Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1849-01-13
CIR @Olo Region.
OF THE GOLD MINES.

following letter containing further informa-
ton of the Gold Region of California, we
need have no difficulty in stating that our
letter on that subject in last Saturdays pa
per was from the same hand Nat. Intel.
From the Journal of Commerce of December O.
1t may not he improper, under the cir
cumstances, to say that the very interesting
letter annexed is from Rev. Walter Cotton,
Aleade of Monterey. This IS a sufficient
voucher for the statements contained in it:
MONTEREY, California, Aug. 90. AS.
The gold discoveries sui contlnue-every
day brings some new deposite TO light. 1t
has been found in large quantities on the
Sacramento, Feather river, Yerba river, The
American Fork-north and south branches
the Cosamer, and in many dry ravines,
and indeed on the top of high hills. The
extent of the country in which 1t is ascer-
tanned to exist extends some two hundred
miles north and south and some sixty east
and west; and these limits are every day
charging by new discoveries. On the
streams where the gold has been subjected
10 the action of water and sand, it exists in
fine grains on the hills and among the cleits
of the rocks il is found in rough, Jagged
pieces, of quarter or half an ounce IN
weight, and sometimes two or three ounces.
Al present the people are running over
the country and picking 1t out of the earth
here aud there, Just as a thousand hogs let
loose in forest would root up ground nuts.
Some ret eight or ten ounces day, aud the
least active one or TWO. They make the
most who employ the wild Indian to hunt it
/ for them. There is one man who has sixty
Indians in his einploy-hls profits are dol
lar minute. The wild Indians know no.
thing of its value, and wonder what the pale
faces want.to do with it; they will give an
ounce of it for the same weight of coined
silver, or a thimbe full of glass beads, or ii
glass of grog. And white men themselves
often give an ounce of it, which is worth at
our mint eighteen dollars or more, for bot
7 tie of brandy, box of soda powders, or a
( plug of tobacco,
AS to the quantity which the diggers get,
take few facts as evidence. know seven
men who worked seven weeks and two days,
Sundays excepted, on Feather river; they
employed on an average fifty Indians, and
got out in these seven weeks and two days,
! two hundred and seventy five pounds of pure
gold. | know the men ana have seen the
i gold, and know what they state TO be fact
so stick pin there. | know ten other
men who worked ten days in company, en-
/ ten DAYS fifteen hundred dollars each so
stick another pin there. ! know another
man who got out of Il basin in a rock, not
larger than wash bowl, two pounds and
half of gold in fifteen minutes So stick
another pin there. Not one of these state
ments would believe, did ! not know the
men personally, and know them to be plain
matter of fact men-men who open vein
1 of gold Just as cooliy as you would a potato
I hill.
The gold is obtained in a variety of ways:
some wash it out of the sand with bowls,
some with a machine made like a cradle,
only longer and open at the foot, while at
the other end, instead of putting squalling
infant, there is a grating upon which the
earth is thrown, and thea water both pass
/ through the grating the cradle Is rocked,
and, being on an inclined plain, the water
carries of the earth. and the gold is deposit
ted in the bottom of the cradle. So the two
things most priced in this world, gold and
/ infant beauty, are both rocked out of their
primitive state, one TO pamper pride, and
/ the other to pamper the worm. Some fore
20 cradles and bowls as too tame an occu-
patton, and mounted on, horses halt wild,
dash up the mountain gorges, aud over the
steep hills, picking the gold from the clefts
of the rocks with their bowie knves--a
much better use to make of these instru-
ments than picking the life out of mems bo-
/ dies for what is man with that article
picked out of him'
/ A larger party, well mounted, are follow
ing up the channel of the Sacramento, to
discover where this gold, found IN It's banks,
comes from, aud imagine that near the riY-
er's fount they will fad the great mass itself
G Il. st.r q sErn.lr
rainbow. The gold was thrown up from
the bed of the ocean with the rocks and
sands in which it is found, aud still bears,
where it has escaped the action of the ele-
ments, vivid traces of volcanic fire. Il often
encases a crystal Of quartz, in which the
pebble lies as if it bad sluubered there from
eternity ; its beautiful repose sets human ar
tifice at defiance. How strange that this ore
should have lam here, scattered about ia all
directions, peeping every where ont Of the
earth, and sparkling 10 the sun, and been
trod upon for ages hy white men and saya-
ges, and by the eniissaries OF every scien-
tifc association 10 the world, and never till
now have been discovered What an ass
man i, with all his learnug! He stupidity
stumbles over hills Of gold to search rare
(pepper-pod or rifle a BIRDS nestl
7 The whole country is now moving on the
mines. Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma,
San Jose, and Santa Cruz are emptied Of
their male population. A stranger coming
here would suppose be had arrived among
I a race Of women, who, by some anomalous
provision Of nature, multiplied their images
without the presence of the other sex. But
not a few of the women have gone too, es-
pecially those who had got out Of tea for
what is woman without her tea-pot!-a
ipyihoness without her shaking tripod, an
angel that has lost his Tyre. Every bowl,
tray, warming-pan. and piggin have gone to
the mines every thing, in short, that has