Carson City, Nevada’s capital, is a beautiful place of 5,000 people on the Virginia & Truckee Railway, thirty-one miles from Reno. It is the oldest town in the State, has an abundance of good water and good shade, creditable State buildings, and a United States branch mint. It trades freely with Southwestern Nevada and the Inyo Valley of California. [Illustration: THE HEAD GATES NEAR HAZEN, NEVADA, OF THE CARSON-TRUCKEE IRRIGATION PROJECT WHEREBY THE GOVERNMENT PLANS TO GIVE IRRIGATED LANDS TO SETTLERS AT THE COST OF THE WATER] Virginia City, fifty-two miles from Reno on the Virginia & Truckee Ry., and the adjoining town of Gold Hill, are famous places, once the center of tremendous mining activity. The treasure houses underneath held wonderful stores of wealth. Virginia City at one time had 30,000 people, one-third of the population being always underground. The place was built on the steep slope of Mount Davidson, 6200 feet above sea-level. Until the discovery of the Comstock Lode (an ore-channel four miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, along the eastern base of Mount Davidson, eighteen miles southeast of Reno), men worth $200,000 were called rich, and the world’s millionaires could be counted on one’s fingers. In June, 1859, miners (among whom were Peter O’Riley, Patrick McLaughlin, James Finney, John Bishop, W. P. T. Comstock, and a man named Penrod) working in the ravine along the base of Mount Davidson, were much annoyed by a strange blue-black substance that clogged their rockers. Finally a sample was taken to Nevada City, Cal., for assay. It yielded over $6,000 per ton in gold and silver. Since the day of the rush that followed that discovery, work on the Comstock Lode has never ceased. From that ore-channel have been taken more than $700,000,000; the Consolidated California Virginia took out in six years $119,000,000 and paid $67,000,000 in dividends. Of the history of that wonderful time, little can be said here, and such men as William Sharon, John P. Jones, John W. Mackay, James G. Fair, I. W. Requa, Marcus Daly, Adolph Sutro, made famous by their connections with the Comstock Lode, must be passed by with merely mention of names. Mark Twain’s “Roughing It” and contemporary works, provide “mighty interesting” reading about that treasure era. [Illustration: A WESTERN MINNEHAHA Copyright by F. A. Rinehart, Omaha.] [Illustration: AT RENO MODERN BUILDINGS AND THE FINE BRIDGE THAT SPANS THE TRUCKEE MARK THE UPBUILDING OF NEVADA’S PRINCIPAL CITY]