The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-06 00:00:00

CALIFORNIA.

Extracts of a letter from San Francisco, dated let
October, 1350:
u All personal news respecting me you will glean
from my correspondence with my relatives ; in a line
I will add it up, and say that I have outrivalled St.
Paul in disasters and perils oft' by land and sea. I
inn at last comfortably located in an old Spanish adobe
(mud) building, one of the oldest and largest in the
city of San Francisco, with an office in Montgomery-
street, and part of a cottage on the beach for recreation
at leisure hours. The contrast to my fortunes of the
past year is cheering, and if my manifest destiny is
really to advance, I shall go on my way rejoicing.
. . • Sir Henry Huntley brought out
here a troop of Cornish miners, steam-engines, &c., for
the Anglo-Californian Mining and Dredging Com-
pany ; but as the reports on which the company was
founded in England were not quite true, the very
successful Mariposa Mining Company, belonging to
an American directory in California, and now in full
activity, has been incorporated with it. The quartz
vein on the Mariposa is wonderfully productive, and
Sir H. Huntley has ascertained it by a couple of long
and adventurous trips to the spot, and has there with
his own hands gathered up the lumps of quartz, and pul-
verizsd them himself beneath the stampers of the steam-
engines now at work there with some of his own
Cornish miners. In four bandsful of the pulverized
quartz which Sir henry took out from under the
stamper, and which quartz, before being placed under
it, did not appear to contain any gold as all, he took
seven dollars' worth of gold dust in granular particles
and when Sir Henry was there at the mine 300 tons
of rock were ready for the machine or steam-engine
stamper. So you can speak about the quartz rock
with certainty, for Sir Henry Huntley is too much
of the fine old English gentleman' to play the hum-
bug in the least. He would go and examine for him-
self, or he would have nothing to do with
the concern. The American Mariposa Mining
Company is composed of the strongest (in
pocket) and shrewdest men in California,
and I make no doubt that an immense fortune awaits
all hands connected with this undertaking. M—
will show you some very rich specimens I forwarded
by this mail, together with a superb crystal of quartz.
These. companies will be the end of the Californian
gold mining operations ; all the placer' collections
are mere abrasions from the original rocks, mere in-
tegrations; the quartz being rotted, out shells the gold
in dusty or lumpy particles; these are washed by in-
cessant mountain torrents, which have continued for
countless eges down the Butches and ravines; but the
true matrix is the rocky range of quartz, so often met
with both in Alta and Lower California. The corn-
: puniest therefore, who work in the direction I have
indicated, will succeed immensely, for where the
quartz rock is met with in the gold districts,
there the success will continue, as to the produc-
tiveness of the auriferous wealth, for many
,iiundred years, to come. The same remark applies to
Los Angelo's Rocks, which are black gneiss, with
mica or micha. The Los Angeles Company, in about
six weeks, will be another startler as to wealth. A
dozen companies must, when at work, with a few
hundred steam-engine stampers, make an immense
-increase of the precious metal. How soon and to
what extent the price of gold will be changed I can-
not say but the millions got out have not added one
ioui as yet to Jonathan's pile,' for millions of dollars
are this year lying squandered on the plains in the
shape of broken mule-teams, dead oxeii, broken fur-
ziiture and nierchanclize, which 60,000 emigrants
• have covered the whole roadway with in endeavour-
, iree to make this country across for the various States
of the Union. The sufferings have been awful in
the extreme. Gold, gold, is preferred even to life
itself l When will this world be a wise one ? The
city of San Francisco is going up fast, and each suc-
cessive knock down given to it by the fires, seems to
add to its alter beauty and improvement
I never hear of any ef those maudlin regrets, which
the natives of Europe indulge in after being well
singed or ruined. Here people are knocked down and
and lose everything, but spring up again on their
legs, and begin to push on without looking back
once." _

(The above is copied from the Taunton Courier and
Western Advertiser of Dec. 25, 1850.)

TIIE LATE ACCIDENT ON Tnp, EDINBURGH AND
GLASGOW RAILWAY.—We understand that three of the ser-
vants of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Company, and
a guard in the employment of the Scottish Central Railway
Company, are indicted to stand their trial before the High
Court of Justiciary on the 10th instant, as having been im-
plicated in the fatal accident at Cowlairs, on the Edinburgh
and Glasgow Railway, in August last.— Courant.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION.—The vessel Cyprus,
just arrived in the docks from Montreal and Quebec, has
brought Ill; packages of articles officially declared to be in-
tended for the Great Exhibition of all Nations in Hyde-pink.
TON N ERRE TO DIJON.-16 is IpSi!iVely affirmed
that. the railway from Tonnerre to Dijon will commence
working in May next. From that time the trains from Mari
will go as far as Chalon without stopping, and the journey
from Paris to Lyons will be performed in from 14 to 15
hours, insAte''st,tiet.)3finXot upwards
will
ards
30,as now taken by the Manes
every day wait at Chalon the
arrival of the train from Paris, and travellers and merchan-
dise will be immediately taken on board, and continue their
journey almost without interruption by the Saone.
GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS Mr. J. A. Cu, tts
is appointed her Britannic Majesty': Consul (without salary)
at Cologne; Mr. James Dowland is appointed Collector of
Internal Revenue at the Mauritius; M. Gabriel Fropier is
appointed a Member of the Council at the Mauritius; Dr.
Poliente Cavalier is appointed a Member of the Legislative
Council of 'St. Lucia.

vv
HAMPSTEAD.—The oldest inhabitant of Hamp-
stead, Mr. llowbotham, a clock and watchmaker, died rc-
cently, at the age of ninety, He told his son and many
other persons, that in his y. uth the Upper Terrace-avenue,
on the southwest side of Hampstead-heath was known by
the name of " Die Judges' Walk," from the circumstance of
prisoners having, been tried there during the plague of Lou-
, oa. Be further stated, that he had received this informs-
ti •n from his grandmother.—From Notes and Queries.