56 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



they have all been influenced so much by intercourse with the 

 whites, that they have lost many of their wild habits and ac- 

 quired new ones. In some districts they have fire-arms ; in 

 others they obtain much of their food and clothing from their 

 Caucasian neighbors. In the counties along the southern 

 coast, there are many civilized Indians, who live in adobe 

 houses, and support themselves by herding cattle, breaking 

 horses, and working in the grain fields, orchards, and vine- 

 yards. They have lost much of the savage expression of 

 countenance, and some of them have become very industrious 

 and trustworthy laborers; but the majority are idle and dissi- 

 pated in their habits. They have all learned a vulgar dialect 

 of the Spanish, and a few speak a little English. The young- 

 er ones know nothing of any tongue save English and Span- 

 ish, but the elder Indians, when talking with one another, pre- 

 fer to use the language of their fathers. 



40. Mining Towns. The towns of California are seaport, 

 inlandport, railroad, agricultural, and mining. The mining 

 towns enjoyed their greatest prosperity from 1852 to 1860. 

 Weaverville, Shasta, Oroville, Quincy , Nevada, Auburn, Down- 

 ieville, San Andreas, Jackson, Sonoma, and Mariposa, are the 

 county-seats of various mining counties. Most of them are 

 built with crooked streets through the middle of a canon, 

 which near the middle is densely lined with stores, billiard 

 rooms, liquor shops, and restaurants. The dwellings are scat- 

 tered about irregularly : some are neatly built and are sur- 

 rounded with pleasant gardens ; the majority are miserable 

 little shanties or log-cabins, with no yard, flowers, or fruit- 

 trees to give an appearance of home. The population is not 

 permanent. One year the people are here, next they are else- 

 where. In 1854 Oroville was laid out; in 1857 it cast one 

 thousand votes, in 1860 its glory had departed, and at least a 

 dozen towns have now a larger population and a larger trade. 

 Copperopolis has now a population of about 200 ; in 1864 it 

 cast 564 votes. Columbia in 1860 cast 1,008, and in 1873, 



