The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-26 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 26 1349

In another pamphlet, recently published upon the
new settlements at California,* it is happily observed
that the last memorable year-1848 —beginning with
the most sombre anticipations, and progressing with
the most violent outbreaks of revolutions, has never-
theless terminated with visions of the most auspicious
magnificence. It was but reasonable that the com-
mercial world should have some compensation of this
character. After the gloom and embarrassment with
which it had been so long overshadowed, it was but
right that it should receive an impetus of correspond-
ing importance. And never, we may safely asseve-
rate, has a more sudden or a more extraordinary in-
citement been given to the whole mechanism of mer-
cantile enterprise since that remarkable year-1545
—when the silver mines of Potosi and Zacaticas were
first discovered, and when those metallic treasures
were shortly afterwards followed by the discovery of
the quicksilver of Guancabelica. In the present in-
stance, however, the mineral wealth which has been
found deposited in the soil comes at a moment infi-
nitely more opportune, and is calculated to effect an
infinitely more surprising change in the two hemis-
pheres. This, of course, always premising that the
rumoured fruitfulness of the gold region is not extra-
vagantly over-estimated. Taking the different accounts
which have, up to this time, reached us from California
as correct—and the fact that they exhibit no very per-
ceptible discrepancy, but rather on the contrary,
corroborate the assertions of each other—the effect
produced, both in the New World and in the Old
World, will be more surprising than the most imagi-
native speculator can conjecture. The aurial riches
of the Sacramento will affect society in two parti-
culars—first, it must materially alter the value of
property and the wages of industry ; and, secondly,
it must forward, in a novel and peculiar degree, the
great experiment of emigration. As to the oppor-
tuneness of the discovery, it is only necessary to bear
in recollection that the mines of Mexico and the strands
of the Pactolus had alike begun to evince the exhaus-
tion of the material for the accumulation of which they
bad been hitherto worked with so much assiduity.
Only one more region was believed to be in existence
where the splendour of Dorado and the grandeur of
Cathay were outvied ; but that region was known to
be within the very entrails of an impenetrable des-
potism. Sir GEORGE SIMPSON, only as recently as the
year 1847, had hinted at the abundant resources, both
in Coin and jewels, flowing into the coffers of im-
perial Russia, from the golden rivulets and diamond
valleys of the Ural mountains. The description of
the pomp derived from those inaccessible localities
may be found by the curious in one of
the final chapters of the " Overland Journey
Round the World," penned by that intelligent traveller.
But the gorges of that gigantic chain of mountains
are. as much beyond the reach of the speculators of

* " Guide to the Gold Country of California. With a
Map. By: James Wyld, Esq., M.P. Bvo., pp. 62.
strange: London. 1549.