312 CALIFORNIA AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 



reward the labors of the few, whose success was mainly the 

 result of good fortune, while disappointment will attend the 

 efforts of the many, equally skillful and persevering. These 

 wide inequalities in the proceeds of the miner's labor, have 

 exhibited themselves, wherever a gold deposit has been 

 hunted or found in California. The past is the reliable 

 prophecy of the future. 



" Not one in ten of the thousands who have gone, or may go 

 to California to hunt for gold, will return with a fortune ; 

 still the great tide for emigration will set there, till her valleys 

 and mountain-glens teem with a hardy enterprising population. 

 As the gold deposits diminish, or become more difficult of 

 access, the quicksilver mines will call forth their unflagging 

 energies. This metal slumbers in her mountain-spurs in 

 massive richness ; the process is simple which converts it into 

 that form, through which the mechanic arts subserve the 

 thousand purposes of science and social refinement, while the 

 medical profession, through its strange abuse, keep up a Car- 

 nival in the Court of Death ; but for this they who mine the 

 ore are not responsible — they will find their reward in the 

 wealth which will follow their labors. It will be in their 

 power to silence the hammers in those mines which have 

 hitherto monopolized the markets of the world. 



But the enterprise and wealth of California are not confined 

 to her mines. Her ample forests of oak, redwood and pine, 

 only wait the requisite machinery to convert them into elegant 

 residences and strong-ribbed ships. Her exhaustless quarries 

 of granite and marble will yet pillar the domes of metropoli- 

 tan splendor and pride. The hammer and drill will be 

 relinquished by multitudes for the plough and sickle. Her 

 arable land, stretching through her spacious valleys, and along 

 the broad banks of her rivers, will wave with the golden har- 



