306 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



of five of us made trial of digging the gold on the bank of the Rio de los 

 Americanos, forty miles east of Sutter's, (New Helvetia). We rigged 

 a rude machine in a day for washing the earth, and dug and washed 

 the earth from the river's bank eight days, when we found on weighing, 

 that we had obtained about 8350 worth of gold apiece, or 44 dollars 

 a day. The last day's work gave us over 70 dollars, but as we heard 

 others were doing much better ten or twelve miles up, we quitted 

 such poor wages, and moved camp for the other place. This was six 

 or eight miles from the river, and in ravines which are dry in summer. 

 Here two of us in company, dug in five days a little over $1000, or 

 over $100 per day apiece, which we thought pretty fair wages. Since 

 that, our success has been various, ranging from $10 to 850, or $80 

 per day. Others have done much better: able-bodied, hard working 

 men, who happen to have good luck in hitting on a rich place, often 

 get from 100 to 500 or more dollars a day ; others have obtained 

 comparatively little. 



It is on the whole a precarious business, though almost none that 

 work at all can fail of making from five to fifteen dollars per day. It 

 resembles more than any thing else, a lottery with many large prizes, 

 innumerable middling and small ones, but almost no blanks. My success 



has probably been not far from the average. A large part of the pop- 

 ulation of California is assembled here, and probably from two thousand 

 to three thousand people are digging. From 1,000,000, to 2,000,000 

 or 3,000,000 of dollars have doubtless already been taken from these 

 mines, and the productiveness of them seems almost inexhaustible. 



The gold region is as extensive as the whole State of Connecticut. 

 In almost all parts of it in the creeks and ravines, and even on the 

 hills, gold is to be found in considerable quantities. That obtained on 

 the main river is generally in fine grains or scales, averaging the 

 size of flaxseed. This is the kind I obtained when I first came. It oc- 

 curs in the river alluvium and may be washed out at the rat'e of about 

 forty or fifty dollars worth from a cart load of earth. In the ravines 

 higher up the river, the gold is larger. Where I got the five hundred in 

 five days it occurred in a gully or ravine dry at -this season, and gene- 

 rally within a foot of the surface. Mr. D. and myself dug out the 

 §1000 in the space of about a rod in length, making a ditch of about 

 two feet wide and one deep. While digging we picked up nearly three 

 hundred dollars worth in little lumps visible to the eye. The gold was 

 in little irregular masses, from fine grains to the size of peas or raisins, 

 and occasionally lumps weighing from one to two ounces and as large 

 as walnuts. Under the earth in which the gold is deposited, is a bed 

 of argillite or clay-slate with the edges of the lamina? standing near- 

 ly perpendicularly, and presenting a very irregular surface, with abund- 

 ant little pockets for retaining the gold, which is found most plentifully 

 on its surface and in its crevices. In all this region for many miles 

 around, where the gold is dug from the ravines, the underlying rock is 

 some form of this slate, and uniformly presents a dip approaching to 

 perpendicular. On the river the gold stratum rested on hard pan or 

 a stratum of coarse granitic sand. The gold is uniformly associated 

 with quartz which is very abundant, and often lumps of gold occur 

 with quartz imbedded, and I have seen pieces moulded on regular 

 quartz crystals. 



