A DESERTED CITY-A RE SULT OF A QUARTZ-MINING FAILURE.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 961, 12 April 1872, Page 2

A DESERTED CITY-A RE SULT OF A QUARTZ-MINING FAILURE.

It is to be hoped nq such account will have to be recorded from this colony of the failure of a quartz reefing town, as is given in the " Grass Valley Mirror" of 26th January, which wsi received by the last San Francisco mail. It gives the following narrative of a place called Meadow Lake City. " This place which was once called Summit City, boasted in the days gone by, of a population of 3,000 or 4,000 souls. In its day of prosperity it had fine stores, good hotels, saloons in number, and an Exchange at which miniDg stocks were sold. Meadow Lake City was a second Virginia City, and attempted to revife the good days of Washoe, the flush times of the Comstock lead. In 1865, we think it was, some persons found gold-bearing rock in some ledges around Meadow Lake, and these being assayed and the assays being talked about, the city of Summit or Meadow Lake was born. It sprung up, like Jonah's gon-d, in a night, and it has withered. In the excitement which followed the discovery of quartz specimens near Meadow Lake, fine houses were erected, and business promised to be brisk. The ledges, however, failed to yield up their treasures 'by mill process,' and the people became disheartened. The sanguine held pn in hopes that chemistry would get the gold out of the roclf, where mechanism had failed. The ores were rebellious, it is said, and the ordinary appliances of stamps and quicksilver would not save the gold of those rich ledges. Chemistry would find a way to get the richness out of the rock. ' Old people saw signs and young people dreamed dreams' in efforts to save that gold. The Burns' process was invented, in a dream, to save gold, and for a time Meadow Lake City continued to hold its own in the hope of the success of the Burns' dream. It failed, and the doubters began to intimate that the

gold was not in the rock, and the assayers were wrong or had been imposed upon. Mills, chemicals, and even dreams failed to make mining there a success. Science, mechanics and the black art had each failed in its turn to turn the rock into gold. So the city went down and is now deserted. A few days ago a friend of ours visited Meadow Lake City. He went up on snow shoes and took a look at the deserted and snow-covered place. The houses which were only one story in height were covered to their roofs with snow. The two story houses were surrounded with snow to the height of the second story. Not a living being was seen by our friend. He was monarch of that snowy desolation. Signs Bwung in the cold wind, and just grazed in their swinging the surface of the snow. Prominent among the signs was that of a Broker's Office, just opposite the old Hall of the Board of Brokers. The large hotel there was yet furnished, and beds and bedding remained there. Our friend standing in his snow shoes gazed into the hotel while he stood on the snow surface, level with the second story, and he saw clean linen on the deserted beds. He wanted to take a rest in the comfortable looking quarters, but there was no fuel or food in sight, and he had to go down lower to a ditch tender's cabin to get fire and appease his hunger. Many of the houses have, this winter, been broken down by the weight of snow on their roof, but many more remain just as they were when their owners left. The property deserted is safe, as cold and snow have locked all against the depredations of burglars. Meadow Lake is a winter-residence no more.