120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mines. When Mr. Lyman's assistants, who were earning twenty-five 

 dollars a month, heard that their friends at the mines were making as 

 much each day, they also were for starting immediately. Mr. Lyman 

 induced them to finish the work in hand by the promise of going with 

 them if they waited, which was indeed his only alternative, as no more 

 assistants were to be had. 



Accordingly, in June, he with a small party started for the mount- 

 ains, in reaching which they had many difficulties to encounter. Hav- 

 ing learned that in order to cross the Strait of Carquinez, which lay in 

 the regular route thither, they must wait three weeks at the ferry, to 

 take their turn with the crowds of gold-seekers already before them, 

 they decided to take a bee-line across the flooded San Joaquin Val- 

 ley. This they accomplished by improvising a unique boat out of 

 a wagon-body, set into an envelope of rawhides, which they had ob- 

 tained from wild cattle shot on the way and sewed together for the 

 purpose. 



After many other rough experiences of this kind, they reached 

 Sutter's Mill in about a fortnight. 



Though they found the district already overrun with diggers, they 

 succeeded in extracting for themselves amounts of gold varying from 

 fifteen to a hundred dollars each daily. The extraordinary price of 

 provisions and all useful articles naturally used up much of their 

 profits — potatoes, sugar, coffee, etc., costing a dollar a pound (and later 

 three dollars !) ; butter, a dollar and a half a pound ; shovels, ten dol- 

 lars a piece ; milk-pans, five to ten dollars ; shirts, as high as twenty- 

 five dollars each, etc. 



From the mines Mr. Lyman sent to the East some of the first au- 

 thentic accoimts of the gold discovery, which produced much excite- 

 ment, and found their way into many newspapers. One account was 

 published in "The American Journal of Science." 



But life in the gold-region being exceedingly rough, Mr. Lyman 

 after about two months left them, and resumed his work of surveying, 

 which he continued until, with entirely restored health, he returned to 

 New Haven via Panama, in 1850. 



Being married in that city, m June of the same year, to Miss Delia 

 W. Wood, a daughter of the Hon. Jose])h Wood and granddaughter 

 of Chief-Justice Oliver Ellsworth, he settled permanently in New 

 Haven, engaging in scientific and literary pursuits, among which was 

 the preparation of the definitions of scientific words for new editions 

 of Webster's Dictionary. In 1859 he became Professor of Indus- 

 trial Mechanics and Physics in Yale College, taking an active part in 

 organizing the Sheffield Scientific School, in which he also taught 

 astronomy, and in the early years of the school rhetoric and moral 

 science. In 1871, with the growth of the school, he was relieved of 

 mechanics, and his professorship was changed to that of Astronomy 

 and Physics. On account of impaired health, he resigned the chair of 



