Extent and Richness of the Gold Region of Upper California--Are the
“Gold-washings” inexhaustible?--A Home for the Starving Millions of
Europe and the Labouring Men of America--Suicidal Policy of our
Military Governors--Union of Capital, Labour, and Skill--A Word to
Capitalists--Joint-stock Companies--The Gold-bearing Quartz of the
Sierra--Experience of Hon. G. W. Wright--Extraordinary Results of
pulverizing Quartz Rock--The Gold Mines of Georgia--Steam Engines
and Stamping Machines--Growth of Sacramento and San Francisco.
The gold region of Upper California is embraced in the country on the
western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and extending over an already
explored space of six hundred miles. Within the last six months,
explorations have been made as far south as King’s River, which flows
into the Great Tulare Lake. Above this are the Stanislaus, Mokelunne,
Tuolumne, and Mariposa, all tributaries of the San Joaquin, and upon all
of which gold has been found, and daily the southern portion of the gold
region is becoming more known. The two great streams, which with their
tributaries, fence in the present gold region, are the Sacramento and
San Joaquin. The most probable theory, however, in regard to the extent
of the gold region, is, that it is in the whole range of mountains,
extending from the Sierra Nevada, or rather the branches thereof,
through Upper California, Mexico, Peru, and Chili, although it is
positive that there are nowhere in the course of the range, such
extensive and rich gold-washings as are found between the Sacramento
and San Joaquin rivers. Many years before the discovery of gold at
Sutler’s Mill, a _placer_ had been wrought at San Bernadino, about
thirty miles southeast of the town of Santa Barbara. The gold was of the
same character as that of the upper region, although found in much
smaller quantities, and it is well known that for many years extensive
gold _placers_ have been wrought in the province of Sonora, one of the
northern departments of Mexico.
Throughout this whole region there is not a stream, valley, hill, or
plain, in which gold does not exist. It seems to be the natural product
of the soil, and is borne like the sand along the river courses. In
travelling over some three hundred miles of this territory, I have never
yet struck a pick or a knife into any spot where gold would be likely to
be deposited, without finding it in greater or less quantities. Until
lately, it was supposed that the gold existed only in the ranges of the
Sierra Nevada, and that what is called the “Coast Range,” bordering the
whole coast of California, was destitute of it. But experience has
already proved the incorrectness of this theory. A party headed by Major
P. B. Reading, some time in the spring of 1849, struck into the Coast
Range of mountains, about two hundred miles north of Sacramento City,
and are still labouring there very successfully, having found gold not
only in quantities, but in large pieces and of the finest quality; and I
doubt not that when the _placers_ at the base of the Sierra Nevada shall
have become partially exhausted, labour will be performed in various
portions of the Coast Range with as good success as has already crowned
the efforts of the diggers in the present gold region.
I do not believe, as was first supposed, that the gold-washings of
northern California are “inexhaustible.” Experience has proved, in the
workings of other placers, that the rich deposits of pure gold found
near the surface of the earth, have been speedily displaced, and that
with an immense influx of labouring population, they have totally
disappeared. Thus, in Sonora, where many years ago fifteen and twenty,
and even fifty dollars per day, were the rewards of labour, it is found
difficult at present with the common implements to dig and wash from the
soil more than from fifty cents to two dollars per day to a man. So has
it been partially in the richer and more extensive placers of
California. When first discovered, ere the soil was molested by the pick
and the shovel, every little rock crevice, and every river bank was
blooming with golden fruits, and those who first struck them, without
any severe labour, extracted the deposits. As the tide of emigration
began to flow into the mining region, the lucky hits upon rich deposits,
of course, began to grow scarcer, until, when an immense population was
scattered throughout the whole golden country, the success of the mining
operations began to depend more upon the amount of labour performed than
upon the good fortune to strike into an unfurrowed soil, rich in gold.
When I first saw the mines, only six months after they were worked, and
when not more than three thousand people were scattered over the immense
territory, many ravines extending for miles along the mountains were
turned completely upside down, and portions of the river’s banks
resembled huge canals that had been excavated. And now, when two years
have elapsed, and a population of one hundred thousand, daily
increasing, have expended so great an amount of manual labour, the old
ravines and river banks, which were abandoned when there were new and
unwrought placers to go to, have been wrought and re-wrought, and some
of them with good success. Two years have entirely changed the character
of the whole mining region at present discovered. Over this immense
territory, where the smiling earth covered and concealed her vast
treasures, the pick and the shovel have created canals, gorges, and
pits, that resemble the labours of giants.
