To make Bodie’s story short, let it suffice to say that for four years the camp maintained the same high-pressure activity. Men mined, milled, played, fought, and hundreds died. Some fifty companies tunneled into Bodie Bluff and all but turned it inside out. Probably twenty-five millions in bullion were conveyed in Bodie stage coaches to the railroad at Carson City, Nevada. Perhaps an amount almost as great was sunk into the hills by the numerous companies that carried on frenzied activity but produced no wealth. Only the Standard and the Bodie had proved to be immensely profitable, and in 1881 the stock market went to pieces. Bodie’s mines, one after another, closed down. In 1887 the Standard and the Bodie consolidated and operated sanely and profitably for some twenty years longer. But the camp’s mad days of wild speculation and excessive living were done. Gradually activities ceased, and a few years ago the picturesque blocks of frame buildings were consumed by flames. To meet the opportunities of 1941 some several hundred people occupied Bodie to salvage minerals from her old mine dumps. But there was little progress in rebuilding the town. It is interesting to note, however, that the Bodie Miners’ Union Hall of the ’seventies still stands. Within it Mr. and Mrs. D. V. Cain have exhibited the relics of Bodie’s boom days. CHAPTER X _THE INTERPRETERS_ The superlative qualities of the scenic features and such outstanding biological characteristics as the forests of the Yosemite region compelled the interest of scientists as soon as the area received wide mention in the press. The miners’ concern with mineral values directed the attention of mining engineers upon the sections both east and west of Yosemite Valley. As early as 1853 Professor John B. Trask attempted to explain the geology of the Tuolumne-Merced watersheds. The California State Geological Survey was established in 1860. Josiah Dwight Whitney, of Harvard University, was made State Geologist. He enlisted the services of several young men who were destined to become leaders in American geological and topographical work. William H. Brewer, William Ashburner, Chester Averill, Charles F. Hoffmann, William M. Gabb, James T. Gardiner, and Clarence King were among the members of the Whitney Survey. Over a period of ten years they penetrated the remote and unknown canyons and climbed the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, recording their findings and mapping the wild terrain. They made the first contribution to accurate and detailed knowledge of the region embraced in the present Yosemite National Park.