GOLD IN THE SHINING MOUNTAINS.

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current reports something wonderful long before their treasures were disclosed. "This extraordinary range of mountains," says Jonathan Carver in 1766, "is calculated to be more than 3,000 miles in length, without any very considerable intervals, which I believe surpasses any thing of the kind in the other quarters of the globe. Probably in future ages they may be found to contain more riches in their bowels than those of Indostan and Malabar, or that are produced on the Golden coast of Guinea; nor will I except even the Peruvian mines."

No little excitement occurred in Mexico about the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits, who, it was reported, had found extensive deposits of gold on the peninsula of California, and had concealed the fact from the government. It was in the rivers, in the rocks, and in the soil, people said, and the supposed concealment as to the spot containing the precious metal, on the part of the Jesuits, tended in no wise toward delaying their enforced departure. To prove the matter José Galvez, marquis of Sonora, accompanied by Miguel José de Azanza, in 1769 passed over into California and instituted a search. A few weeks of fruitless endeavor satisfied Azanza, who returned to Mexico, saying that the marquis was insane to continue the search; for the expression of which opinion Azanza was incarcerated, and kept in prison for a time. Galvez found nothing, however, though the Jesuits afterward affirmed in France that it was true they had found gold. This was probably said in order to occasion regret in the minds of those who had caused their expulsion. All this of course is irrelevant to the present purpose, except that in the loose and general reference made to the event, it is not stated, and often not known, that the Jesuits were never in Upper California, and that the search of Galvez and Azanzt was confined strictly to the peninsula of Lower California.

Such facts, mutilated and misstated, floating in the

minds of ignorant persons who receive them at second or twentieth hand, lead to remarks like the following by Mr Simpson, author of Three Weeks in the Gold Regions, published in 1848. "It is also known that an expedition was fitted out by the governor of Sonora during the last century, which owing to various discouragements failed.

In his Travels in Mexico, when near the mouth of the Colorado in 1826, Lieutenant Hardy says: "The sand is full of a glittering sort of tinsel, which shines beautifully when the sun is upon it. It is common all over Sonora, and is, I imagine, nothing more than broken laminæ of talc, the surface of which being probably in a state of decomposition, the original color is changed to that of copper and gold. It crumbles easily between the fingers, and cannot therefore be metallic; but its delusive appearance may possibly have given rise to the reports, which were spread, as it is supposed, by the Jesuits, who formerly endeavored to make an establishment upon the river, of gold dust being intermixed with the sand." Fayette Robinson thinks the Jesuit priests were aware of the existence of gold in California, meaning Lower California, but carefully diverted the attention of the natives from it in favor of mission labor. Osio in his manuscript Historia de California expresses the opinion that the Franciscans were too busy with conversions to ascertain whether the river sands held gold. The recent conjectures, he says, that they knew of gold are not probable, because the secret could not have been kept among so many.

Since 1775 the Mexicans have met with silver in the vicinity of the Colorado, and some say with small deposits of placer gold, but with none that would yield profitable returns. Very soon after the organization of the missions in Lower California, converted Indians sent into the upper country to persuade the natives there to listen to the teachings of the padres, talked, on their return, of the shining sand that they saw in

SHINING SANDS OF CALIFORNIA.

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the streams, and in the ravines which they had traversed. But so common were these reports, so familiar were the conquerors with the presence of precious metals everywhere within the subjugated domain, that a sprinkling more or less, here or there, was little regarded. Nevertheless, it is reported that later they built furnaces, and brought sand from the seashore to be used in smelting antimonial silver lead.

