BONANZA AND BORRASCA.
There are always some companies in “borrasca”—out of luck; in barren
rock—while others are in “bonanza”—in good luck; working large bodies of
rich ore. In a year or two, those who are to-day at work in barren
quartz may have a rich body of ore, while those who are to-day in rich
ore may in a year or two be delving through barren rock in search of a
new bonanza.
When a company has for a long time been engaged in the unsuccessful
search for ore, their stock very frequently falls to a very low figure
and few care to buy it at all, when of a sudden they come upon a great
body of rich ore. A rumor of this reaches the surface, and those who
have money to invest buy—“take in”—a few shares at a venture. The
officers of the company and their friends in San Francisco—who are daily
informed by telegraph of all that is going on in the mine—begin to
quietly gather in all of the stock that they can find, and soon the
secret is out and the stock at once bounds upward to a high figure.
Everybody then becomes wild to possess a few shares of the stock. Men
who would not touch it when it was selling for a mere trifle, now rush
in and pay the highest prices. Some appear never to think of buying
stock until they see the whole community excited about it and recklessly
bidding for it; they then rush in and pay the highest figures. It is
like piling bricks one upon another till the whole column begins to
topple and finally tumbles to the ground. When stock goes down in this
way it nearly always goes as far below as it has before been above true
merit.
Many men who are good judges of mines make large purchases of stock in
mines that are in borrasca—that are out of ore and appear to be out of
luck, biding their time for profit. They have confidence in the mine
from the position it occupies on the Comstock lode and from its having
had rich bodies of ore above. These, they will contend, were never
rained down into the mines from the heavens, but came up from the
regions below; therefore in the regions below, whence came the rich ore
already found, there must be more of the same kind. To find it, say
they, is a mere matter of time.
In November, 1870, an immense bonanza was found in the Crown Point mine,
Gold Hill, at the depth of 1,100 feet. Four months before the discovery
of this bonanza, that is, in August of the same year, the stock of the
mine was selling at three dollars per share; in May, 1872, the stock was
selling at one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five dollars per share.
The same bonanza extended south into the Belcher mine, the stock of
which was selling for one dollar and fifty cents per share in September,
1870; in April, 1872, it sold for one thousand five hundred and
twenty-five dollars per share. At this time, however, there was a grand
stock excitement and the stock of many mines in which there was little
if any ore sold at very high figures. The masses had come into the
market as purchasers and were blindly buying right and left; they were
all industriously engaged in adding bricks to the pile, stocking them up
higher and higher, as idiotically strong in the faith that they were
building for all time as were the builders of Babel. Finally down went
everything in a grand crash. During this excitement there was an
increase in the value of the mines on the Comstock, in about two months,
of over forty-five million dollars.
[Illustration: THREE FAMOUS MINES.]
It frequently happens that when a company have been a long time in
search of ore it is at last found at a time when the officers and
leading men have but a small amount of stock in their possession. They
then not only keep their strike a secret, but in case of anything
leaking out through their men they bear their stock in the market,
throwing in all the shares they dare venture for the purpose of breaking
down the price in order that they may buy in a great amount at a low
figure. Sometimes they succeed in this, but it often happens that the
“outsiders” are too well informed in regard to what is in the mine, when
there is a general scramble for the stock and it at once goes up with a
rush. Not a few persons nearly always make money in stocks by observing
the simple rule of buying them when they are down so low that nobody
appears to care to touch them, paying for them in full and then holding
them for developments in the mines, and it seldom happens that there is
not a time within two years when they can sell for twice or three times
the price originally paid. If there should be no strike in the mines in
which they hold stock there may be valuable developments in adjoining
mines, which sends up the price of the stocks of all the mines in the
neighborhood.
While work is being done in a mine there is always a probability of
something being found, sooner or later. When a company whose claim is
well situated on the lead has been a longtime out of luck not a few will
buy stock in their mine, because they consider that it is about time for
the luck of the company to change.
The Mexican silver-miners have an aphorism, in the infallibility of
which they have unbounded faith. It is as follows: “As many days as you
are in borrasca (barren rock), so many days shall you be in
bonanza”—rich ore. Such faith have they in this maxim, that in Mexico
they frequently go to work in a mine that has ceased to be productive
with no other contract or understanding than the simple one that they
are to be allowed to work as many days in the “bonanza” as they spend
days in finding it. Such a contract as this was once made on the
Comstock lode. It was at the time when the upper or first line of
bonanzas was opened in the Ophir, Mexican, Gould & Curry, and other
leading mines.
Otto H. Frank was at that time superintendent of the old Central mine.
He was anxious to find a bonanza in his mine, but found only barren
quartz in all of his drifts and cross-cuts.
Some Mexican miners were very desirous of getting into the mine. They
“felt it in their bones” that they could find a bonanza. The terms they
proposed to Superintendent Frank were simply these: “As many days as we
are drifting in search of the bonanza, so many days shall we be allowed
to extract ore from the bonanza.”
Mr. Frank thought it all over. He had failed in his search for a
bonanza; what was proposed by the Mexicans seemed fair enough; he would
let them try their luck, anyhow, to get a bonanza.
So the bargain was struck:—“So many days in borrasca, so many days in
bonanza.”
The Mexicans went to work in high spirits. Mr. Frank also was quite
cheerful, as he thought those “knowing cusses” from the mines of Mexico
would drift into a big body of ore the first week, when he would step in
the week after and turn them all out before they had done more than get
a taste of the bonanza. But they didn’t strike it the first week, nor
the second, nor the third. The fact is they didn’t strike it the first
month, nor the second, nor the third. Indeed, at the end of six months
they had found no bonanza.
Now it was that Superintendant Frank began to be frightened—began to
curse all Mexican mining aphorisms and rules and regulations. Should the
Mexicans now strike a bonanza, what kind of a bonanza, he reasoned,
would it be by the time it came into his hands? In six months those
Mexicans would have it completely skinned and gutted. He might as well
have no mine. He now began to suspect that the fellows knew exactly
where to drift to open out in a bonanza of vast size and incalculable
richness—probably nearly all silver—but were only drifting about on the
outside of it in order to get more time inside. He began to hate the
very sound of those words: “As many days as you are in borrasca, so many
days shall you be in bonanza.”
Being greatly worried about the bargain he had thoughtlessly made, Mr.
Frank went to see old man Meer, an old Castilian who had but one eye,
but who was the greatest “ore expert” that ever set foot upon the
Comstock—whose one eye bored into the rock further and faster than any
diamond drill. He told Meer about the bargain he had made and the fears
and suspicions he entertained, asking him to go into the mine, give it a
thorough examination, and tell him if there was a bonanza anywhere
about. Old Meer went into the mine, traversed all the drifts,
cross-cuts, and coyote-holes, boring into the rock at all points with
that eye of his.
When they came out and again and stood upon the surface at the mouth of
the tunnel, in the broad light of day, Mr. Frank turned to Meer and
said: “Well, what do you think?”
Meer uttered only two words, but those two words lifted a great load off
Mr. Frank’s breast. Old Meer simply said: “_Nada bonanza_,” and “no
bonanza” it proved.
The Mexicans worked on for another week or two, when they became
disheartened and gave up their contract, and with it, doubtless, some
portion of their faith in their favorite saying: “So many days as you
are in borrasca, so many days shall you be in bonanza.” They had toiled
more than six long, weary months and the result was—“_nada bonanza_.”
[Illustration]