The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1876-09-01
VOLUME 4.
How an Old Mining Camp Looks.

John Muir in San Francisco Bulletin.
The importance OF these old gravels
as gold fountains is only beginning to
be guessed. Even the ordinary placers
Of the present streams have derived most
of their gold from them. According TO
all accounts, the placers around Muir
phys camp have been rich-"terri6c
rich" as they say here. The hills have
been cut and scalped, and every gorge,
and gulch, ana broad valley has been
fairly torn TO pieces and disemboweled,
expressing fierce and desperate energy
hard to understand. Still any kind Of
effort making Is better than inaetion,
and there is something sublime in see
ing men working in dead earnest at
anything. pursuing an object with gla-
cier-like energy and persistence. Many
brave fellow has recorded a most
eventful chapter of his life on these
Calaveras rocks, but most of the early
pioneers are sleeping now, while the
few survivors linger about languIdly in
barren gulche-, or around the sleeping
village, like harried bees around the
ruins Of their hive. One of your cor
respondents. who lately passed through
this place, has pictured the general de-
cadence Of everything and every body in
the neighborhood. "Yes," said one OF
the old Murphy miners, after reading
the Bulletin, chats all true. We have
no industry now, and no men. We are
out Of game. We are only bummers
nova thin scatterin' of poor, dils pi-
dated cusses" Bu, although these lin
gering pioneers, are, perhaps, more ex.
hausted than the mines, and about a,
dead as the dead rivers, they are yet a
rare and interesting set Of men, with a
good deal of gold mixed in with the
rough, rocky gravel of :heir characters
and they exhibit breeding and intelli-
gence little looked for in such surround
ings As the heavy grinding of the gla
ciers brought out the features of tn,
Sierra, so the intense experiences of tn,
gold period have brought out tn
mental features of these old miners
forming richness and variety Of char
scter of which little Is as yet known.
; The sketches Of Bret Harte, Hay
and Miller, so far from exhausting tn
field, scarce amount TO fair beginning
I 1t is interesting to observe how grea
are the extremes possible in one and tn,
same character-harahness and gentle
ness, manliness and childishness, apath,
and fierce endeavor. Men who invent
years ago would scarce cease their shov
cling to help dying neighbor, no,
play in the streets with children. Thei
long Micawber-like waiting after th
exhaustion of their placers, has brough
on an exaggerated form of prematur
dotage. heard group of Drawn
pioneers, the other day, in the villag
eagerly discussing the quality of tail rt
quired for boys kite, and one gray
beard at length undertook the sport
| flying it himself, volunteering the info
, nation that he was boy, always was
, boy, and d-n man that wasn't alwa,
. a boy inside, however ancient outsid
, Mines, morals, politics, the immortalii
l of the soul, are discussed beneath shat
, trees and in saloons, the time for eac
, being. to a considerable extent govern
: ed by the temperature. Contact vii
nature, and the habits of observatio
acquired in gold seeking, have mac
. them all, TO some extent, materialisi
h and, like hushy tailed wood rats, the
y collect all kinds of odd specimens in
i their cabins, themselves the odde
% specimens of all.