396 



CONCLUSION. 



able quantities from placeres in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. 

 It is very likely that the rulers of the Mexican Republic were not 

 anxious to add to the allurements which were already enticing our 

 people to her distant province, and silence was therefore preserved 

 in relation to its mineral wealth. 



California has, at least, illustrated one great moral truth which 

 the avaricious world required to be taught. When men were starv- 

 ing though weighed down with gold, — when all the necessaries 

 of life rose to twice, thrice, tenfold, and even fifty or a hundred 

 times their value in the Atlantic States, — that distant province 

 demonstrated the intrinsic worth! essness of the coveted ore, and 

 the permanent value of every thing produced by genuine industry 

 and labor. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the new State will not 

 degenerate into a mere mining country, or be forever a prey to that 

 feverish excitement in the pursuit of sudden wealth which is fed or 

 frustrated by the contemptible accidents of luck. 



The rapid development of the country is almost unparalleled in 

 national history; and now that a substantial government and union 

 with our confederacy are secured, it remains to be seen how the 

 social problem of California will be solved, and whether it possesses 

 any other elements than those of gold and men for the creation of 

 a great maritime State on the shores of the Pacific. Wonderful 

 order has been preserved in spite of the anomalous condition of 

 the immigrants ; yet refined woman must be content to cast her lot 

 in that remote but romantic region, and, by her benign influence, 

 soften, enlighten, and regulate a society which is formed almost ex- 

 clusively of men. In the course of time steam will open rapid 

 communications with the east, and travellers will not be compelled to 

 pass either the desert or those more southern regions where the moul- 

 dering ruins of Casas Grandes denote the ancient seat of Indian 

 civilization. The iron bands of railways, the metallic wires of the 

 telegraph, and the gold of California will then bind the whole grand 

 empire of the west in a union, which social sympathies, commercial 

 interests, national policy, and a glorious history will make ever- 

 lasting. 



THE END. 



