from actual work upon the ledges. A great many men who never saw a
mine have become rich by speculation in mining stocks; some of them
have kept their money, but the majority have been unable to hold
to it, in consequence of their eagerness for more. It is safe to
say that more fortunes have been made by lucky sales of stock in
mining companies than by holding for dividends. There have been some
very large speculations in this kind of property, and at one time
Montgomery street in San Francisco rivaled Wall street in New York
in the magnitude of its operations. It is still a scene of financial
activity, though the speculation is less than of yore.
[Sidenote: “CLEANING THEM OUT.”]
The California speculators are up to all the tricks and equal to the
smartest of the Wall street men. A New York capitalist went there
once with the laudable intention of “cleaning them out”. There had
been a little flurry in the stock of a certain company, and it was
well known who were the holders of the property. One day he received
a telegram announcing that this mine had suddenly developed immense
quantities of very rich ore, and the stock would consequently make
an enormous advance. Other persons, who claimed to be his friends,
received the same intelligence, and told him of it in the strictest
confidence. The bait took, he bought all accessible stock of that
company, paying a liberal price, and rejoicing at the reception of
his news in advance of the market. The telegrams were all bogus;
his pretended friends assisted in stacking the cards so as to win.
The operators on the street used to speak of this as a very neat
transaction, and declared that Wall street could not excel it.
A great deal depends upon knowing when to sell out. A friend of mine
once bought fifteen feet of a mine, just opened, at ten dollars a
foot, and sold it a year later at sixteen thousand dollars a foot.
Three months later it could have been bought for not more than ten
times the original cost. One man, who held on, is still keeping ten
feet of the same mine, and is likely to do so.
Copper mining has been prosecuted to a considerable extent in
California, and at one time was very profitable, owing to the war
between Spain and Chili, which excluded the latter country from
the copper market. The principal copper mines in California are at
Copperopolis, in the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevadas, about forty
miles from Stockton. The ore is extracted in the form of sulphurets,
from a vein about twenty feet in width, which has reached a depth of
more than six hundred feet. In consequence of the expense of smelting
works, and the cost of fuel, it has been found more economical to
send the ore to England, and to the Atlantic coast, for reduction.
The sulphur is driven off by heat, and, after undergoing various
manipulations to rid it of foreign matter, the fine copper remains.
There are several mines at Copperopolis, all of them on the same vein.
The most profitable of them employed at one time more than twenty
ships in freighting its ore to the places where it was smelted. The
net profit to the owners of the mine for one year, during the Chilian
war, exceeded half a million dollars, but it fell off greatly with the
return of peace.
[Sidenote: COPPER AND SILVER MINES.]
The ore contains an average of twenty to twenty-five per cent. of
copper, the balance being sulphur and other chemicals, in combination
with such earthy substances as are ordinarily encountered in sulphate
veins. The richest copper mines of the coast are in Arizona, very near
the California line. Specimens from a mine on “Bill Williams’ Fork,”
eight miles from steamboat navigation, on the Colorado River, assayed
from sixty to seventy per cent. of copper. The ore from these mines
ought to yield from forty to fifty per cent. pure copper, and the
miners are confident of a richer return than this as they descend into
the earth.
Arizona is also rich in silver and gold, particularly the former, but
the climate is so unhealthy, and the Indians have such a persistent
habit of killing white men on frequent occasions, that a residence
there is not as desirable as a home on the banks of the Hudson, or the
Ohio. But as we are always ready to go wherever there is a prospect
of money-making, this out-of-the-way territory bids fair to become
peopled before many years have passed away. Steamboats are running
on the Colorado, and the Southern Pacific Railway taps the country,
so that the mines near it have a good prospect of development. Some
of the companies now in operation in Arizona sell their ore to
speculators, while the balance ship theirs to England for reduction.
