"How did it happen, Jim?"

" Well, I struck pay rock buying cattle in Modoc
an' tradin' that-a-way. Then things sorter dribbled
out till I dropped down to sheep herding up on the
Chowchilla, an' you know that's borrasca."

" So it is, sure! Well, here's wishin', as the Greasers
say, that you may hev as many days in bonanza as you
hed in borrasca."

The antithesis is plain. Bonanza — a large body of
pay ore — has come to mean especial prosperity. The
allusion is to a cheerful proverb of the Mexican silver
miners, which runs: " As many days as you spend in
borrasca you will surely spend in bonanza." Mexicans
have often been willing to take leases of non-paying
mines based upon the condition that if they find a
bonanza they shall be allowed to work it for as many
days as they had laboured to find it. Such a lease was
once given on the Comstock, and the Mexicans ^pent
six months tunnelling through barren rock before they
gave up in despair, much to the joy of the superintend-
ent, who had begun to think they had really found a
bonanza and were only trying to lengthen their time
sufliciently to be able to " clean up everything in sight."

It is one of the striking features of the story of the
Comstock that some companies have usually been in
bonanza while others were in borrasca. Something
on the great lode has been paying dividends even at



BORRASCA AND BONANZA. 157

times of greatest depression. Tlie working theory
of mines is to be exploring for new ore bodies while
working out the ore in sight, so as to occupy both work-
men and mill. But in practice this is often impossible,
so much " dead work " has to be done to find and work
the ore bodies and so much barren space is passed over.
