102 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



rude agriculture. British Columbia was a wilderness, penetrated only 

 by the adventurous trapper ; while tbe great inland central basin was 

 just forming the nucleus of a community at Salt Lake City. A glance 

 at a map of the North American Continent opens out to the sweep of 

 the e} 7 e a region west of the Rocky Mountains, and tributary to the 

 Pacific coast, of extent nearly equal to one third of the whole east of 

 that great natural dividing ridge. This western part of the continent 

 being remote from the centres of the civilized populations of the East- 

 ern States and Europe, could not be expected to send to such far off 

 localities any very considerable number of settlers, without there was 

 something more than of an ordinary character to induce emigration. 

 Here, however, in this unknown land, was found a genial climate, and 

 that most wonderful magnetic talisman to arouse the spirit of avarice — 

 rich mines of gold ; and, as if touched by a magician's wand, the nations 

 poured hitherward streams of fortune seekers. Nor was it long before 

 that which rumor gave out concerning gold fields said to have been dis- 

 covered from Darien to the hyperborean regions of the North, and inland 

 to the centre of the continent, became confirmed as a fact. 



Fifteen years, and what a change! California springing into full life 

 at a bound, as Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, already has become 

 the mother of two States. Orecro-n and Nevada, both wearing " golden 

 crowns, and tripping into the Union on silver feet;" while Washington, 

 Idaho, and Arizona, a trio of Territories, gemmed with the wealth of the 

 Ophir of King Solomon, send back upon the maternal bosom testimo- 

 nials of the thrift and enterprise of those new communities. Even 

 British Columbia and some of the northwestern States of Mexico, 

 acknowledge a filial debt to the Eureka State. Never in the march of 

 population and civilization, was there anything to equal the settlement 

 of the Pacific coast by the Anglo-Americans. 



The grand inciting idea in this march of empire is gold, and were not 

 the mines discovered in this great region of marvellous richness, this 

 enormous movement of population and material means would long since 

 have borne, as its legitimate fruits, disaster and ruin. What else than 

 a reality in the asserted richness of her gold placers could have made 

 the crusade from the Atlantic States to California, in eighteen hundred 

 and forty-nine and eighteen hundred and fifty, other than a stupendous 

 immolation of labor without reward ? Would a new empire have sprung 

 up on Frazer River, were not the sands on its icy shores rich in treasures 

 of gold ? Idaho would still have remained a howling wilderness, instead 

 of becoming the field of a large and thrifty population, had there never 

 taken place the "stampede" of fortune seekers from California to Salmon 

 River. Is it to be supposed that Virginia would have become in three 

 years the third or second city on the North Pacific coast, and rose as 

 she has from the bleak sides of a desolate mountain, were there not self- 

 sustaining realities in Washoe? Would twenty thousand people rush 

 headlong towards the centre of the continent, just as the inhospitable 

 season of winter sets in, were it not certain that Reese River has been 

 gifted by the Great Giver with abundant riches ? But why appeal to the 

 multitude of croakers who in all other countries, as well as in California, 

 have raised with dismal voice the predictions of failure from the begin- 

 ning? Let them continue the unavailing cry that the public is crazy on 

 the subject of gold and silver lodes. 



It is true that in the earl} 7 attempts at working quartz rock many 

 failures occurred, which for years afterwards greatly discouraged invest- 

 ments in this kind of mining. It was then a matter of experiment with 



