Chap. IX. NO GOLD MIXES IN THIS PAET. 565 
in many points where, perhaps, auriferous alluvial masses 
may exist, or limits this possibility to a short time of the 
year. Since all attempts are thus rendered difficult, and 
there is little inducement to make any, much less attention 
has been devoted to this part of the country. Colonel 
Williams showed me some gold-dust which had been found 
on his own property (Colonel Williams's Kancho, or Santa 
Ana del Chino), and told me that he knew an auriferous 
quartz vein on the Cerro de San Antonio, which rises above 
the plain on which his estate is situated, and can be seen 
from Los Angeles. Gold had been found here even before 
Sutter made his important discovery in the central part of 
the State. I have already mentioned the auriferous gypsum, 
which I saw in a collection of minerals at Los Angeles, 
and I will only add here that this, likewise, was found in a 
southern locality — the Tejon Pass. During my visit to the 
State, the report that rich deposits of gold-sand had been 
discovered at various distances from Los Angeles spread at 
different times, and produced great excitement. But the 
result invariably was that gold did indeed exist, but in 
such small proportions as, according to Californian calcu- 
lations, not to pay the labour of procuring it, and that all 
the adventurers coining in flocks, attracted by the dis- 
covery, were fleeced by those who spread and fostered the 
excitement, and who quickly set up shops in the places 
which had obtained this artificial celebrity. And, as in 
such cases the assertions of the discovery were suspected, 
the opinions against it were no less so; and it has often 
been quite impossible to ascertain the real truth, except by 
personal inspection and experience in the operation of gold- 
washing. I am not sure whether the southern part of the 
State does not contain silver ore, it being well known that 
this is found in the adjacent part of the peninsula. 
