While exploring the mountain ranges of the State during a considerable portion of three summers, I think that I have seen at least five of these deserted4 towns and villages for every one in ordinary life. Some of them were probably only camps built by bands of prospectors5, and inhabited for a few months or years, while some specially7 interesting canyon8 was being explored, and then carelessly abandoned for more promising9 fields. But many were real towns, regularly laid out and incorporated, containing well-built hotels, churches, schoolhouses, post offices, and jails, as well as the mills on which they all depended; and whose well-graded streets were filled with lawyers, doctors, brokers10, hangmen, real estate agents, etc., the whole population numbering several thousand.
A few years ago the population of Hamilton is said to have been nearly eight thousand; that of Treasure Hill, six thousand; of Shermantown, seven thousand; of Swansea, three thousand. All of these were incorporated towns with mayors, councils, fire departments, and daily newspapers. Hamilton has now about one hundred inhabitants, most of whom are merely waiting in dreary11 inaction for something to turn up. Treasure Hill has about half as many, Shermantown one family, and Swansea none, while on the other hand the graveyards12 are far too full.
In one canyon of the Toyabe range, near Austin, I found no less than five dead towns without a single inhabitant. The streets and blocks of "real estate" graded on the hillsides are rapidly falling back into the wilderness. Sagebrushes are growing up around the forges of the blacksmith shops, and lizards13 bask14 on the crumbling15 walls.
While traveling southward from Austin down Big Smoky Valley, I noticed a remarkably16 tall and imposing17 column, rising like a lone18 pine out of the sagebrush on the edge of a dry gulch19. This proved to be a smokestack of solid masonry20. It seemed strangely out of place in the desert, as if it had been transported entire from the heart of some noisy manufacturing town and left here by mistake. I learned afterwards that it belonged to a set of furnaces that were built by a New York company to smelt21 ore that never was found. The tools of the workmen are still lying in place beside the furnaces, as if dropped in some sudden Indian or earthquake panic and never afterwards handled. These imposing ruins, together with the desolate22 town, lying a quarter of a mile to the northward23, present a most vivid picture of wasted effort. Coyotes now wander unmolested through the brushy streets, and of all the busy throng24 that so lavishly25 spent their time and money here only one man remains—a lone bachelor with one suspender.
Mining discoveries and progress, retrogression and decay, seem to have been crowded more closely against each other here than on any other portion of the globe. Some one of the band of adventurous26 prospectors who came from the exhausted27 placers of California would discover some rich ore—how much or little mattered not at first. These specimens28 fell among excited seekers after wealth like sparks in gunpowder29, and in a few days the wilderness was disturbed with the noisy clang of miners and builders. A little town would then spring up, and before anything like a careful survey of any particular lode30 would be made, a company would be formed, and expensive mills built. Then, after all the machinery was ready for the ore, perhaps little, or none at all, was to be found. Meanwhile another discovery was reported, and the young town was abandoned as completely as a camp made for a single night; and so on, until some really valuable lode was found, such as those of Eureka, Austin, Virginia, etc., which formed the substantial groundwork for a thousand other excitements.
Passing through the dead town of Schellbourne last month, I asked one of the few lingering inhabitants why the town was built. "For the mines," he replied. "And where are the mines?" "On the mountains back here." "And why were they abandoned?" I asked. "Are they exhausted?" "Oh, no," he replied, "they are not exhausted; on the contrary, they have never been worked at all, for unfortunately, just as we were about ready to open them, the Cherry Creek31 mines were discovered across the valley in the Egan range, and everybody rushed off there, taking what they could with them—houses machinery, and all. But we are hoping that somebody with money and speculation32 will come and revive us yet."
The dead mining excitements of Nevada were far more intense and destructive in their action than those of California, because the prizes at stake were greater, while more skill was required to gain them. The long trains of gold-seekers making their way to California had ample time and means to recover from their first attacks of mining fever while crawling laboriously33 across the plains, and on their arrival on any portion of the Sierra gold belt, they at once began to make money. No matter in what gulch or canyon they worked, some measure of success was sure, however unskillful they might be. And though while making ten dollars a day they might be agitated34 by hopes of making twenty, or of striking their picks against hundred- or thousand-dollar nuggets, men of ordinary nerve could still work on with comparative steadiness, and remain rational.
