The discovery of gold in california

One of the early settlers in California was a rich German whose name was Sutter. He owned a great deal of farmland with large fruit-gardens, wide wheat fields, and a fort protected by guns. He had thousands of cows and other cattle, sheep and horses. At the end of the Mexican War (1848)¹ Mr. Sutter wanted to build a sawmill; so he sent some of his men up a river to begin work. One of the men, while digging, found a few small bits of shining yellow metal. He took them down to the fort where tests were made to see if the material was gold. It was. Further search showed that there was more of it along the river.

At first Sutter and his men agreed to keep the discovery secret, but soon the news began to spread. The Californians would not believe it for some time. But one day a man came down from Sutler's Fort to San Francisco [,sænfrən'sɪskəʊ] with a bottle of gold dust, and shouted, "Gold, gold!" At once people from all over the territory ² set out for the mining areas. Workers left their jobs, farmers left their crops standing in the fields, soldiers deserted from the army,and sailors deserted from their ships. They all left their families behind.

Many of these first-comers grew rich ³.They found the places where it was easiest to dig out the gold. Many dug from ten to fifty dollars' worth in a day.

At the end of the year 1848 and the beginning of 1849 news began to reach people farther east that gold had been discovered in California. At first they laughed at such a story. But the story was repeated again and again, and finally men began to listen. Within a few months the news spread all over the East. Men sold their houses to get money enough to go to California. Mexicans, British, French, Germans, and men from Asia and all over the world joined in the rush. Most of them set out in the year 1849, and were therefore called Forty-Niners.

The would-be miners ⁴were chiefly young men. Most of them dressed in red flannel shirts, trousers,wide hats,with guns and knives in their belts. They wore not ordinary shoes, but high boots. They let their hair and beards grow long.

When they reached California, the men immediately hurried to the mines. These were along rivers or on the sides ofmountains. The men dug up the gravel from the river banks, put it in a pan,and washed the earth away with water. On the bottom of the pan would remain wet sand and usually some gold dust. When the sand was dry, they blew it away⁵: the gold, being heavier, remained. They found it hard to dig all day in the hot sun, often standing waist-deep in the ice-cold water of the mountain rivers.

(to be continued)