That the mere washings of pure gold will at some day become exhausted is
not to be doubted, although for fifty years at least they will be
wrought to a greater or less extent. In the ravines of dry diggings that
have been, in mining parlance, entirely “dug out,” any man, with a mere
sheath-knife and crowbar, can extract five dollars a day. The earth here
has been thrown up from the body of the ravines in reaching the rock,
and in other places the ground has been merely skimmed over, and many
parts of the ravine left untouched; and upon the rivers banks the very
earth that has been thrown aside as useless, and even that which has
been once washed, will still, with careful washing in a pan, turn out
from three to ten dollars per day. It is therefore evident, that so long
as even such wages as these can be made, men will be found to work the
placers. The starving millions of Europe will find in the mountain
gorges of California a home with profitable labour at their very
door-sills, and the labouring-men of our own country will find it to
their interest to settle among the auriferous hills. The miserably
suicidal policy, which some of our military officers in California have
attempted to introduce, has already proved not only its worthlessness,
but the absolute impossibility of carrying it into effect. Never in the
world’s history was there a better opportunity for a great, free, and
republican nation like ours to offer to the oppressed and down-trodden
of the whole world an asylum, and a place where by honest industry,
which will contribute as much to our wealth as their prosperity, they
can build themselves happy homes and live like freemen.
Long after the present localities, where the washing of gold is
prosecuted, are entirely abandoned, gold-washing will be continued by
manual labour upon the plains and hills where the gold lies at a much
greater depth beneath the soil than it does in the ravines and river
banks, and where of course more severe labour is required. The era which
follows the present successful gold-washing operations will be one,
when, by a union of capital, manual labour, and machinery, joint-stock
companies will perform what individuals now do. While gold can be found
lying within a few inches of the earth’s surface, and the only capital
required to extract it consists in the capability to purchase a pick and
a shovel, there is no need of combination; but when the hills are to be
torn to their very bases, the plains completely uprooted, and the
streams, which flow down from the Sierra Nevada to be turned from their
channels, individuals must retire from the field, and make room for
combined efforts.
Never in the history of the world was there such a favourable
opportunity as now presents itself in the gold region of California for
a profitable investment of capital; and the following are some of the
modes in which it may be applied. I have before shown, and experience
and observation have demonstrated it to me, that the beds of the
tributaries to the two great rivers that flow from the Sierra Nevada are
richer in gold than their banks have yet proved to be. There are many
points, at each one of which the river can easily be turned from its
channel by a proper application of machinery. Dams are then to be
erected and pumps employed in keeping the beds dry. Powerful steam
machines are to be set in operation for the purpose of tearing up the
rocks, and separating the gold from them. The hills and plains are also
to be wrought. Shafts are to be sunk in the mountain sides, and huge
excavators are to bring to the surface the golden earth, and immense
machines, worked by steam power, made to wash it. The earth, which had
been previously washed in the common rockers, is to be re-washed in a
more scientifically constructed apparatus, and the minute particles of
gold, which escape in the common mode of washing, and which are
invisible to the naked eye, are to be separated by a chemical process.
As yet no actual mining operations have been commenced in the gold
region of California, for the two reasons, that they require a
combination of labour and capital, and that the gold-washings have thus
far proved so profitable as to make them the most desirable. But there
is a greater field for actual mining operations in California than was
ever presented in the richest districts of Peru or Mexico. The
gold-washings, which have thus far enriched thousands, are but the scum
that has been washed from the beds of the ore. I would not wish to say
one word to increase the gold mania, which has gone out from California,
and has attracted from the whole world thousands upon thousands of men
who were not at all fitted to endure the hardships consequent upon a
life in her mountainous regions, or the severe labour which was
necessary to extract gold from the earth. It is to be hoped that this
mania, however, has now given way to the “sober second thought,” and
that men have learned to listen to facts, and take the means to profit
by them in the most proper manner. I should not consider myself as
acting in accordance with duty, were I to assume the responsibility of
publishing to the world an account of the gold mines of California, did
I not, like the witness upon the stand, “tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Throughout the range on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and in
every little hill that branches from it, runs a formation of quartz
rock, found sometimes at a few feet below the earth’s surface, and
sometimes rising above it in huge solid masses. This rock throughout the
whole mining region has been proved by actual experiment to be richly
impregnated with gold. Some of it exhibits the gold to the naked eye,
while in other cases a powerful microscope is requisite to discern the
minute particles that run in little veins through it. Experiments have
been made in the working of this rock, which establish beyond a doubt
its great richness. Hon. George W. Wright, one of the present
representatives elected to Congress from California, has employed nearly
the whole of the past summer in exploring the gold region, with a view
of ascertaining the richness and extent of the quartz rock, and his
experiments have proved so wonderful, as almost to challenge credulity
even among those who have seen the progress of the mining operations in
California from their commencement to the present period.
