298 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



are very liberal estimates we shall have a total of 30,000 

 gold miners. Miners may average 250 days of work in a 

 year, and the 30,000 multiplied by that figure would give 

 7,500,000 days' work in a year, or $266 per day on an average. 

 That sum is not discreditably small. 



218. Profit of Gold Mining. The statement has been 

 made that the gold produced in California cost more than it 

 was worth. That gold mining was profitable to the miners, is 

 shown by the fact that the business has been maintained now 

 for nearly twenty-five years ; and those who were engaged in 

 it, as a class, have abundant reason to be pleased with their 

 experience. Mining has certainly not been a source of loss to 

 the State, which would have been little better than a desert to 

 this day, if the auriferous deposits of the Sierra Nevada had 

 not been discovered. It was the gold yield that filled our 

 valleys with people, planted our orchards and vineyards, built 

 our cities, the Panama Railroad, our transcontinental railroad, 

 and our Coast railroad system ; that established the mail 

 steamer line to China ; that opened Japan to civilization and 

 trade, and that filled the North Pacific with commerce. 

 Without the help of this magician, San Francisco Bay would 

 probably have been of no more importance in the business of 

 the United States, than Puget Sound is now. 



The American Union, as a whole, has been greatly bene- 

 fitted by the mines, which, though they drew away a large 

 number of the most intelligent and active men from the At- 

 lantic slope, yet gave a wonderful stimulus to all branches of 

 industry, called out energies that would otherwise have been 

 dormant, attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants, gave 

 the nation increased influence in the world, and poured into 

 her lap more riches than had ever before been derived from 

 one source within so short a time from its start, and by so few 

 laborers. The addition of $1,000,000,000 in gold 'to the 

 wealth of our nation within less than a quarter of a century, 

 by 50,000 miners, contributed much to raise America to the 



