1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 99 



the ground and tramped back here. Then something hap- 

 pened, the like of which has happened before in this coun- 

 try. A. got into the hole which I left, took up my pick and 

 went to work ; and before night of that day he uncovered a 

 pocket of soft, clayey material, about the size of a barrel, 

 out of which he took twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of 

 gold. The news was not long in getting over here, and it 

 made me and this whole mountain so blue that it fairly smelt 

 of sulphur. That find had one good effect on me, — I got 

 my fifty dollars, and a little more as a present, otherwise I 

 should not have received, as really I did not expect, a single 

 cent. But A. was afiected in a difierent way ; he thought 

 he saw himself a millionaire in the near future, and hired 

 gangs of men, and put up costly machinery ; but to this 

 time he has not found a trace of color, and quite likely will 

 not, and will exhaust his whole find. That is the way it 

 goes here. A knowledge of rocks and minerals, and even 

 practical experience, are all at fault in this business. 



" Before C. and I began for ourselves, we visited all kinds 

 of mines, saw all sorts of mining operations, ran against all 

 classes of miners, from the old forty-niners down to the 

 tender-footed ; and we have found but two classes who in 

 the long run have made more than a fair living, and they 

 are : first, those who by accident have made a rich find, 

 like A., and had sense enough to leave the business at once ; 

 and second, those who dug shafts or tunnels into the moun- 

 tains, ' salted' them well, told stories of their fabulous rich- 

 ness, stocked them, iucreasing the number of shares as long 

 as they could find fools to buy, and then disappeared with their 

 pile ; or still others, who owned fairly good paying mines, 

 but stocked them at a thousand times their real value, sold 

 the stock, and retired millionaires. The rank and file of 

 the immense army of gold seekers have been roving helter- 

 skelter through all the wild mountain gorges of the West 

 and California. You will find their abandoned pits and 

 tunnels where you would not have believed the foot of man 

 had ever trod ; and each tells of great and bright hopes 

 blasted. 



' ' I know this region well ; it has the reputation of being 

 the best mining section in the whole country ; and, if you 



