THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA

By Walter Colton.

IN his journal of events that transpired while he was Alcalde of Monterey, California, during 1846-7-8, entitled "Three Years in California," Colton records nothing more dramatic or interesting than the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, near Coloma, in 1848. Strangely enough, the epoch-making event, which gave an impetus to immigration from all parts of the globe, brought nothing but disaster to John Augustus Sutter, the Swiss immigrant, on whose property the first nuggets were found. Gold-seekers preempted his lands, and except an annual pension of $3,000 granted him by the California Legislature, he received practically nothing.

The great body of gold-seekers, "the Argonauts," arrived in 1849, during which year the population of California increased 100,000. Colton, as Alcalde, or Mayor, of Monterey, was in an admirable position to observe every phase of the phenomenon that attended the discovery, of which he gives this fascinating account.

A STRAGGLER came in to-day [ Monday, June 12, 1848] from the American Fork, bringing a piece of yellow ore weighing an ounce. The young dashed the dirt from their eyes, and the old from their spectacles. One brought a spyglass, another an iron ladle; some wanted to melt it, others to hammer it, and a few were satisfied with smelling it. All were full of tests ; and many, who could not be gratified in making their experiments, declared it a humbug. One lady sent me a huge gold ring, in the hope ofreaching the truth by comparison ; while a gentleman placed the specimen on the top of his gold-headed cane and held it up, challenging the sharpest eyes to detect a difference. But doubts still hovered on the minds of the great mass. They could not conceive that such a treasure could have lain there so long undiscovered. The idea seemed to convict them of stupidity. There is nothing of which a man is more tenacious than his claims to sagacity. He sticks to them like an old bachelor to the idea of his personal attractions, or a toper to the strength of his temperance ability, whenever he shall wish to call it into play.

Tuesday, June 20. My messenger sent to the mines, has returned with specimens of the gold ; he dismounted in a sea of upturned faces. As he drew forth the yellow lumps from his pockets, and passed them around among the eager crowd, the doubts which had lingered till now, fled. All admitted they were gold, except one old man, who still persisted they were some Yankee invention, got up to reconcile the people to the change of flag. The excitement produced was intense ; and many were soon busy in their hasty preparations for a departure to the mines. The family who had kept house for me caught the moving infection. Husband and wife were both packing up; the blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter. An American woman, who had recently established a boarding-house here, pulled up stakes, and was off before her lodgers had even time to pay their bills. Debtors ran, of course. I have only a community of women left, and a gang of prisoners, with here and there a soldier, who will give his captain the slip at the first chance. I don't blame the fellow a whit; seven dollars a month, while others are making two or three hundred a day! that is too much for human nature to stand.

Saturday, July 15. The gold fever has reached every servant in Monterey ; none are to be trusted in their engagement beyond a week, and as for compulsion, it is like attempting to drive fish into a net with the ocean before them. General Mason, Lieutenant Lanman, and myself, form a mess ; we have a house, and all the table furniture and culinary apparatus requisite; but our servants have run, one after another, till we are almost in despair : even Sambo, who we thought would stick by from laziness, if no other cause, ran last night ; and this morning, for the fortieth time, we had to take to the kitchen, and cook our own breakfast. A general of the United States Army, the commander of a man-of-war, and the Alcalde of Monterey, in a smoking kitchen, grinding coffee, toasting a herring, and peeling onions! These gold mines are going to upset all the domestic arrangements of society, turning the head to the tail, and the tail to the head. Well, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good : the nabobs have had their time, and now comes that of the "niggers." We shall all live just as long, and be quite as fit to die.

Tuesday, July 18. Another bag of gold from the mines, and another spasm in the community. It was brought down by a sailor from Yuba river, and contains a hundred and thirty-six ounces. It is the most beautiful gold that has appeared in the market; it looks like the yellow scales of the dolphin, passing through his rainbow hues at death. My carpenters, at work on the school-house, on seeing it, threw down their saws and planes, shouldered their picks, and are off for the Yuba. Three seamen ran from the "Warren,"forfeiting their four years' pay; and a whole platoon of soldiers from the fort left only their colors behind. One old woman declared she would never again break an egg or kill a chicken, without examining yolk and gizzard.

Monday, Oct. 2. I went among the gold-diggers; found half a dozen at the bottom of the ravine, tearing up the bogs, and up to their knees in mud. Beneath these bogs lay a bed of clay sprinkled in spots with gold. These deposits, and the earth mixed with them, were shovelled into bowls, taken to a pool near by, and washed out. The bowl, in working, is held in both hands, whirled violently back and forth through half a circle, and pitched this way and that sufficiently to throw off the earth and water, while the gold settles to the bottom. The process is extremely laborious, and taxes the entire muscles of the frame. In its effect it is more like swinging a scythe than any work I ever attempted.

