Jan.. MOTHER LODE The Story of Californias Gold Rush by Louis J. Stellman written 1934. The Comstock looked like a good vein-a real find. It was a lode fifty to a hundred feet wide and three or four miles long, running north and south on the eastern slope of the Washoe Mountains. Stone thought there would be silver in it-enough to pay for mining the gold. Johnny Stone tried to keep the assay reports to himself but he couldn't. It was too wonderful. Sixteen hundred a ton in gold. That was extraordinary enough but $3196 in silver! Judas Priest! The Nevada City Herald printed the first news of the Comstock Lode. The city papers took it up. Presently the whole world knew about it. The Comstock produced $80,000,000 in gold and hundreds of millions in silver. Jackie in California [email protected]