The want of good coal mines is severely felt in California. Coal has
been discovered, and is being taken out in considerable quantities at
Mount Diabolo, thirty miles from San Francisco, but it is of inferior
quality, and unfit for many purposes where coal is used. The same
is the case with the coal from Bellingham Bay, British Columbia,
and from nearly all other points on the Pacific coast where mines
have been opened. The river steamers burn the California coal. Some
of the founders use it, as well as all the establishments on land
where the making of steam is the only object. It is said that ocean
steamers cannot burn it, in consequence of its tendency to spontaneous
combustion, when kept in the hold of a ship for any considerable time.
Coal is taken there from the Atlantic seaboard, and from Sydney, New
South Wales. If a mine, favorably located anywhere on the Pacific
coast, furnishing a good quality of coal, could be found, it would
yield a fortune to its owners.
[Sidenote: CALIFORNIA QUICKSILVER.]
I have spoken of gold, silver, and copper among the minerals, but
there is another metal which is an important product of the coast,
though the area of its production is somewhat limited. I allude to
quicksilver, which exists in quantities worthy of note, only in Spain,
California, and Peru. For a very long time the Almaden quicksilver
mine in Spain was the only one known, and it held a rigid monopoly of
the trade. The discoveries in Peru opened a new field, but, though
it reduced the price for a time, it did not seriously affect it. The
discovery in California threw such a quantity into the market, that
the whole quicksilver trade of the world is now ruled by it.
The great mine is at New Almaden, sixty miles south from San
Francisco. The ore is taken from a mine in the hills on the inside
of the Coast Range of mountains, and is found in chambers, instead
of veins. Some of the earthquakes that occasionally disturb San
Francisco, put money in the pockets of the New Almaden owners, as
they open up new and very rich chambers, not previously discovered.
The ore from which the quicksilver is taken is about the color of a
well-burned brick, and looks, when piled up for use, much like a heap
of broken granite and bricks. The ore is placed in furnaces, a wood
fire is built beneath, the quicksilver flies off in vapor, and is
caught and condensed in air-tight rooms, partly filled with water.
After condensation, it is bottled up in flasks containing 76-1/2
pounds, each of these being the same as the weight used at the Almaden
mine in Spain.
This mine has been the subject of much litigation, as indeed has
nearly everything valuable in California. The product in one year
was 47,194 flasks, worth about $50 per flask, or a total value of
$2,359,700. The cost of producing this result was about $800,000,
leaving a very fair margin of profit. The ore averages from twelve to
eighteen per cent. of quicksilver, and frequently exceeds the latter
figure. A piece of the ore which I picked up at the mine, lies before
me as I write. It is a deep red color, heavy, like a lump of lead, and
is said to contain about twenty per cent. of quicksilver.
[Sidenote: QUICKSILVER.]
A large quantity of quicksilver is used in gold and silver mining on
the Pacific coast, and the balance goes to various parts of the world.
Of the production of the year I mentioned, fourteen thousand flasks
were sent to China, ten thousand to London, five thousand to Peru, two
thousand to Chili, seven thousand to New York, two thousand to Mexico,
and two hundred to Australia.
XLIV.
RAPID TRANSIT IN NEW YORK.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY SCHEMES.—ELEVATED RAILWAY LINES.—THE
WEST SIDE RAILWAY.—TRAVELLING ON LAMP POSTS.—ADVANTAGES OF
A SECOND STORY ROAD.—ADVENTURES WITH THIEVES.—PERILS OF THE
MODERN STREET CAR.—ARTISTIC PACKING OF PASSENGERS.—THE PNEUMATIC
RAILWAY.—VANDERBILT’S SCHEME.—AN UNCOMFORTABLE JOURNEY.—SHOT FROM
A GUN.
[Illustration: SECTION OF THE BROADWAY UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.]
For several years the people of New York city have been agitated on
the subject of rapid transit from one end of Manhattan Island to
the other. In one respect, New York is unlike any other city on the
globe. Nearly all its business is conducted at one end of the island
on which it stands, while nearly all the residences are at the other
end. Consequently, a large part of the population must be transported
in the morning from the upper part of Manhattan Island to the lower
end, and transported back again in the afternoon and evening. All the
lines of street railway and the stages are densely crowded at these
times. There is not a street car or an omnibus that is not packed to
its fullest capacity, in the morning, with people going down town, and
packed in a similar way, about sunset, with people going up town.
