Popular Culture Review Vol. 1, December 1989 | Page 70

observations for a grateful townspeople, calling a mine as a “hole
in the ground owned by a liar.”.
The mines were being developed rapidly and miners who
formerly worked independently for what they could find, now
worked for wages under the direction o f others. The wages were
good, though, and with the “highgrading” (i.e., stealing o f ore), the
miners were content. The mine was a rich one— how rich, Com
stock never dreamed, for as seems typical, Comstock sold out his
share o f the mine for a paltry $11,000or thereabouts. If he had held
it, it would eventually have brought him some eighty million
dollars. (10) It is ironic that, like Marshall who discovered the
California gold, both men died penniless— Comstock even a sui
cide.
The Comstock was not an easy mine to work and the increas
ing depths of its shafts made new and difficult demands on the
miners and on machinery and mining techniques. Fortunately,
many of the Comstock miners were Comish (11), known as “Cousin
Jacks,” and they had gen \