The Heat of the Comstock Mines *

ONE of the most striking phenomena connected with the mines on the Comstock lode is the extreme heat encountered in the lower levels. This heat is not due to the burning of candles, heat of the men, and decomposition of timbers, all intensified by bad ventilation, as was the case nearer the surface. It proceeds from the rock, which maintains constantly a temperature very much higher than the average of the atmosphere in Nevada. The heat of these mines is a matter of more than usual interest, for they are the only hot ones now worked in the United States, and both in the present temperature encountered and in the increase which is to be expected as greater depths are reached, they appear to surpass any foreign mines of which we have a record. Hot mines are known also in other countries, as in the tin and copper lodes of Wales, where one of the veins worked by the United Mines is known as the hot lode. It has springs which discharge water at a temperature of 116° Fahrenheit, the depth being 220 fathoms, or 1320 feet. The heat of the air in these workings is given at 100° to 113° Fahrenheit. The air is bad, and the heat in the drifts seems to be traceable to defective ventilation rather than to the real necessities of the case. Air is supplied through a small pipe, and is drawn from a place where the temperature is 95° Fahrenheit. Under such circumstances it is not surprising to read that in this hot mine the air is hotter than the rock, a state of things which I have never observed in the Comstock. Other mines have been reported to the British Coal Committee as having temperatures of 106° Fahrenheit and thereabouts, but the only positive comparisons that are available at this writing are the following, all from Cornish mines * Read by permission of Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, Corps of Enginerrs, U. S. Arm J, in charge of U. S. Geographical and Geological Surveys, west of the 100th meridian.