Travel at these times in the direction indicated is accompanied
with many annoyances. On some of the lines of street railway, the
passengers are stowed away very much like sardines in a can, or like
negroes in the hold of a slave ship. Comfort is not at all considered.
Every man is anxious to reach his destination as speedily as possible,
and if the seats are all taken, he is willing to stand. Very often
passengers are wedged so closely that the movement of one affects
nearly all the rest, and a person near the middle of the car finds
it hard work to get out. Straps are suspended from horizontal bars
running fore and aft the car; and the standing passengers suspend
themselves from these straps.
[Sidenote: AN INGENIOUS DEVICE.]
An ingenious individual has devised a plan whereby the space above
the heads of the standing passengers may be utilized. He proposes
some additional straps, on which a few passengers can be suspended
horizontally, very much as dried fish in a museum are hung up against
the wall. The position would be uncomfortable, but comfort is a
secondary or tertiary consideration altogether.
The ordinary street car is designed to seat thirty-two passengers, but
very often as many as a hundred passengers are crowded on a single
vehicle. The front and rear platforms are occupied down to the very
edge of the steps. It is uncomfortable enough when the passengers are
sober and well-behaved; but when, as often happens, half of them are
drunk, and fifty per cent. of the drunken ones are quarrelsome, the
position becomes serious. A man who travels late at night on a main
line of street railway will have his love for sport fully gratified.
He may expect a broken rib every week or two, and, as the noble and
manly art prevails among the drunken gentlemen, he can be accommodated
with a fight whenever he wishes it, and very often when he doesn’t.
The modern science of pocket-picking is very much in fashion in New
York, and a goodly portion of the inhabitants seem to be engaged in
an effort to make an honest living by robbing the rest. On a densely
crowded car, one can frequently see gangs of pickpockets, varying
from two to half a dozen persons, and unless he is very attentive,
they will go through him without his knowing it. They are skilful
operators, and the rules of the profession forbid the practice of the
science until the artist is able to pick away a man’s eye-winkers
without his feeling it. I always look with pleasure on a man who
boasts that no pickpocket can rob _him_. His confidence begets
carelessness, and the result is, that he is generally robbed more than
any other man.
[Sidenote: SKILL OF PICKPOCKETS.]
With a long experience on street railways, it has been my pleasure
to suffer the depredations of pickpockets several times; and I will
do them the credit to say that their robberies were almost always
committed when I was on the lookout for them, and was quite confident
they could do me no harm. They never took my watch or pocket-book,
but on two occasions they have taken a letter case out of the inside
pocket of my coat, and once invaded my trousers, and carried off
a card case which had no cards in it. They have gone through my
overcoat, and relieved it of kerchiefs, and gloves, and such trifles,
and I was in blissful ignorance of their operations until some time
afterwards, when I happened to put a hand in my pocket, and found that
my property had gone.
Quite often I have seen the pickpockets “working” a car, and have
admired the effectual and artistic manner in which they perform
their duty. A few days before writing this description, I travelled
with five of these individuals on my way down town, and saw them
go from one end of the car to the other,—the vehicle was very much
crowded,—and after taking what watches and pocket-books they could
find, they left from the rear platform. The cry of robbers was raised
a little too late, and when the first announcement was made that
valuables had disappeared, they were off the car and three or four
blocks away. Two pocket-books and four watches were the result of that
evening’s enterprise—a very fair compensation for five minutes’ work.
