Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/508

 488 The mining claims run under the city itself. From the roof of the Grand Hotel you look down at the shafts, hoist-works, and heaps of extracted ore of the Vizina, the Gilded Age (close to the Palace Lodging-house), the Mountain Maid, and other mines, opening strangely in the very midst of the buildings. This circumstance has given rise to disputes of ownership, so that whoever would be safe purchases all the conflicting titles, both above ground and below. On a commanding hill close by, to the southward, are the Tough Nut and Contention, and above them many others later discovered. The larger mines had extensive buildings, of wood, and in handsome draughting and assay rooms within were regularly educated scientists, ex-college professors and the like, in charge. The lesser mines put up in the beginning with commoner sheds and poorer appliances of every kind. About them all lie heaps of a blackish material, resembling inferior coal and slate, the silver ore in its native condition. A laborer above-ground earned $3.50, and below-ground $4, for a "shift" of eight hours, and the work went on night and day, Sundays and all. I leave to others to estimate the bulk of treasure in the place. I was told that it was "the biggest thing since the Comstock," and there were forty million dollars in sight. I was offered, daily, fractional interests in mines, now by a young surveyor who was going to be married and needed money for his wedding outfit; now by new friends who were straitened for assessment funds to carry out the provisions of the law; and again by others who would kindly make any sacrifice for the pleasure of associating a traveller from a distance with the interests of the place; and yet it will be well for the novice to be wary of these seductive openings at Tombstone, as elsewhere.