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Comstock Lode

"Mining on the Comstock", depicts the headframes and mills of the various mines, and the mining technology used at Comstock, most prominently the method of square-set timbering developed there to work the veins.
Comstock Lode geologic map, north. Ophir is in the top center; "qz" is quartz and signifies the Comstock Lode.[1]: Sheet IV 
Comstock Lode geologic map, south. Gold Hill is in the center left; "dt" is diorite and "hI" is andesite.[1]

The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States and named after American miner Henry Comstock.

After the discovery was made public in 1859, it sparked a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to stake their claims. The discovery caused considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States, the greatest since the California Gold Rush in 1849. Mining camps soon thrived in the vicinity, which became bustling commercial centers, including Virginia City and Gold Hill.

The Comstock Lode is notable not just for the immense fortunes it generated and the large role those fortunes had in the growth of Nevada and San Francisco, but also for the advances in mining technology that it spurred, such as square set timbering and the Washoe process for extracting silver from ore. The mines declined after 1874, although underground mining continued sporadically into the 1920s.

  1. ^ a b Becker, G. F. (1882). Geology of the Comstock Lode and Washoe District. USGS Monograph, Washington, D.C.

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