But in the case of the Nevada miner, he too often spent himself in years of weary search without gaining a dollar, traveling hundreds of miles from mountain to mountain, burdened with wasting hopes of discovering some hidden vein35 worth millions, enduring hardships of the most destructive kind, driving innumerable tunnels into the hillsides, while his assayed specimens again and again proved worthless. Perhaps one in a hundred of these brave prospectors would "strike it rich," while ninety-nine died alone in the mountains or sank out of sight in the corners of saloons, in a haze36 of whiskey and tobacco smoke.
The healthful ministry37 of wealth is blessed; and surely it is a fine thing that so many are eager to find the gold and silver that lie hid in the veins38 of the mountains. But in the search the seekers too often become insane, and strike about blindly in the dark like raving39 madmen. Seven hundred and fifty tons of ore from the original Eberhardt mine on Treasure Hill yielded a million and a half dollars, the whole of this immense sum having been obtained within two hundred and fifty feet of the surface, the greater portion within one hundred and forty feet. Other ore masses were scarcely less marvelously rich, giving rise to one of the most violent excitements that ever occurred in the history of mining. All kinds of people—shoemakers, tailors, farmers, etc., as well as miners—left their own right work and fell in a perfect storm of energy upon the White Pine Hills, covering the ground like grasshoppers41, and seeming determined42 by the very violence of their efforts to turn every stone to silver. But with few exceptions, these mining storms pass away about as suddenly as they rise, leaving only ruins to tell of the tremendous energy expended43, as heaps of giant boulders44 in the valley tell of the spent power of the mountain floods.
In marked contrast with this destructive unrest is the orderly deliberation into which miners settle in developing a truly valuable mine. At Eureka we were kindly45 led through the treasure chambers46 of the Richmond and Eureka Consolidated47, our guides leisurely48 leading the way from level to level, calling attention to the precious ore masses which the workmen were slowly breaking to pieces with their picks, like navvies wearing away the day in a railroad cutting; while down at the smelting49 works the bars of bullion50 were handled with less eager haste than the farmer shows in gathering51 his sheaves.
The wealth Nevada has already given to the world is indeed wonderful, but the only grand marvel40 is the energy expended in its development. The amount of prospecting52 done in the face of so many dangers and sacrifices, the innumerable tunnels and shafts53 bored into the mountains, the mills that have been built—these would seem to require a race of giants. But, in full view of the substantial results achieved, the pure waste manifest in the ruins one meets never fails to produce a saddening effect.
The dim old ruins of Europe, so eagerly sought after by travelers, have something pleasing about them, whatever their historical associations; for they at least lend some beauty to the landscape. Their picturesque54 towers and arches seem to be kindly adopted by nature, and planted with wild flowers and wreathed with ivy55; while their rugged56 angles are soothed57 and freshened and embossed with green mosses58, fresh life and decay mingling59 in pleasing measures, and the whole vanishing softly like a ripe, tranquil60 day fading into night. So, also, among the older ruins of the East there is a fitness felt. They have served their time, and like the weather-beaten mountains are wasting harmoniously61. The same is in some degree true of the dead mining towns of California.
But those lying to the eastward62 of the Sierra throughout the ranges of the Great Basin waste in the dry wilderness like the bones of cattle that have died of thirst. Many of them do not represent any good accomplishment63, and have no right to be. They are monuments of fraud and ignorance—sins against science. The drifts and tunnels in the rocks may perhaps be regarded as the prayers of the prospector6, offered for the wealth he so earnestly craves64; but, like prayers of any kind not in harmony with nature, they are unanswered. But, after all, effort, however misapplied, is better than stagnation65. Better toil66 blindly, beating every stone in turn for grains of gold, whether they contain any or not, than lie down in apathetic67 decay.
