SKETCH OF CHESTER S. LYMAN. 119 



cinnati, and Professor John L, Taylor, of Andover. After studying 

 theology in Union and Yale Seminaries, and holding a short pastorate 

 over the Firct Church in New Britain, Connecticut, he was obliged to 

 travel for his health. 



After a seven and a half months' vovage in a sailing-vessel he 

 reached the Sandwich Islands via Cape Horn in May, 184G, where he 

 remained a little more than a year. While there, he visited and mapped 

 the volcanic crater of Kilauea, which he afterward described fully in 

 the "American Journal of Science." 



While staying at Hilo, in the family of Mr. Coan, the missionary, 

 the unusually large rainfall on that side of Hawaii (over ten feet an- 

 nually) led Mr. Lyman to construct an ingenious self-registering rain- 

 gauge, which, by means of clock-work, drew a line on a ruled diagram, 

 showing the time of day and all the circumstances of the rainfall.* 



During his stay at Honolulu, Mr. Lyman was called upon to teach 

 the Royal School for a few months, having among his pupils four 

 young chiefs, who later successively occupied the Hawaiian throne, 

 and also the chiefess who was afterward Queen Emma. 



Just before leaving the islands for California, Mr. Lyman bought 

 an outfit of surveying instruments from his friend Chief-Justice Lee. 

 With these instruments he arrived, in July, 1847, at San Francisco, 

 just then newly laid out among scrub-oaks and sand-hills, and adopt- 

 ing that name instead of its previous one of Yerba Buena. He found 

 it a small settlement, and the only one of its streets on which there 

 were enough buildings of any sort to show which way it ran was 

 Montgomery Street, which then was at the water-front, and in one 

 place was covered with water at high tide, but now is many blocks 

 inland. 



Having been commissioned as surveyor by Colonel Mason, the 

 military governor, Mr. Lyman soon found himself fully occupied in 

 the survey of ranches and towns in various parts of California, espe- 

 cially in the country betv/een San Francisco and San Jose. Among 

 these was a resurvey of the city and adjacent lands of San Jose (which 

 had been fraudulently laid out by his predecessor, so that many of the 

 lots existed only on his chart), and also the original survey of the 

 famous New Almaden mine, probably the richest quicksilver-mine in 

 the world. 



In May, 1847, while he was engaged in surveying the town of San 

 Jose, there came reports, at first uncredited, that gold had been dis- 

 covered at Sutter's Mill, on the American River, a hundred and fifty 

 miles or so up in the mountains. At length, a man who had come 

 from the diggings showed some gold specimens in a store at San Jose, 

 and, the report being at last believed, men began soon to flock to the 



* One peculiarity of this rain-jijauECc was the device by which, in extra heavy rainfalls, 

 which would more than have filled the reservoir, a valve, by which it was emptied, auto- 

 matically opened and closed, bringing the recording pencil back to zero. 



