Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1920-12-25

night and had followed the rush to- ward the American Fork. By July there must have been about 5000 miners at work with shovels and pans, along the American Fork, and there were arrivals from more remote To- calities in California every day. Be- tween 1000 and 5000 Californians in that first season of gold mining, from
 May to January, got fully $10,O0O,- 900 worth of gold.
 "The first year of gold mining in California-that is from May, 1S4S, to
 May, 1S49-was far different in it's easy, quiet way from that created by the excited gold-hungry Fasteners, who with the opening of the spring and summer of 1S49 came swarming across the plains, over the isthmus and around the horn. There was lit tie or no gambling. The miners left their pounds of gold under their beds and went unconcernedly miles from camp. There were no mining laws to be considered. It was a perfect min ing Elysium.
 "As I look back at those days now it seems we were like big children go- ing about in a vast natural treasure house, wondering how much riches we might carry away when we were ready, but meanwhile frittering away our time and opportunities. When l remember the whole acre of gravel and sand, richer than anything ever found on the Klondike, that we aban' doned because we heard of better Fl Dorado on another remote creek or river it seems as if that era must have been a dream.
 "The reStlessness and greed to get the very cream of the diggings kept the greater part of us poor in spite of the fabulous opportunities.
 "The unhappiest and most pitiful man of all the tens of thousands of men who washed gold up and down on almost every creek in Central Cali lol lila "ctS Nldl Sllclll-lllt NllSCONclcl of the gold. He became a drinking, profane man when he saw how his and Captain Suffers property was ruined by the excited gold seekers, who entered upon it without even ask ing the right. He threatened legal prosecution. His threats were but, hooted and jeered. He promised vast sums for lawyers who would eject the thousands of gold miners from his and Suffers land, but no one needed his words. He went about from camp to camp fuming and threatening the men that he would soon dispossess them of their gold by legal process. He claimed the legal right to all the gold in that locality, and he swore that he would never mine an ounce till the United States laws drove out the trespassers and restored the prop erty to Sutter and him. No one but the Mormons paid any attention to Marshall. The Mormons recognized Marshall's rights and they used to deal out to him and Sutter part of their gold nuggets and dust at stated: periods.
 "The Mormons, who were about the first men in the new diggings, located on the north fork of the American River I have seen them wash out gravel at the rate of $3.50 a pan for hours at time. They were secretlve fellows, but had it on good authority that they cleared more than $150,000 in several months in 1848. The best I ever did in any one day was in the !! summer of 1852. Partner and were operating rocker on the Tuolumne and were working in streak of gravel about two feet below surface. We got an average of eleven ounces of gold every day for two weeks. 1 Unfortunately our claim petered out quickly after that. The man whose