The omnibuses are somewhat better in character than the street cars,
though they do not afford accommodations for standing, especially if
the passenger happens to be in the vicinity of six feet high. Many
persons do stand in them, however, and revenge themselves for their
discomfort by treading on the toes of the sitters at every lurch of
the carriage. Intoxicated people do not ride in the omnibuses as much
as in the street cars, partly for the reason that the majority of
drunkards live on the railway rather than on the omnibus routes, and
partly for the reason that it is not so easy to enter an omnibus as
to enter a street car. The car has a conductor, whose duty it is to
assist passengers on board and collect their fares, to kick off
the disorderly ones, and keep everybody on good behavior. Between the
pickpockets and passengers, the conductors generally occupy a neutral
position, very much like the woman in the celebrated contest between
her husband and a bear. The omnibus has no conductor, and as no one is
responsible for the conduct of the passengers, they generally behave
much better than on board a street car. If a man misbehaves himself in
the former vehicle, his fellow-passengers eject him; but in the latter
conveyance, the passengers do not wish to take upon themselves the
conductor’s duty, and as he is generally unwilling to perform it, it
is not performed at all.
Time is an important consideration on these lines of travel. There
are so many stoppages for landing and receiving passengers, so many
blockades arising from vehicles in the street, and from other causes,
that the journey from end to end of Manhattan Island is not a rapid
one. From the City Hall to Harlem, the ordinary time required is an
hour and a half, and proportionally for other distances. The omnibus
is even slower than the street car, as it has not the advantage of
rails on which to move, and makes frequent stoppages to wait for its
passengers. The consumption of time in city travel, added to the
annoyances, makes it very desirable that a more perfect system should
be devised.
[Sidenote: SCHEMES OF RAPID TRANSIT.]
Consequently the question of rapid transit has been very much debated,
and several schemes have been proposed. I shall not attempt to give
all the systems proposed for public consideration, as they would
occupy much more space than I have at my disposal. Some inventors
propose an underground railway, and some propose a railway elevated
sufficiently high to offer no obstacle to the passage of vehicles.
There has been a great deal of talk on the rapid transit question, but
up to this time comparatively little has been done. A single track
has been placed in the air on iron posts something like lamp posts,
and carried from the Battery through Greenwich Street, and connecting
streets and avenues, as far as Thirtieth Street. It is very doubtful
if it ever gets any farther, or if anything more than a single track
is built. The enterprise thus far has not met the expectations of its
projectors. It has swallowed up a great deal of money, and secured
very little travel. It carries passengers at a fair speed, but it has
had two or three accidents that have rendered the public distrustful
of its accomplishments.
[Sidenote: HOW TO STUDY PRIVATE LIFE.]
It possesses one advantage—that of enabling strangers to study the
private life of the people on second story floors along its route; and
for this reason I presume distinguished foreigners, who come to New
York, are generally invited to make a journey over this railway. By no
other means now known can so good a knowledge of the domestic habits
of New York be obtained. A gentleman who made a journey in one of
the cars of this road soon after its opening, stated that he counted
ninety-seven families at breakfast, of whom thirty-three were eating
fish, twenty-seven were eating beefsteaks or mutton-chops, while the
balance were sticking to bread and vegetables in various forms, or
were breakfasting on nothing at all. He saw thirteen family quarrels
in various stages of progress, and observed one lady, apparently
of foreign origin, discussing home affairs with a broom-handle. He
obtained an intimate knowledge of wearing apparel for both sexes, and
saw a great many things he had never seen before, and hardly expected
to see on so short a journey.
[Illustration: TUNNELING BROADWAY FOR THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.]
Soon after this Elevated Railway was begun, some enterprising
gentlemen undertook the construction of a railway under Broadway, on
the pneumatic plan. They leased a cellar at the corner of Broadway
and Warren Street, dug a tunnel under the sidewalk, and thence
directly under Broadway for a distance of two hundred and fifty feet.
It had been claimed that an underground railway could not be made
beneath Broadway without interfering greatly with the traffic of that
busy thoroughfare. The projectors of this line, known as the Beach
Pneumatic Railway, contended that they could do their work without
interference with travel, and they not only did it in that way, but
they kept the entire public ignorant of their operations until they
were ready to throw open the completed portion of their line for
inspection. They were at work three or four months before any outsider
obtained the least hint of what was going on, and for the last few
months of their work, the public dwelt almost entirely in conjectures.
It leaked out that something was being done there, but what it was,
nobody could exactly tell.
