county in 1856, as well as for his faithful services as its first sheriff. The firm name is now A. Hanson & Co., and there have doubtless been some material changes in its constituents since its organization. Albert Hanson looks after the business interests in San Mateo county. Extensive as are their operations in this part of the country, they are but trifling compared with what they are doing at Puget Sound, where their mills turn out thousands of feet of lumber every hour, while their own ships and tugs are constantly carrying cargoes of the products of their mills to San Francisco and other markets. Although their business has far outgrown the resources of San Mateo county, yet here, the field of their first operations, has remained the home of the proprietors, and San Mateo, with a warranted local pride, claims them as her own enterprising citizens.

This concludes the cursory sketch of the lumber interests of the county, and events of another character which marked the early history of the State will be recalled.

Who does not think of 48 with feelings almost akin to inspiration?

The year 1848 is one wherein was reached the nearest attainment of the discovery of the philosopher's stone, which it has been the lot of christendom to witness. On January 19th, gold was discovered at Coloma, on the American river, and the most unbelieving and cold-blooded were, by the middle of spring, irretrievably bound in its fascinating meshes. The wonder is, that the discovery was not made earlier. Emigrants, settlers, hunters, practical miners, scientific exploring parties had camped on, settled in, hunted through, dug in, and ransacked the region, yet never found it; the discovery was entirely accidental. Franklin Tuthill, in his History of California, tells the story in these words:

"Captain Sutter had contracted with James W. Marshall, in September, 1847, for the construction of a sawmill in Coloma. In the course of the winter a dam and race were made, but, when the water was let on, the tail-race was too narrow. To widen and deepen it, Marshall let in a strong current of water directly to the race, which bore a large body of mud and gravel to the foot.

"On the 19th of January, 1848, Marshall observed some glittering particles in the race, which he was curious enough to examine. He called five carpenters on the mill to see them, but though they talked over the possibility of its being gold, the vision did not inflame them. Peter L. Weimar claims that he was with Marshall when the first piece of yellow stuff' was picked up. It was a pebble weighing six pennyweights and eleven grains. Marshall gave it to Mrs. Weimar, and asked her to boil it in saleratus water and see what came of it. As she was making soap at the time, she pitched it into the soap kettle. About twenty-four hours afterward it was fished out and found all the brighter for its boiling.

"Marshall, two or three weeks later, took the specimens below, and gave them to Sutter to have them tested. Before Sutter had quite satisfied himself as to their nature, he went up to the mill, and, with Marshall, made a treaty with the Indians, buying of them their titles to the region round about, for a certain amount of goods. There was an effort made to keep the secret inside the little circle that knew it, but it soon leaked out. They had many misgivings, and much discussion whether they were not making themselves ridiculous; yet, by common consent, all began to hunt, though with no great spirit, for the yellow stuff' that might prove such a prize.

"In February, one of the party went to Yerba Buena, taking some of the dust with him. Fortunately he stumbled upon Isaac Humphrey, an old Georgian gold-miner, who, at the first look at the specimens, said they were gold, and that the diggings must be rich. Humphrey tried to induce some of his friends to go up with him to the mill, but they thought it a crazy expedition, and let him go alone. He reached there on the 7th of March. A few were hunting for gold, but rather lazily, and the work on the mill went on as usual. Next day he began prospecting,' and soon satisfied himself that he had struck a rich placer. He made a rocker, and then commenced work in earnest.

"A few days later, a Frenchman, Baptiste, formerly a miner in Mexico, left the lumber he was sawing for Sutter at Weber's, ten miles east of Coloma, and came to the mill. He agreed with Humphrey that the region was rich, and, like him, took to the pan and the rocker. These two men were the competent practical teachers of the crowd that flocked in to see how they did it. The lesson was easy, the process simple. An hour's observation fitted the least experienced for working to advantage."

Slowly and surely, however, did these discoveries creep into the minds of those at home and abroad; the whole civilized world was set agog with the startling news from the shores of the Pacific. Young and old were seized with the California fever; high and low, rich and poor were infected by it; the prospect was altogether too gorgeous to contemplate. Why, they could actually pick up a fortune for the seeking it! Positive affluence was within the grasp of the weakest; the very coast was shining with the bright metal, which could be obtained by picking it out with a knife.

Says Tuthill: 'Before such considerations as these, the conservatism of the most stable bent. Men of small means, whose tastes inclined them to keep out of all hazardous schemes and uncertain enterprizes, thought they saw duty beckoning them around the Horn, or across the plains. In many a family circle, where nothing but the strictest economy could make the two ends of the year meet, there were long and anxious consultations, which resulted in selling off a piece of the homestead, or the woodland, or the choicest of the stock, to fit out one sturdy representative to make a fortune for the family. Hundreds of farms were mortgaged to buy tickets for the land of gold. Some insured

their lives, and pledged their policies for an outfit. The wild boy was packed off hopefully. The black sheep of the flock was dismissed with a blessing, and the forlorn hope that, with a change of skies, there might be a change of manners. The stay of the happy household said, 'Good-bye, but only for a year or two,' to his charge. Unhappy husbands availed themselves cheerfully of this cheap and reputable method of divorce, trusting time to mend or mar matters in their absence. Here was a chance to begin life anew. Whoever had begun it badly, or made slow headway on the right course, might start again in a region where fortune had not learned to coquette with and dupe her wooers. "The adventurers generally formed companies, expecting to go overland or by sea to the mines, and to dissolve partnership only after a first trial of luck together in the diggings.' In the Eastern and Middle States they would buy up an old whaling ship, just ready to be condemned to the wreckers, put in a cargo of such stuff as they must need themselves, and provisions, tools, or goods, that must be sure to bring returns enough to make the venture profitable. Of course, the whole fleet rushing together through the Golden Gate, made most of these ventures profitless, even when the guess was happy as to the kind of supplies needed by the Californians. It can hardly be believed what sieves of ships started, and how many of them actually made the voyage. Little river-steamers, that had scarcely tasted salt water before, were fitted out to thread the Straits of Magellan, and these were welcomed to the bays and rivers of California, whose waters some of them ploughed and vexed busily for years afterwards.

"Then steamers, as well as all manner of sailing vessels, began to be advertised to run to the isthmus; and they generally went crowded to excess with passengers, some of whom were fortunate enough, after the toilsome ascent of the Chagres river, and the descent either on mules or on foot to Panama, not to be detained more than a month waiting for the craft that had rounded the Horn, and by which they were ticketed to proceed to San Francisco. But hundreds broke down under the horrors of the voyage in the steerage; contracted on the isthmus the low typhoid fevers incident to tropical marshy regions, and died.

"The overland emigrants, unless they came too late in the season to the Sierras, seldom suffered as much, as they had no great variation of climate on their route. They had this advantage, too, that the mines lay at the end of their long road; while the sea-faring, when they landed, had still a weary journey before them. Few tarried longer at San Francisco than was necessary to learn how utterly useless were the curious patent mining contrivances they had brought, and to replace them with the pick and shovel, pan and cradle. If any one found himself destitute of funds to go further, there was work enough to raise them by. Labor was honorable; and the daintiest dandy, if he were