294 Beyond the Sierras. 



up as to its end. Out of this came bulging and boiling, to the height of sev- 

 eral feet, a column of water sufficient to wet a desert. From this source of 

 supply conduits extend to the various parts of the ranch. Nor do I forget, 

 ere wo tjiko our way for tht> metropolis, to mention what th(» ladios of the 

 mansion, tho daughters of Mr. Blowers, I believe, had prepared f^r vi:« in the 

 Avay of souvenirs. They had gathered some of the beautiful ivy leaves from 

 the yards, had varnished them to an exquisite finish, and put thereon, in 

 gold loaf, their monogram of welcome. Thank you, ladies and maidens of 

 Woodland, and good-by. 



We are now on our way to San Francisco. It is not yet night, by any 

 means; and if Vice-President Munson and Mr. J. H. Wheeler, Chief Viti- 

 cultural Officer of California, and Mr. Bogue, and other disMnguished 

 friends, who occasionally gather in the lobby of the Pullman to settle such 

 little questions as the origin of life, the genesis of nature and the rirst prin- 

 ciple of human action, will excuse me for a little while, I will indulge in a 

 brief reverie about the transformation which has taken place in the indus- 

 tries of California. 



At the lirst, you know, the old American Californians, as distinguished 

 from the Spanish-Mexican Californians, were diggers of gold. That is what 

 they crossed the plains and the mcuntains for. They poured into these 

 regions as adventurers, and flourished as miners; that is, they flourished at 

 intervals. I learned ttie history of many of these old mining heroes. It is' 

 sometimes, most pathetic. One of the lines of Defoe, I believe, runs in this 

 wise: 



" Full thirteen times have I been rich and poor." 



This statement of the case will hardly do justice to the career of mari^' 

 an old Forty-niner. I have heard, from what I consider good authority 

 that more than one half of the brave fellows who rushed from the older 

 States to yonder gold diggings in the summer and fall of 1849 are now in 

 indigent circumstances, and that many of them are the recipients of public 

 aid and support. I am sorry to hear it. I have not seen one of the old fel- 

 lows in all this journey without a kind of warming of the heart for him and 

 his career. They were a brave band, and, with all their recklessness and 

 prodigality and wasteful dinging away of their gold dust in folly and hazard, 

 they deserve to enjoy a full sliare of that wealth which thoir hard hands 

 grabbled from the sands of tho rivers and the dtbris of the mountains. To 

 every Forty-niner whose worthy hand I had the pleasure of shaking in the 

 Golden State — golden to him, I hope, in memofy— I send a cordial greeting 



So, then, the first industry in California was the mining of gold. Every 

 other enterprise, at the beginning, was .second to this. The early com- 

 munities arranged themselves with respect to the 8Ui)ply and distribution 

 of gold. Gold made Sacramento, and gold converted the Spanish Verba 

 Buena into San Francisco. Little or nothing else was thought of as it 

 respected the possible industries in the Eldorado. I was told, by those who 

 saw the California valleys in that day, that no one would have imagined 



