The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1859-07-13
GREELEY AT THE MINES.

ley's letter TO the Tridnae, dated at Greg
ory's Diggings -
This narrow valley is dcnscIy wooded,
mainly with the inevitable Yellow Pine,
which, sheltered from the fierce winds
which sweep tho mountain tops, here
grows to hight of sixty or eighty feet.
though usually bat foot to eighteen in
ches i'll diameter. OF these pines, LOG cab
ms are constructed with extreme facility,
and probably one hundred are now being
built, while three or four hundred more
are in immediate contemplation. They
are covered with the green bouebs of the
pines, then with earth, aud bid fair to be
commodious and comfortable. As yet,
the entire population Of the yallcy-which
cannot number less than four thousand,
including five white women and seven
squaws living with white mcn-sleep in
tents, or under booths Of pine boughs,
cooking and eating in the open mir. l
doubt that there is as yet table or q
chair in these diCgings, eating being done
around a cloth spread on tho ground,
while each one sits or rccincs on mother
earth to enjoy. The food, like that of the
Plains, is restricted TO few stapcs-lIot
Bread, Pork, Beans and Coffee forming
the almost exclusive diet of the mountains;
but a meat-shop has just been established,
Oh whose altar are offered up the iIl-lcl
and well-whipped oxen who arc just in
from ftv days Journey across tho
Plains, md one or two cows have been
driven in, as more would be if they could
here be subsisted. But these noun
tans arc mainly wooded, while the open
hill sides are SO dry during Summer that
their grass is very scanty. 1t is mean-
half-starved cattle as one meets or passes
in this rayine and on the way hither.-
Corn is S. per bushcl in Denver, md
scarce at that. Oats are not to be had :;
there is not :. tun Of Hay within two hun
bred miles, AMI none can ever be brought
hithcr over the present road at q cost be
low $40 per tun. The present shift Of
humane owners is to herd their oxen or
mules on the rich grass of the nearest
prairics for week or SO, letting them sub
sst on browse and very little grass, and
then send them down tho mountain again.
this, bad as it is, seems the best that can
be done. Living of all kinds will always
be dear at these mines, where American
Flour is now selling at the rate of St4
per barrel, and Bacon is worth soc. per
pound; Sugar ditto.
presume less than half the four or five
thousand people now in this ravine have
been here week he who has been here
three weeks is regsUed as quite Nh old
settler. The influx cannot fall short of
five hundred per day. balanced Ivy an
eiflux Of about one hundred. Many Of
the latter go away convinced that Rocky
Mountain gold mining is one grand hum
bug. Some of them have prospected two
or three weeks, eating up their provisions,
wearing out their boots-and finding
nothing. Others havo worked for the
moro fortunate for 81 per day and their
board and lodging certainly not high
wages when the quality of tho living is
considered. And | feel certain that, whlo
some-perhaps many-wil resaze their
dreams of wealth here, far greater mum
Der will expend their scanty means, tax
their powers of endurance, and then leave
soured, heart-sick, spirit-broken. TWEEN
ty thousand people will have rushed into
this rayiue before the lst of September,
while | do not see how half of them are
to find profitable employment here. I'm
less, therefore, the area of the dieg;Dgs
shall meantime be greatly enlarged-of
which there is no assurance cannot
imagine how half the number are to sub
sist here, even up to that early setting i'll
of Winter which must cause a general
paralysis Of mining, and consequently Of
all other Rocky Mountain industry. With
the gold just wrested from the earth stiiil
glittering in my eyes and one company
has taken out to-day, at cost of not more
than S25, lump CONDENSED by tho use
of quicksilyer) which looks like a steeyard
poise and is estimated rs worth S51O-I
adhere to my long settled conviction that,
noxt TO outright and indisputable gam
bling, the hardest (tho1gh sometimes the
quickcsD way TO obtain gold is to niue for
it--that a good farmer or mechanic will
usually make money faster by sticking to
bis own business than by DESERVING it for
gold digging and that the man who hay-
mo failed in some other pursuit. calculates