HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



451 



the necessary number of blankets for the voyage, and 

 take his receipt for them. I respectfully ask that 

 this may be approved, and the amount charged to 

 General Adair. The quartermaster could not tell him 

 the price of the blankets when he took them. 



As the rainy season has ended, people are again 

 repairing to the mines. New discoveries farther 

 south are said to have been made ; and it is now 

 pretty certain that the whole slope of the Sierra Ne 

 vada, comprised within the head waters of the San 

 Joaquin to the south and those of the Sacramento to 

 the north, contains gold. These two rivers, forming, 

 as it were, a bracket, join to enter the bay of San 

 Francisco ; and their tributaries from the east, in 

 their beds, expose the deposits of gold as they descend 

 from the mountains. It is on the banks and branches 

 of these streams that adventurers are now at work ; 

 but some excavations elsewhere, to a depth equal to 

 that worn by the creeks, have disclosed quantities simi 

 lar to those most generally found. There appears to 

 be a line parallel to the summit of the main ridge, 

 and some distance down the slope, at which the pro 

 duct of gold is at its maximum ; but whether this be 

 from the quantity deposited, or from the different 

 position, as relates to the surface, or from the diffi 

 culty of working it, I have not the means of knowing. 



The gold is found in small particles : the largest I have 

 seen, but such are rare, weighs seventy-one ounces troy. 

 The appearance invariably is as though it had been 

 spurted up when melted through crevices and fissures 

 in drops, which have often the form of the leaves and 

 gravel on which they have fallen. I speak of this 

 as an appearance, not as a theory or hypothesis. The 

 extent ascertained within which gold is thus found is 



