Editing Comstock Lode (section)

===Ophir discovery===
In the spring of 1859, two miners, Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin, finding all the paying ground already claimed, went to the head of Six Mile Canyon and began prospecting with a rocker on the slope of the mountain near a small stream fed from a neighboring spring. They had poor results in the top dirt as there was no washed gravel, and they were about to abandon their claim when they made the great discovery.

They sank a small, deeper pit in which to collect water to use in their rockers. In the bottom of this hole was a "layer of rich black sand", "concentrate from the top of the hidden Ophir bonanza".  Henry T. P. Comstock learned of the two men working on land that he allegedly had already claimed for "grazing purposes". Unhappy with his current claim on Gold Hill, Comstock made threats and managed to work himself and his partner, Immanuel "Manny" Penrod, into a deal that granted them interest on the claim.<ref name="Comstock History" />

On June 12, a trench they were digging exposed black manganese sand mixed with bluish-gray quartz and gold. Two [[arrastra]]s built by John D. Winters and J. A. Osborn made them additional partners on June 22. Comstock and Penrod made an additional claim, called the "Mexican", but later called the "Spanish", adjacent to the "Ophir" claim.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|2–3,7–9}}

With the "blue stuff" found in this trench, silver mining in America was born. In the rocker, along with the gold, was a large quantity of heavy blue-black material almost like putty that clogged the rocker and interfered with the washing out of the fine gold. When assayed on June 27, it was determined to be a rich [[sulfide]] of silver; in fact, the ore was three fourths silver to one fourth gold.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|8–9,11}}

The geographic accounts on the location of the Comstock Lode were muddled and inconsistent. In one report, the gold strike was "on the Eastern fork of Walker's river" and the silver strike "about halfway up the Eastern slope of the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]]" and "nine miles West of Carson River."<ref name="doten">[[Walter Van Tilburg Clark|Clark, Walter Van Tilburg]] [ed] ''The Journals of Alfred Doten 1849–1903'', University of Nevada Press, (1973), {{ISBN|0-87417-032-X}}.</ref>