Grant H. Smith The History of the Comstock Lode 1850-1920, Geology and Mining Series No. 37, University of Nevada Bulletin: Reno, Nevada, vol. XXXVII. 1 July 1943, no. 3, (revised 1966), Ninth printing, 1980. 305pp., 1890s, 1870s, 1860s
[p. 137] Chapter XVI The Crown Point-Belcher Bonanza-The Gold to Silver Ratio-The Silver Question.
[p. 142] The Silver Question
[p. 143] "The long and bitter struggle of the silverites to undo "The Crime of '73" and restore the white metal to its old-time parity of 16 to 1 with gold, was begun in 1876 and became a national issue with the defeat of Bryan for president on that platform twenty years later. Meantime, the Democrats, aided by western Senators, succeeded in passing the Bland-Allison bill in 1878, providing for the purchase in the open market and coinage of not less than 2,000,000 nor more than 4,000,000 ounces of silver per month. This was repealed by the Sherman Act of 1890, which authorized the purchase, but not the coinage, of 4,500,000 ounces of silver per month. In 1893, after the panic had set in, a Republican Congress, aided by gold Democrats, passed a bill repealing the Sherman Act, which was signed by President Cleveland, thereby leaving silver without Government support.
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[p. 249] Chapter XXV Fire in the Stopes-Low-Grade Operations in the Bonanza Mines-The Comstock Milling Monopoly-The Last Washoe Process Mill-Losses in Tailings-Tailings Reworked
[p. 250] Low-grade Operations in the Bonanza Mines
[p. 251] "The Jones lease was surrendered on January 1, 1886, and the Consolidated Company entered upon ten years of very profitable mining in and about the old stopes, although the operation would have been far less successful except for the lucky discovery of three narrow sheets of good ore adjoining the old California stopes. The first one was found in the summer of 1886, the second in 1891, and the last in 1894. It happened that the first was encountered after Mackay returned to take charge while Superintendent Patton took a vacation. Fair had done little crosscutting on either side of the bonanza owing to the rush of water that followed the cutting of clay walls. In these later years the stopes were practically dry as the water had been drained by deeper workings.
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[p. 252] ". . . Mackay and Flood . . . withdrew from the Comstock in 1895.
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[p. 252] "During the years 1884 to 1895, inclusive, the mine produced 860,661 tons of ore, yielding $16,447, 221, coin value, or $19.11 a ton, from which dividends amounting to $3,898,800 were paid, after the payment of $1 a ton royalty to the Sutro Tunnel Company. The value of the gold exceeded that of the coin value of the silver by nearly $2,000,000. The average milling charge was $6.50 per ton, with an 80 percent recovery rate. Mackay and Flood had large idle mills at that time, which enabled them to make a low milling charge . . .
[p. 252] "It is interesting to note that the low-grade operations in the bonanza mines yielded more in dividends than were paid by any of the other Comstock mines in all their history with the exception of three-the Savage, the Crown Point, and the Belcher.
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[p. 253] The Comstock Milling Monopoly
[p. 255] Despite the earlier Dewey suits and criticisms, he again milled the low-grade ores extracted from the bonanza stopes from 1885 to 1895, in association with James L. Flood and J.P. Jones. Mackay's idea that a director has the right to deal with his company if the contract was fair is now the law in California, by an Act passed in 1933.
[p. 255] "Lord enters into an elaborate discussion of the Comstock milling system with especial reference to the Bonanza Firm, which includes: "If the managers had the lion's share of the profits, they had also the lion's share of the risk and labor. These facts should be bourne in mind in any fair criticism or censure of their conduct as trustees."
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