102 
CALIFORNIA ILLUSTRATED. 
credit. It is copied by papers throughout the world, and uni¬ 
versally believed; this individual, however, in the course of a 
week, has engaged to drive team by the month, or if returning 
to the mines, goes in some other direction, as if having forgotten 
his rich discovery. His report, however, sends thousands to 
look for the spot, which, I need not say, they do not succeed in 
finding. The precise spot is rarely found; people get within 
twenty miles of it, but seldom nearer. As if exerting the influ¬ 
ence of the Upas tree, they cannot approach within the pre¬ 
scribed limit. At the same time, many were engaged in private 
leads that were paying well, some averaging an ounce per day, 
and some even more. At the mouth of a ravine near, there 
were ten persons at work, who were averaging one and a half 
ounces per day. There were others in the vicinity doing equally 
well. 
The country had been thoroughly prospected; there was 
not a bar nor ravine that did not bear the impress of the pick 
and shovel. There were daily discoveries of deposits, sufficiently 
rich to pay well; still, such discoveries, in proportion to the 
number in search of them, were not one to twenty. All were 
earning something, and the mass more than their expenses, 
still they were not averaging good wages. A man could place 
his machine almost anywhere and get two dollars per day ; this, 
however, barely pays for the provisions consumed, and unless a 
lead will pay at least five or six dollars, it is not considered worth 
working. A miner finds a lead that pays six dollars, he ex¬ 
hausts it in six, or say ten days; his expenses are two dollars 
per day, leaving him, at the end of ten days, forty dollars. He 
now spends a W'eek, perhaps more, before he finds another lead 
that will pay; his expenses have reduced the amount in hand 
to twenty-six dollars. If he goes any considerable distance, he 
must hire a mule to carry his provisions, machine, &c., which 
will cost him one ounce ($16) per day; two days exhausts his 
fund. There are in California, two hundred thousand inhabi¬ 
tants. Say half this number are engaged in mining—at five dol¬ 
lars each, it amounts to half a million daily. Now, according to 
statistics, this is more, by half, than is actually produced, and 
half this amount, or two dollars and a half, is about the daily 
average , take the mass together. 
