HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



171 



rains, it sank into the earth until it reached a rock, 

 or hard, impenetrable clay. It still continued wash 

 ing and sliding down the hill-side, until it reached the 

 rivers or ravines, and in the former was washed along 

 with its current until it settled in some secure place 

 in their beds, or was deposited upon their banks ; and 

 in the latter rested among the crevices of rocks."* 



The following from Mr. King's report, presents the 

 opposite theory, with its evidence in full. The two 

 accounts are at variance both in regard to fact and 

 theory. But that of Mr. King, who enjoyed every 

 facility of obtaining information from observation, and 

 from the statements of intelligent miners, is considered 

 most reliable, in respect to matters of fact, and, there 

 fore, of more dependence in forming a theory. He 

 says 



" The principal formation, or substratum, in these 

 hills, is talcose slate; the superstratum, sometimes 

 penetrating to a great depth, is quartz. This, how 

 ever, does not cover the entire face of the country, 

 but extends in large bodies in various directions is 

 found in masses and small fragments on the surface, 

 and seen along the ravines and in the mountains, 

 overhanging the rivers, and in the hill-sides in its 

 original beds. It crops out in the valleys and on the 

 tops of the hills, and forms a striking feature of the 

 entire country over which it extends. From innumer 

 able evidences and indications, it has come to be the 

 universally admitted opinion, among the miners and 

 intelligent men who have examined this region, that 

 the gold, whether in detached particles and pieces, or 

 in veins, was created in combination with the quartz. 



Six Months in the Gold Mines, by E. Gould Buffum. 



