42 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



are immense quarries of marble and granite, for 

 building purposes. 



Colonel Mason had succeeded Colonel Fremont in 

 the post of governor of California and military com 

 mandant. A regiment of New York troops, under 

 the command of Colonel Stevenson, had been ordered 

 to California before the conclusion of the treaty of 

 peace, and formed the principal part of the military 

 force in the territory. 



Colonel Mason expressed the opinion, in his official 

 despatch, that "there is more gold in the country 

 drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, 

 than will pay the cost of the [late] war with Mexico 

 a hundred times over." Should this even prove to be 

 an exaggeration, there can be little reason to doubt, 

 when we take into consideration all the mineral re 

 sources of the country, that the territory of California 

 is by far the richest acquisition made by this govern 

 ment since its organization. 



The appearance of the mines, at the period of 

 Governor Mason's visit, three months after the dis 

 covery, he thus graphically describes : 



" At the urgent solicitation of many gentlemen, I 

 delayed there [at Sutter's Fort] to participate in the 

 first public celebration of our national anniversary at 

 that fort, but on the 5th resumed the journey, and 

 proceeded twenty-five miles up the American Fork to 

 a point on it now known as the Lower Mines, or Mor 

 mon Diggins. The hill-sides were thickly strewn with 

 canvas tents and bush arbors ; a store was erected, 

 and several boarding shanties in operation. The day 

 was intensely hot, yet about two hundred men were 

 at work in the full glare of the sun, washing for gold 

 some with tin pans, some with close-woven Indian 



