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Moving the Ore Rocks out of the Mine
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Starting a Mine
Once the prospector thought he had found some ore, he usually
needed to convince somebody to buy the prospect in order to mine
the difficult ore and move the large volumes of material. In
Virginia City, a single man could not mine the deep ore and
remove enough ore to make a living. In order to convince a
company to buy the prospect, the miner had to have evidence of
the quality of the ore, so he had rocks from his prospect assayed.
Getting to the Ore
Once a company had bought the prospect, large scale mining
began. In Virginia City, people and companies came quickly. By
1862, 80 mills were in operation, only 3 years after the
discovery of the Comstock Lode. The population in Nevada
increased so it could become a state in 1864.
Miners followed a vein of rock that was high in the precious
metal.
The miners often entered their mine
through adits, horizontal tunnels from the surface, shown in
these pictures covered over with doors. They removed the rock
with the metal and took only as much rock that didn't have the
metal as was necessary to follow the vein. To move the rock,
large equipment had to be brought in. The tunnels that went
horizontally into the mine (called adits) were often dug to
provide access to the tunnels that followed the veins (drifts).
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Moving the Ore Rocks out of the Mine
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