Not having much relish for the bogs and mud, I procured a light crowbar and went to splitting the slaterocks which project into the ravine. I found between the layers, which were not perfectly closed, particles of gold, resembling in shape the small and delicate scales of a fish. These were easily scraped from the slate by a hunter's knife, and readily separated in the washbowl from other foreign substances.

There are about seventy persons at work in this ravine, and all within a few yards of each other. They average about one ounce per diem each. They who get less are discontented, and they who get more are not satisfied. Every day brings in some fresh report of richer discoveries in some quarter not far remote, and the diggers are consequently kept in a state of feverish excitement. One woman, a Sonoranian, who was washing here, finding at the bottom of her bowl only the amount of half a dollar or so, hurled it back again into the water, and straightening herself up to her full height, strode off with the indignant air of one who feels himself insulted.

Wednesday, Oct. 4. Our camping-ground is in a broad ravine through which a rivulet wanders, and which is dotted with the frequent tents of gold-diggers. The sounds of the crowbar and pick, as they shake or shiver the rock, are echoed from a thousand Cliffs; while the hum of human voices rolls off on the breeze to mingle with the barking of wolves.

The provisions with which we left San Jose are gone, and we have been obliged to supply ourselves here. We pay at the rate of four hundred dollars a barrel for flour; four dollars a pound for poor brown sugar, and four dollars a pound for indifferent coffee. And as for meat, there is none to be got except jerked-beef, which is the flesh of the bullock cut into strings and hung up in the sun to dry, and which has about as much juice in it as a strip of bark dangling in the wind from a dead tree.

Friday, Oct. 6. The most efficient gold-washer here is the cradle, which resembles in shape that appendage of the nursery, from which it takes its name. It is nine or ten feet long, open at one end and closed at the other. At the end which is closed, a sheet-iron pan, four inches deep, and sixteen over, and perforated in the bottom with holes, is let in even with the sides of the cradle. The earth is thrown into the pan, water turned on it, and the cradle, which is on an inclined plane, set in motion. The earth and water pass through the pan, and then down the cradle, while the gold, owing to its specific gravity, is caught by cleats fastened across the bottom. Very little escapes ; it generally lodges before it reaches the last cleat. It requires four or five men to supply the earth and water to work such a machine to advantage. The quantity of gold washed out must depend on the relative proportion of gold in the earth. The one worked in this ravine yields a hundred dollars a day; but this is considered a slender result. Most of the diggers use the bowl or pan ; its lightness never embarrasses their roving habits ; and it can be put in motion wherever they find a stream or spring. It can be purchased now in the mines for five or six dollars ; a few months since it cost an ounce sixteen dollars for a wooden bowl!

Wednesday, Oct. 11. It is near sunset, and the gold-diggers are returning from their labors, each one bearing on his head a brush-heap, with which he will kindle his evening fire. Their wild halloos, as they come in, fill the cliffs with their echoes. All are merry, whatever may have been the fortunes of the day with them. Not one among the whole can anticipate a more luxurious supper than a cake baked in the ashes, with a cup of coffee and a bit of jerked-beef, except in the case of a new-comer, who had brought with him a few pounds of buckwheat flour; he can have a pancake, that is, if he has anything with which to grease his pan, which is extremely doubtful. There is not a bottle of liquor in the ravine, and every one must, perforce, turn in sober. Every streamlet preaches temperance, and the wind-stirred pine sings its soft eulogy on the charmed air.

Monday, Oct. 16. I encountered this morning, in the person of a Welshman, a pretty marked specimen of the gold-digger. He stood some six feet eight in his shoes, with giant limbs and frame. A leather strap fastened his coarse trousers above the hips, and confined the flowing bunt of his flannel shirt. A broad-rimmed hat sheltered his browny features, while his unshorn beard and hair flowed in tangled confusion to his waist. To his back was lashed a blanket and bag of provisions ; on one shoulder rested a huge crowbar, to which were hung a gold-washer and skillet: on the other rested a rifle, a spade, and pick, from which dangled a cup and pair of heavy shoes. He recognized me at once as the magistrate who had once arrested him for a breach of the peace. "Well, Senor Alcalde," said he, "I am glad to see you in these diggings. You had some trouble with me in Monterey; I was on a burster, you did your duty, and I respect you for it; and now let me settle the difference between us with a bit of gold: it shall be the first I strike under this bog." I told him there was no difference between us; that I knew at the time it was rum which had raised the rumpus. But before I had finished my disclaiming speech, his traps were on the ground, and his heavy pick was tearing up bog after bog from the snarl in which it had struck its tangling roots. These removed, he struck a layer of clay; "Here she comes!" he ejaculated, and turned out a piece of gold that would weigh an ounce or more. "There,"he said, "Senor Alcalde, accept that ; and when you reach home, where I hope you will find all well, have a bracelet made of it for your good lady."