In pulverizing and extracting the gold from about one hundred pounds of
this rock, Mr. Wright found, that the first four pounds yielded twelve
dollars worth of gold, which was the largest yield made, while
throughout the whole the smallest yield was one dollar to the pound of
rock, and this in many cases where not a particle of gold could be
discerned with the naked eye. Mr. Wright has now in his possession a
specimen of this quartz weighing twelve pounds, which contains six
hundred dollars, or more than one quarter of its weight in pure gold;
and one dollar to the pound of rock is the lowest amount which he has
ever extracted.
In the gold mines of Georgia, where at present nearly all the profits
result from the extraction of gold from the quartz rock, a fifteen horse
power machine, working twelve “stamps,” will “stamp” or pulverize a
thousand bushels of the rock per day. The pulverization is the most
important item in the extraction of the gold, as after the rock is
reduced to powder, the gold can be very easily secured either by washing
or making an amalgam of quicksilver, or by a combination of both
processes. Now, in Georgia, if each bushel of rock should produce twelve
and a half cents, the profits would be good. If twenty-five cents,
greater; and if fifty, enormous. A bushel of the quartz rock weighs
about seventy-five pounds, and we thus find that instead of, as in
Georgia, yielding from ten to twenty-five _cents_ to the bushel, the
gold rock of California at its lowest estimate will yield seventy-five
_dollars_, and in many cases much more. Let us pursue this subject a
little farther. If a fifteen horse power engine will pulverize a
thousand bushels, or seventy-five thousand pounds per day, at the
estimate which has here been made, from seventy-five to one hundred
thousand dollars would be the result of a day’s labour, the whole
performance of which with suitable machinery would not require one
hundred men. Even lowering this estimate one-half, profits are exhibited
that are indeed as startling as they are true. Here is an immense field
for the investment of capital throughout the world, and for the
employment of a large portion of its labouring population.
The city of Sacramento had assumed a very different aspect at the time I
reached it on my return from the northern mines, from that which it
exhibited when I previously left it. Where the old store-ship used to
be, on the banks of the Sacramento, tall-masted ships were moored, and
the extensive plain on which I pitched my tent was dotted with houses.
Around the fort itself, which is nearly two miles from the bank of the
river, houses had begun to spring up. Building-lots which, four months
previously, had sold at from fifty to two hundred dollars, were now held
by their owners at from one to three thousand. I looked on with
astonishment at the remarkable progress, and then little thought that
the ensuing six months would develope a growth, both in size and prices,
which would entirely outstrip what I then witnessed.
Getting on board a launch, I spent a weary five days in sailing down the
Sacramento, and arrived at San Francisco in the early part of May. What
a change had occurred in six months! San Francisco, when I saw it
before, was almost entirely deserted, everybody having gone to the
mines. Now it was being daily recruited by the arrival of travellers
across the plains, by vessels around Cape Horn, by Sandwich Islanders,
Chinese, French, English, and Mexicans. The age of speculation had
commenced. The building-lots which, when I landed in San Francisco, were
granted by the alcaldes for the sum of fifteen dollars, and in the
autumn before were worth but five hundred, had now risen in value to
from three to five thousand. Hundreds and thousands of men with capital
were arriving, who readily seized upon the opportunities for
speculating. Houses were going up on the vacant lots, and the town
beginning to assume an air of business. Goods of all kinds had fallen in
price, owing to the arrival of fleets of loaded ships from all parts of
the world, and in some cases from wilful neglect on the part of
consignees. Large hotels had been erected, and life began to be rendered
comfortable. Gambling in all its forms was carried on to an enormous
extent, and money, as before, was almost as plentiful as the
sea-sands.