Esmeralda was in many respects another Humboldt, but in a little more forward state. The claims we had been paying assessments on were entirely worthless, and we threw them away. The principal one cropped out of the top of a knoll that was fourteen feet high, and the inspired Board of Directors were running a tunnel under that knoll to strike the ledge. The tunnel would have to be seventy feet long, and would then strike the ledge at the same dept that a shaft twelve feet deep would have reached! The Board were living on the “assessments.” [N.B.—This hint comes too late for the enlightenment of New York silver miners; they have already learned all about this neat trick by experience.] The Board had no desire to strike the ledge, knowing that it was as barren of silver as a curbstone. This reminiscence calls to mind Jim Townsend’s tunnel. He had paid assessments on a mine called the “Daley” till he was well-nigh penniless. Finally an assessment was levied to run a tunnel two hundred and fifty feet on the Daley, and Townsend went up on the hill to look into matters.
He found the Daley cropping out of the apex of an exceedingly sharp- pointed peak, and a couple of men up there “facing” the proposed tunnel. Townsend made a calculation. Then he said to the men:
“So you have taken a contract to run a tunnel into this hill two hundred and fifty feet to strike this ledge?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, do you know that you have got one of the most expensive and arduous undertakings before you that was ever conceived by man?”
“Why no—how is that?”
“Because this hill is only twenty-five feet through from side to side; and so you have got to build two hundred and twenty-five feet of your tunnel on trestle-work!”
