THE SILVER KING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 126, 28 May 1878, Page 4

THE SILVER KING.

[From the "World."] There is a man alive at this present moment, who, if he were so minded, could give his daughter a marriuge portion of thirty millions sterling. He would then have about ten millions left for himself. He lives 6,000 miles west of London, hnlf-way up a mountain Bide in Nevada, and his daughter lives with him. Seven yeurs ago he was a poor man ; to-day he ia the Silver King of America. He has dug forty million pounds worth of silver out of the hill he is living oa, and has about forty millions more to dig, If he lives three years longer he will be the richest man in the world. His name is James Fair, and hi is the mnnager superintendent, chief partner, and principal shareholder iu the Consolidated Virginia nnd California Silver Mines, known to men aa the " Big Bonaozus." He haß an army .of meu toiling for him day and night in the very depths of lhe earth — Jigging, picking, blasting, and crushing n thousand tons of rock every twenty-four hours. Ha works as hard as any man of them. His income is twice as large as the Duke of Norfolk's. The man who by his own unaided exertions can rise to such marvellous wealth in so short a timo is worth knowing something about. It is worth while to he&r how such a fabulous fortune his been accumulated. Savec years ago thera were two little Irishmen in ihe city of San Francisco, keeping a drinking bor of very modest pretensions, close to one of tho principal business thoroughfares. Their customers were of all kinds, but chiefly commercial men and clerks. Among them was an unusually large proportion of stock and share dealers, mining brokers, and the like, who, in the intervals of speculation, rushed out of the neighboring Exchange five or six times a dny for drinks. Whisky being almost the religion of California, and the two iittle bar-keepers being careful to sell nothing but the best article, their bar soou became a plaoe of popular resort. And ns no true Californian could ever swallow a drink of whisky under the circumstances wiihout talking about silver mines or gold mines or Bhares in mines, it soou fell out that, next to Stock Exchange itself there was no plac*) iu San Francisco where so much mining talk went on as in the saloon of Messrs Flood and O'Brien, which were the njsmes of thc two little Irishmen. Keeping their ears wide opeD, aud sifting the mass of gossip that they listened to every day, these two gectiemen picked up a good many crumbs of useful information, besides g'ettiog now and then a direct confidential tip; and they turned some of tbem to euch good account iu a few quiet little speculations, that they shortly had a comfortable sum of money lying at their bankers.' Instead of throwing it awny headlong in wild extravagant ventures, which was the joyous cußtom of the average Californian in thoße daye, they let it lie where it was, wailing, with commendable prudence, till they knew of something good to put it into. Tbey soon beard of something good enough. On Fair's advice they bought shares in the mine called the Hale snd Norcross, and were speedily taking out of it £15,000 a month in dividends. This mine was the property of a company, and though it had at one time paid large and continuous dividends, it was now supposed to be worked out and worthless. Mr Fair, however, held a different opinion} and when he came to examine it carefully, he found just what he expected to find — a large deposit of silver ore. Thereupon he and Flood and O'Brien together bought up all tbe shares tbey could lay their hands upon, and obtained complete control of the mine. It was immediately put under Fair's management, and it prospered, and the three partners waxed rich. Mr Fair, being an experienced and clever practical miner, spent mo3t of his time down in the mine, laying out aßd directing the work for his men. It was necessary that he should know all there was to be known, and see all there was to be seen, about the property ; and he made such constant and thorough exploration of it, that he very soon got it by heart. In a little time there was not an inch with which he was not thoroughly acquainted, not a trace of mineral in shaft or tunnel of which be was not personally aware. By and by, being a reflective kind of man, who noticed everything and forgot nothing, he tock to thinking over things, and putting odds and ends of observations together, and comparing notes, and rumaging in old out of the way corners of tbe mine, and making nil sorts of examination in all sorts of abandoned places, ond generally carrying on in a curious way, until he bad finally persuaded himself that somewhere close by the Hale and Norcross, there ran a gigantic vein of silverbearing ore, whose valu*** he could only calculate in figures that frightened him to look at. Week after week he hunted for this vein without success and under difficulties that would have disheartened an ordinary man ; but he stuck to tfce search, and ultimately found a clue. He followed it up for ten days, and then struck the Bonanza, a huge sheet of glittering stepbanite, one hundred feet wide, of unknown length and depth, and of the estimated value of six hundred millions of dollars, or one hundred and twenty millions of pounds sterling I — the mightiest fortune that ever dazzled the eyes of man. Iu a week he and his partners were tbe absolute owners of three-fourths of it, (he prospective possessore of ninety

millions sterling. Figures like these etun the imagination. In the excitement caused by this astonnding discovery it is scarcely more than tiie hard truth to say that San Francisco went raving mad. The vein in which the Bonanza was found was known to run straight through the conaolidated Virginia and California mines, dipping down as it went, and could not be traced any further. But that fact was nothing to people who were bent on having mining stock; and, vein or no vein, the stock the would have. Consequently they bought into every mine in the neighbourhood -— good and bad alike — sending prices up to unheard-of limits, and investing millions in worthless properties that have never yielded a shilling in dividends, and never will. When Flood had bought a large quantity of the Booanz-j stock, aad had assured io himself and his partners the controlling interest in the miues, ho recommended all hia friends to buy a little; and O'Brien did the same. Those who took ttie advice are now drawing their proportionate shares of dividends, mounting to about £500,000 a month. The majority of those who bought into other mines are, in Colifornian parlance " busted." What these three men, and their latest partner Mackay, are going to do with their raoocy is a curious problem, the solution of which will be watched with great interest ia 0 year or two to come. The money the bo! I now is yielding them returns ho enormous that their maddest extravagances could make no impression on the amount. Every year thsyjjare earning more, saving more, and investing more ihey have organised a Bank with a capital of ten millions of dollars ; they control nearly all the mining interest of Nevada and California ; they nave a strong grip of the commercial, fiaancifc), and farming interests all along the Pacific slope; and by a single" word e 7 cau at any moment raise a disastrous pauic, and plunge thousands of men into hopeless ruin. It wlt be an interesting thing to wait and watch how this terrible power for good or evil is to be wielded.