ome engage to keep store
during their pleasure at 8 dollars per day, or 1 lb. or 1-1/2 lb. of
gold per month; cooks and stewards, 60 to 100 dollars per month. In
fact, labour of every description commands exorbitant prices.

"The Sandwich Islands, Oregon, and Lower California are fast parting
with their inhabitants, all bound for this coast, and thence to the
great 'placer' of the Sacramento Valley, where the digging and washing
of one man that does not produce 100 troy ounces of gold, 23 carats,
from the size of a half spangle to one pound in a month, sets the
digger to 'prospecting,' that is, looking for better grounds. Your
'Paisano' can point out many a man who has, for fifteen to twenty days
in succession, bagged up five to ten ounces of gold a-day. Our placer,
or gold region, now extends over 300 or 400 miles of country, embracing
all the creeks and branches on the east side of the river Sacramento
and one side of the San Joaquin. In my travels I have, when resting
under a tree and grazing my horse, seen pieces of pure gold taken from
crevices of the rocks or slate where we were stopping. On one occasion,
nooning or refreshing on the side of a stream entirely unknown to
diggers or 'prospectors,' or rather, if known not attended to, one of
my companions, while rolling in the sand, said, 'Give me a tin pan; why
should we not be cooking in gold sand?' He took a pan, filled it with
sand, washed it out, and produced in five minutes two or three dollars'
worth of gold, merely saying, as he threw both pan and gold on the
sand, 'I thought so.' Perhaps it is fair that your readers should
learn, that, however plenty the Sacramento Valley may afford gold, the
obtaining of it has its disadvantages. From the 1st of July to the 1st
of October, more or less, one half of the people will have fever and
ague, or intermittent fever. In the winter, it is too cold to work in
the water. Some work in the sand by washing from the surface in a
wooden bowl, or tin pan; some gouge it out from the rocks or slate; the
more lazy ones roll about and pick up the large pieces, leaving the
small gold for the next emigration. The extent of the gold region on
the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers extends a distance of 800 miles
in length by 100 in width. It embraces not only gold, but quantities of
quicksilver in almost general abundance. It is estimated that a small
population actively engaged in mining operations in that region could
export 100,00