[Sidenote: OPENING AN UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.]
Finally, a certain day was fixed for the opening, and a great many
persons were invited to be present. They found a comfortable station
and waiting-room under the sidewalk of Warren Street. They found a
passenger car on the track, and a well-lighted tunnel, through which
they could walk, and listen to the rumbling of carriages overhead.
The tunnel was as dry and comfortable as brick-work and whitewash
could make it. Telegraph wires extended from end to end, so that
communication could be had at any moment with the engineer; and
although the distance was short, the car, in moving along the track,
attained considerable speed. They found powerful machinery, capable
of forcing thousands of cubic feet of air per minute, and propelling
the cars at a rapid rate. The machinery was moved by steam power, and
the cars were propelled by the force of the air pressing against them.
Whether the tube was five yards in length or five miles, as long as it
remained tight the car could be driven by the power of the stationary
machinery.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF PNEUMATIC PASSENGER CAR.]
[Illustration: PORTAL OF THE BROADWAY TUNNEL.]
Unfortunately for the rapid prosecution of the enterprise, the
Pneumatic Railway was not, for the purpose of carrying passengers,
a chartered institution; and up to the time of writing, it has
never progressed farther than a single section, between Warren and
Murray Streets. Its projectors have full faith in its ultimate
success, and certainly the result of their enterprise, so far, has
been satisfactory. They claim to be able to drill their tunnels for
any distance, under any part of the city, without interfering with
business; and they even propose to push their way under the East
River, and thus extend their route to Brooklyn. They propose to have
stopping-places every half mile, where passengers can be taken up and
left, and they promise to run their cars from one end of New York to
the other inside of half an hour. They promise that there shall be
comfortable weather at all seasons of the year, and are very certain
that their route will never be blocked with snow. They assert that
collisions are impossible, because their mode of propulsion is such
that two cars cannot approach or go from each other on the same track
at the same time. One of the great troubles of operating a line of
railway by steam is the impossibility of making two trains pass each
other on a single track. Many a railway engine-driver has attempted
it, but on every occasion he has come to grief, and has generally
brought some of his passengers to an unhappy end. On an atmospheric
railway the attempt to make such a meeting and passage is, from the
nature of things, impossible; consequently accidents from this cause
can never occur.
[Sidenote: AN ELEVATED RAILWAY.]
Another atmospheric railway proposed for New York is to be elevated
in the air. An iron arch is to be thrown over the streets or avenues,
sufficiently high to permit the passage of vehicles beneath it, and
sufficiently strong to sustain a great weight. On the top of this
archway two large tubes are to be placed, each tube nine or ten feet
in diameter, and having a railway track inside, where car-wheels can
run. The pneumatic system is to be applied to the propulsion of these
cars, very much as it is used to propel the cars on the underground
line already described. It would possess most of the advantages of the
underground system, and there is no good reason to predict the failure
of a line constructed in this way.
Another elevated railway has an iron arch, similar to the one just
mentioned; but the roadway is open, and the cars are propelled by
steam. Its advocates are sanguine of success, and its opponents say
that it would frighten all the horses that come anywhere in sight
of it when its trains are in motion. But if the horses choose to
get frightened, that is their affair; and the probability is, that
they would soon become accustomed to the strange noise, and behave
themselves properly. Horses can be accustomed to anything. All that is
wanted is proper training.
Somebody has proposed a three-tier railway, having one line or track
under ground, another at the surface, and another elevated high in the
air. His scheme is a magnificent one, and has a good many advocates;
but the probability is, that some of the rival enterprises will be
completed before this is adopted, mainly for the reason that the cost
of their construction is much less.
Several years ago an underground railway company was chartered, and
set about the construction of a line. A little work had been done, and
only a little. The route was surveyed and laid out, and the managers
of the company set about raising the needed capital. Somehow the
desired money was not forthcoming, and up to this time the railway has
existed more on paper and in the minds of its advocates than in the
locality where it was to be constructed.
[Sidenote: THE VIADUCT RAILWAY.]