It will be noted from the reckoning as given that about as much money was lost in the listed stocks of the camps as in the unlisted "cats and dogs." As a matter of fact, veteran mining-stock buyers, in camp and out of the camp, lost as much hard cash as did the unsophisticated. San Francisco, which owes its opulence of years gone by to successful mining endeavor, was probably hit as hard as any other city in the Union. San Francisco thought it knew the game, and it confined its operations to the stocks listed on the exchange where the Comstocks are traded in. But San Francisco did not know the inside of the merger deal as it is now known to every schoolboy in Nevada. The operation on the inside was this. Wingfield and Nixon owned the John S. Cook & Company bank in Goldfield, and they owned the control of nearly a score of mining companies which were of little account as well as having acquired the control of the biggest mine in camp. During the height of the boom, which they engineered to swing the merger, they disposed of millions of shares of an indiscriminate lot of companies, and used the many millions of proceeds to take over Jumbo, Red Top and their outstanding contracts in Mohawk and other integrals of the merger. They likewise were able during the ballooning process to dispose of much Mohawk at from $15 to $20, much Jumbo at from $4 to $5, much Red Top at from $4 to $5, that cost them very considerably less than this, and in this way were enabled to finance their deal to a finish. I have just pointed out that in order to accomplish the merger it was necessary that the market in all Goldfield securities, in which the promoters were interested, be stimulated in order to enable unloading by the insiders before some of the very large payments became due. This being accomplished, and the payments having been made, the promoters sought to establish a market for merger shares at or around par. In order to accomplish this the Goldfield bank, in which the promoters were heavily interested, stimulated speculation and managed to spread a feeling of security by announcing its willingness to loan from 60 to 80 per cent. par on merger shares. All Goldfield fell for this, and the camp went broke as a result. Within eighteen months thereafter Goldfield Consolidated sold down to $3.50 in the markets, and margin-traders and borrowers who had put up the stock as collateral to purchase more were butchered. Loans were foreclosed by the bank as rapidly as margins were exhausted. The carnage was awful.