral and agricultural wealth.
Gold is the most widely disseminated of all metals, and is said to be where you find it. That this statement is true has been demonstrated many times, especially during the last few decades. In the north it has been found in the frozen ground of Alaska and Siberia, in the south in the sands on the surf-beaten shores of Tierra del Fuego and in the reefs of the Transvaal, while it is found in numerous places lying between these extremes.
The vast tract of land in the western part of the United States whence most of these metals are obtained has been the scene of many tragedies. It is an inhospitable region, scanty in both animal and vegetable life, where climatic conditions call for heroic daring on the part of those who would search out its hidden mysteries; it is a land of death-dealing mirages, yet containing untold wealth for the miner, and likewise for the husbandman who can irrigate the fallow parched surface.
[Illustration: Mohave Desert, California. Buzzards' Roost]
The bold prospector has unearthed in many places of southern Nevada gold-bearing rock assaying thousands of dollars to the ton, the result being the building up of cities and towns and the construction of connecting railroads to meet the demands of the growing commerce. Until recently, silver was the principal metal sought and found in the State of Nevada; but now gold is king, and his throne has been shifted from one desert camp to another, each laying claim to his abundant presence, while new claimants are ever bringing new treasures into light.
The two most valuable deposits of the precious metals now known in Nevada are at Tonopah and Goldfield, the discovery of the first having been made in 1901 and of the latter in the following year. Some of the Goldfield ore has assayed as high as thirty thousand dollars per ton, and so rich were many of its ores that they were sacked and carefully guarded until landed at the reduction works. In one year and a half from the discovery of gold at Goldfield the output reached four million dollars.
These mines of the Nevada deserts excel in the richness and abundance of their ores, while in the future these camps bid fair to outrival in development all other sections of the United States. A few years ago the southern part of the Silver State was considered utterly worthless and a region to be shunned like a charnel-house, on account of its barren and dangerous character. Now it is the Mecca of the gold-seeker.
These mines have already made many a poor man wealthy and many a wealthy man a millionaire. Each hillock, ledge, or ravine holds a possible fortune, and no hardship and peril is too great for the prospector lured by the hope of a rich find. The prosperous desert mining town, first built of canvas and rough lumber, is soon replaced by a better class of buildings, and water is brought through long miles of pipe from the nearest available source. Anon, electric-lighting and other modern conveniences are added, thereby making life more tolerable in a fierce climate of heat and cold, of fiercer winds and blinding dust.
Not only is gold found in these desert wastes, but borax, nitre, sulphur, silver, salt, soda, opals, garnets, turquoises, onyx, and marble form a part of its resources. Rich gold mines have built the towns of Randsburg and Johannesburg in the midst of the Mohave desert, while finds of rich ore made elsewhere are of frequent occurrence. It is thought that in the near future sufficient nitre can be obtained from the deserts of California and Nevada to render the United States independent of Chile, from whose desert, Atacama, the world's chief supply of this mineral is now obtained.
Perhaps there is no part of the United States more healthy and at the same time more deadly than the southeastern part of California, embraced in those indefinite areas called the Mohave and Colorado deserts. That life and death should lay claim to the same regions with equal strength seems somewhat of a riddle, but a careful investigation of the conditions will make good the claims of both. Here are regions rivalling the Sahara in heat, lack of water, and barrenness, and in many parts as difficult to traverse; regions full of surprises in deceptive mirages, peculiar vegetation, strange animal life, occasional cloud-bursts, purity and exhilarating effects of atmosphere, charm of ever-changing colors