A map was made of southern California in 1775 by a priest showing the explorations of the Jesuits on the Colorado river for several hundred miles, and thence to the Tulare valley. J. H. Carson is the author of a little book, printed in Stockton in 1852, entitled Early Recollections of the Mines, and a Description of the Great Tulare Valley, and worth fifty times its weight in gold. This writer was informed that in the Mexican archives was a letter from a priest, dated at one of the Jesuit missions in 1776, notifying the government that while searching the mountains for mission sites he and his confreres had met with pure silver in masses weighing several tons, and that they had forbidden all mention of the matter under pain of excommunication and death, lest a sudden influx of population should destroy their schemes for conversion. Upon the strength of this assertion Wright and his associates fitted out an expedition under a Mr Hoyt, who proceeding to California from Mexico, in due time sent back a letter with rich specimens of silver ore, almost solid, as Mr Wright declared. Neither Hoyt or any of the party returned, nor were they ever heard from; and it was supposed that they were murdered by the natives. Exploring at a much later period in the vicinity of Moore creek, Carson encountered a shaft sunk apparently twelve or twenty years before. Part of the windlass was still standing, though in a state of decay, and the place agreed with the description given by Hoyt. When Carson questioned the natives about it, he was told that the shaft had been sunk by Mexicans who had been in that

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neighborhood but who had since died; the gentle savages failed to mention the manner of their taking off.

Referring to the Diccionario Geografico-Historio de las Indias Occidentales o América of Antonio de Alcedo, published in Madrid in 1786-9, we find stated that in California, "provincia de la América Septentrional, y la última parte de ella en lo descubierto ácia el norte " are many wonders. Strange animals are there, and some that the Spaniards introduced, which have multiplied enormously. There are insects, snakes, tarantulas, and ants without number, but no fleas, bed-bugs, or chegoes. As prone to mendacity as I have ever found Mr Dunbar, I was not prepared to meet in his Romance of the Age so bold a misrepresentation as that Alcedo "positively asserts the existence of gold in California, even in lumps of five to eight pounds," and that in face of the plain statement: "No se han descubierto minas; però hay bastantes indicios de que existen de todos metales."

At Alizal, near Monterey, silver is said to have been found in 1802. Remarking how deep benea theth surface lay the precious metals in the interior of northern Mexico Humboldt, after his visit in 1803, expressed the opinion that toward the north gold might be found in large quantities near the surface.

Knowledge of the existence of furnaces, used in the smelting of silver ore, in the southeastern part of California, or in the Colorado river region, is vaguely traced back to 1808. An exploring party from Stockton in 1860, in search of silver lodes, met in the vicinity of these furnaces a party of Mexicans with like intentions. With the Mexicans was an ancient aboriginal, José el Venadero he was called, one hundred years of age, who stated that these furnaces were in use when Mexico first threw off the yoke of Spain, fifty-two years ago. He was a mission Indian at the time, and the Spanish soldiers stationed at the furnaces to protect the workmen from the natives were with

SUTTER AND THE RUSSIANS.

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drawn during the revolution. A large body of natives, headed by his brother who was a chief, then attacked and killed the miners, and the priests who were with them; since which time the lode has not been worked, and the place had been forgotten by all except those engaged in the massacre. M. S. Brockway saw there

in 1851 veins of antimonial silver.

Count Scala writing in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, in 1854, asserts that although local tradition has not preserved any souvenir of the excursions of the Russians into the auriferous regions which have since been of such value to California, yet there are unanswerable proofs that several officers of the Russian company have at different times, between the years 1812 and 1841, procured a considerable quantity of metal from the native tribes of Yuba and Chico. "Nous montreros tout à l'heure," he goes on to say, que c'est aux Russes de Bodéga que les Américains sont redevables de l'heureuse découverte qui leur donne aujourd'hui la faculté d'étendre leur souveraineté dans la Nouvelle-Grenade et le Nicaragua, et d'imposer leur influence à toutes les républiques espagnoles du Pacifique." In proof of his premise Scala's chain of argument is not in every link consistent with fact. I will give it for what it is worth. He does not know how it occurred, or what might have been the nature of the services which Sutter had rendered to the government of Archangel, but certain it is that one day the captain arrived in California well recommended to the authorities at Ross and Bodega. M. Gorieff, a rich merchant established at Yakoutsk, pretends to have shown him in 1838 or 1839 a score of "kilos de lingots d'or et de pépites," which he had gathered five years before in the Sacramento valley, while on an excursion with the ciboleros of the company. And Gorieff counselled Sutter to devote himself exclusively to the investigation of these auriferous lands. However that might have been, Scala continues, "no one then in California was igno