The fever period is fortunately passing away. The prospector is no longer the raving, wandering ghoul of ten years ago, rushing in random68 lawlessness among the hills, hungry and footsore; but cool and skillful, well supplied with every necessary, and clad in his right mind. Capitalists, too, and the public in general, have become wiser, and do not take fire so readily from mining sparks; while at the same time a vast amount of real work is being done, and the ratio between growth and decay is constantly becoming better.
点击收听单词发音
1 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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2 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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3 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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4 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
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5 prospectors | |
n.勘探者,探矿者( prospector的名词复数 ) | |
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6 prospector | |
n.探矿者 | |
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7 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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8 canyon | |
n.峡谷,溪谷 | |
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9 promising | |
adj.有希望的,有前途的 | |
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10 brokers | |
n.(股票、外币等)经纪人( broker的名词复数 );中间人;代理商;(订合同的)中人v.做掮客(或中人等)( broker的第三人称单数 );作为权力经纪人进行谈判;以中间人等身份安排… | |
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11 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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12 graveyards | |
墓地( graveyard的名词复数 ); 垃圾场; 废物堆积处; 收容所 | |
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13 lizards | |
n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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14 bask | |
vt.取暖,晒太阳,沐浴于 | |
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15 crumbling | |
adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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16 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
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17 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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18 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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19 gulch | |
n.深谷,峡谷 | |
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20 masonry | |
n.砖土建筑;砖石 | |
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21 smelt | |
v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼 | |
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22 desolate | |
adj.荒凉的,荒芜的;孤独的,凄凉的;v.使荒芜,使孤寂 | |
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23 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
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24 throng | |
n.人群,群众;v.拥挤,群集 | |
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25 lavishly | |
adv.慷慨地,大方地 | |
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26 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
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27 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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28 specimens | |
n.样品( specimen的名词复数 );范例;(化验的)抽样;某种类型的人 | |
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29 gunpowder | |
n.火药 | |
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30 lode | |
n.矿脉 | |
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31 creek | |
n.小溪,小河,小湾 | |
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32 speculation | |
n.思索,沉思;猜测;投机 | |
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33 laboriously | |
adv.艰苦地;费力地;辛勤地;(文体等)佶屈聱牙地 | |
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34 agitated | |
adj.被鼓动的,不安的 | |
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35 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
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36 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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37 ministry | |
n.(政府的)部;牧师 | |
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38 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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39 raving | |
adj.说胡话的;疯狂的,怒吼的;非常漂亮的;令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话;疯话adv.胡言乱语地;疯狂地 | |
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40 marvel | |
vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异;n.令人惊异的事 | |
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41 grasshoppers | |
n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 );蝗虫;蚂蚱;(孩子)矮小的 | |
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42 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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43 expended | |
v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 );使用(钱等)做某事;用光;耗尽 | |
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44 boulders | |
n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 );巨砾;(受水或天气侵蚀而成的)巨石;漂砾 | |
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45 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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46 chambers | |
n.房间( chamber的名词复数 );(议会的)议院;卧室;会议厅 | |
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47 consolidated | |
a.联合的 | |
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48 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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49 smelting | |
n.熔炼v.熔炼,提炼(矿石)( smelt的现在分词 ) | |
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50 bullion | |
n.金条,银条 | |
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51 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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52 prospecting | |
n.探矿 | |
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53 shafts | |
n.轴( shaft的名词复数 );(箭、高尔夫球棒等的)杆;通风井;一阵(疼痛、害怕等) | |
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54 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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55 ivy | |
n.常青藤,常春藤 | |
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56 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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57 soothed | |
v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 );抚慰;使舒服;减轻痛苦 | |
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58 mosses | |
n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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59 mingling | |
adj.混合的 | |
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60 tranquil | |
adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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61 harmoniously | |
和谐地,调和地 | |
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62 eastward | |
adv.向东;adj.向东的;n.东方,东部 | |
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63 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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64 craves | |
渴望,热望( crave的第三人称单数 ); 恳求,请求 | |
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65 stagnation | |
n. 停滞 | |
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66 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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67 apathetic | |
adj.冷漠的,无动于衷的 | |
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68 random | |
adj.随机的;任意的;n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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