History of the State of California. Frost John

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СКАЧАТЬ washing for gold. Various modes were adopted to separate the metal from the sand and gravel – some making use of tin pans, others of close-woven Indian baskets, and others still, of a rude machine called the cradle, six or eight feet long, and mounted on rockers, with a coarse grate, or sieve, at one end, but open at the other. The washings were mainly confined to the low wet grounds, and the margins of the streams – the earth being rarely disturbed more than eighteen inches below the surface. The value of the gold dust obtained by each man, per day, is said to have ranged from ten to fifty dollars, and sometimes even to have far exceeded that. The natural consequence of this state of things was, that the price of labor, and, indeed, of every thing, rose immediately from ten to twenty fold.4

      As may readily be conjectured, every stream and ravine in the valley of the Sacramento was soon explored. Gold was found on every one of its tributaries; but the richest earth was discovered near the Rio de los Plumas, or Feather River,5 and its branches, the Yuba and Bear rivers, and on Weber's creek, a tributary of the American Fork. Explorations were also made in the valley of the San Joaquin, which resulted in the discovery of gold on the Cosumnes and other streams, and in the ravines of the Coast Range, west of the valley, as far down as Ciudad de los Angeles.

      In addition to the gold mines, other important discoveries were made in Upper California. A rich vein of quicksilver was opened at New Almaden, near Santa Clara, which, with imperfect machinery, – the heat by which the metal is made to exude from the rock being applied by a very rude process, – yielded over thirty per cent. This mine – one of the principal advantages to be derived from which will be, that the working of the silver mines scattered through the territory must now become profitable – is superior to those of Almaden, in Old Spain, and second only to those of Idria, near Trieste, the richest in the world.

      Lead mines were likewise discovered in the neighborhood of Sonoma, and vast beds of iron ore near the American Fork, yielding from eighty-five to ninety per cent. Copper, platina, tin, sulphur, zinc, and cobalt, were discovered every where; coal was found to exist in large quantities in the Cascade range of Oregon, of which the Sierra Nevada is a continuation; and in the vicinity of all this mineral wealth, there are immense quarries of marble and granite, for building purposes.

      Colonel Mason had succeeded Colonel Fremont in the post of governor of California and military commandant. A regiment of New York troops, under the command of Colonel Stevenson, had been ordered to California before the conclusion of the treaty of peace, and formed the principal part of the military force in the territory.

      Colonel Mason expressed the opinion, in his official despatch, that "there is more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, than will pay the cost of the [late] war with Mexico a hundred times over." Should this even prove to be an exaggeration, there can be little reason to doubt, when we take into consideration all the mineral resources of the country, that the territory of California is by far the richest acquisition made by this government since its organization.

      The appearance of the mines, at the period of Governor Mason's visit, three months after the discovery, he thus graphically describes:

      "At the urgent solicitation of many gentlemen, I delayed there [at Sutter's Fort] to participate in the first public celebration of our national anniversary at that fort, but on the 5th resumed the journey, and proceeded twenty-five miles up the American Fork to a point on it now known as the Lower Mines, or Mormon Diggins. The hill-sides were thickly strewn with canvas tents and bush arbors; a store was erected, and several boarding shanties in operation. The day was intensely hot, yet about two hundred men were at work in the full glare of the sun, washing for gold – some with tin pans, some with close-woven Indian baskets, but the greater part had a rude machine, known as the cradle. This is on rockers, six or eight feet long, open at the foot, and at its head has a coarse grate, or sieve; the bottom is rounded, with small cleats nailed across. Four men are required to work this machine; one digs the ground in the bank close by the stream; another carries it to the cradle and empties it on the grate; a third gives a violent rocking motion to the machine; while a fourth dashes on water from the stream itself.

      "The sieve keeps the coarse stones from entering the cradle, the current of water washes off the earthy matter, and the gravel is gradually carried out at the foot of the machine, leaving the gold mixed with a heavy, fine black sand above the first cleats. The sand and gold, mixed together, are then drawn off through auger holes into a pan below, are dried in the sun, and afterward separated by blowing off the sand. A party of four men thus employed at the lower mines, averaged $100 a day. The Indians, and those who have nothing but pans or willow baskets, gradually wash out the earth and separate the gravel by hand, leaving nothing but the gold mixed with sand, which is separated in the manner before described. The gold in the lower mines is in fine bright scales, of which I send several specimens.

      "From the mill [where the gold was first discovered], Mr. Marshall guided me up the mountain on the opposite or north bank of the south fork, where, in the bed of small streams or ravines, now dry, a great deal of coarse gold has been found. I there saw several parties at work, all of whom were doing very well; a great many specimens were shown me, some as heavy as four or five ounces in weight, and I send three pieces, labeled No. 5, presented by a Mr. Spence. You will perceive that some of the specimens accompanying this, hold mechanically pieces of quartz; that the surface is rough, and evidently moulded in the crevice of a rock. This gold cannot have been carried far by water, but must have remained near where it was first deposited from the rock that once bound it. I inquired of many people if they had encountered the metal in its matrix, but in every instance they said they had not; but that the gold was invariably mixed with washed gravel, or lodged in the crevices of other rocks. All bore testimony that they had found gold in greater or less quantities in the numerous small gullies or ravines that occur in that mountainous region.

      "On the 7th of July I left the mill, and crossed to a stream emptying into the American Fork, three or four miles below the saw-mill. I struck this stream (now known as Weber's creek) at the washings of Sunol and Co. They had about thirty Indians employed, whom they payed in merchandise. They were getting gold of a character similar to that found in the main fork, and doubtless in sufficient quantities to satisfy them. I send you a small specimen, presented by this company, of their gold. From this point, we proceeded up the stream about eight miles, where we found a great many people and Indians – some engaged in the bed of the stream, and others in the small side valleys that put into it. These latter are exceedingly rich, and two ounces were considered an ordinary yield for a day's work. A small gutter not more than a hundred yards long, by four feet wide and two or three feet deep, was pointed out to me as the one where two men – William Daly and Parry McCoon – had, a short time before, obtained $17,000 worth of gold. Captain Weber informed me that he knew that these two men had employed four white men and about a hundred Indians, and that, at the end of one week's work, they paid off their party, and had left $10,000 worth of this gold. Another small ravine was shown me, from which had been taken upward of $12,000 worth of gold. Hundreds of similar ravines, to all appearances, are as yet untouched. I could not have credited these reports, had I not seen, in the abundance of the precious metal, evidence of their truth.

      "Mr. Neligh, an agent of Commodore Stockton, had been at work about three weeks in the neighborhood, and showed me, in bags and bottles, over $2000 worth of gold; and Mr. Lyman, a gentleman of education, and worthy of every credit, said he had been engaged, with four others, with a machine, on the American Fork, just below Sutter's mill; that they worked eight days, and that his share was at the rate of fifty dollars a day; but hearing that others were doing better at Weber's place, they had removed there, and were then on the point of resuming operations. I might tell of hundreds of similar instances; but, to illustrate how plentiful the gold was in the pockets of common laborers, I will mention a single occurrence which took place in my presence when I was at Weber's store. This store was nothing but an arbor of bushes, under which he had exposed for sale goods and groceries suited to his customers. A man came in, picked up a box of Seidlitz powders, and asked the price. Captain Weber СКАЧАТЬ