LITMIR.BIZ

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further presumed on his ignorance by exchanging gold ounce for commodity or whiskey ounce, glass bottle included.

      Governmental examinations had been made but no discoveries of minerals resulted. True, there was conjecture that from the region's undoubted volcanic origin and peculiar geological features gold or other valuable mineral deposits might exist. Chance disclosed what inquiry had failed to reveal, and in a few weeks California was agitated to fever heat, nearly all the population became infected and flocked to the mines. By August some 4,000 people, including Indians, were washing the river sands and gravel for gold, the washings confined to the low wet grounds and the margins of the streams and the daily yields from ten dollars to fifty dollars per man but often much exceeded.

      Every stream in the valleys came under scrutiny. Gold was found on almost every tributary of the Sacramento, and the richest earth on the Feather and its branches, the Yuba and the Bear, and on Weber's creek, a tributary of the American fork. Prospectings in the valley of the San Joaquin also resulted, but later, in gold discoveries on the Cosumnes, the San Joaquin, Fresno, Chowchilla, Merced and Tuolumne, besides in lesser quantities in the ravines of the western Coast Range as far as Los Angeles.

      The valleys were explored as never before, and with the spread of the contagion man came to know the San Joaquin Valley, up to now the stamping ground of wild Indians and outlaws, the grazing ranges of immense herds of elk, antelope and wild mustangs, with the plains in their wake footprinted by the stalking grizzly bear and the loping coyote. The territory now comprising Fresno County was absolutely unknown and with state government was yet to be a part of Mariposa until independent county organization in April, 1856.

      There had been reports of gold discoveries before Marshall's, but if true they created little more than local stirs and did not come to the knowledge of the enterprising and wide awake Americans. That Capt. J. D. Smith found gold in 1826 on his first crossing of the Sierras "near Mono Lake"' may be true, but if he did it was on the eastern side of the range. In 1841 gold was found in Santa Clara County on Piru Creek, a branch of the Santa Clara, but the find in March, 1842, at San Francisquito near Los Angeles, as mentioned elsewhere, was a genuine one, and it may be said that considerable gold was extracted in all the region from the Santa Clara River to Mount San Bernardino.

      In greater or lesser quantity, it has been found in almost every part of the state, but nowhere and never in such deposits as on the western slope of the Sierras in the quartz veins, in the gravel and clay of ancient river beds and in the channels of existing streams. It is another remarkable fact that geology has not been able to explain that gold should be found on the one side and silver on the other of the Sierras. The gold occurs in virgin state, the silver in various ores. The western slope of the Sierras rich in gold, the eastern in silver, the Coast range is equally rich in quicksilver in red cinnabar, especially at New Almaden (1845) south of San Jose, later found at New Idria in San Benito (in a corner formerly of Fresno) and about St. Helena in Napa County.

      There never was and has not been since, in history, such a stampede as was started by the discovery at Coloma. In twelve months it attracted to California more than 100,000 people of all nationalities, and commerce sprang up with China, Mexico, Chili and Australia, while yet in governmental confusion. The world was wild and delirious, and while only another remarkable incident in the state's history, it did hasten as no other event could have the assumption of state sovereignty and the development so certain to follow acquisition of the land. There was a wild scramble for the mines, the daily gold accumulations ranged from $30,000 to $50,000, the discovery wrought a marvelous and almost incredible change in the character of the country, laborers, professionals and tradesmen tramped the crowded trail for mountain gulch or ravine, soldier and sailor deserted, and there was a social upheaval with excesses and lawlessness for a time, with labor commanding fabulous wages and prices of commodities and foodstuffs prohibitive, even when they could be had. The exodus to California has for its magnitude been likened to that of the Crusades of the Middle Ages. The Annals of San Francisco, published in 1854, records that there was soon gathered a mixed population of the "wildest, bravest, most intelligent yet most reckless and perhaps dangerous beings ever collected into one small district of country." Thousands came after the American occupation not to stay but to pick up a fortune quickly and return home. It was no longer the place "for a slow, an overcautious or a desponding man."

      California was in complication over land and mining claims. The Indian resented the taking of his hunting grounds by the miners, and with the uncertainty of things the old regime bewailed the coming of the Gringo, and lamented the discovery that attracted the horde as a green pasture field does the locust or the grasshopper. The dreamy days at the haciendas, life at the old missions with the patriarchal padres, all the idle days were no more. A feverish excitement prevailed with gambling, drunkenness, horseracing and stealing, claim jumping and worse things. The days of '49 "beheld one of the most reckless, heterogeneous societies ever brought together."

      In January, 1849, according to a memorial of Senators Gwin and Fremont to Congress, while waiting for the state's admission to take their seats, the estimated population was:

      Californians, 13,000; Americans, 8,000; Foreigners, 5,000; Total, 26,000.

      As a result of the gold find, a population of at least 107,000 was claimed for the state as follows:

      Estimate as above 13,000

      Pacific ports sea and Sonora land arrivals January-April '49 8,000

      San Francisco sea arrivals, April-December 1849 29,000

      Other ports 1,000

      Southern overland 8,000

      From Mexico 7,000

      Deserting sailors 3,000

      Overland via Salt Lake 25,000

      Total 107,000

      All enumerations of the day may be accepted as inflations and little better than wild-eyed estimates because of the shifting character of the population as well as because of the other difficulties in making any reliable canvass. The variance of the various reported figures is irreconcilable. The figures emphasize though the immensity of the California-ward movement of the day. The world had been inoculated with the gold fever, California had a heterogeneous population, but no government, save the makeshift authority exercised by a small and utterly inadequate military force.

      California had leaped into worldwide importance with Marshall's discovery of gold in that mill race on that disputed January day in 1848. The excitement and immigration and the insistent demand for a state government furnish a chapter in history without like in the world. Somewhere someone has written that the brilliant audacity of California's methods for admission into the union is without parallel in the nation's history. Brilliantly audacious it was, truly, but only characteristic of California and the Californians and of the abnormal condition of the times.

      Minerva, the mythological goddess typical of endowment of mind and prominent and distinctive as the figure in the foreground of the Great Seal of California, is emblematic and illustrative of its sudden springing into the maturity of statehood as no other before or since of the United States of America.

      CHAPTER VIII

      First reports from Coloma and other placers excited general incredulity. The California Star on March 25, 1849, announced that gold dust was an article of traffic at Sutter's Fort. In size and character of nuggets the mines were pronounced much richer than the fields of Georgia, where gold was first discovered in the United States, also more so than anything ever placered in Mexico. A half-pound parcel offered in San Francisco, in April, in payment for provisions was accepted at eight dollars per ounce, and the store was stampeded to stare on the golden dust. On May 29, the Californian, and on June 14, the Star suspended, because the printers had vamoosed for the mines. Every sacrifice was being made to reach the mines.

      Thomas O. Larkin, who had been consul at Monterey and secret agent of the government in the intrigue for the acquisition of California, wrote to Secretary of State James

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