CHAPTER II.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLACER-MINING IN

CALIFORNIA.

FROM the auriferous deposits of the State of California $1,100,000,000 have been extracted during the last thirtyfive years.*

The magnitude of the mining operations required to produce this enormous yield is but little known to the general public. The continuous flow of gold bullion has, however, made the State famous and attracted the attention of political economists everywhere.

First Mention of California.-The first mention of the name "California" occurs in connection with a supposed great island where gold and precious stones were found in abundance, described in a romance called

Las Sergus de Esplandian," published in Spain A.D. 1510. The followers of Cortez had chimerical ideas of some hidden El Dorado, and, strange to say, they applied the name California to that unknown country north of Mexico with which they associated the notion of a region of fabulous wealth.

Discovery of Lower California.—The first expedition sent out by Cortez, in 1534, discovered what is now called Lower California. According to Father Venegas, this expedition, numbering some seven hundred souls, was fitted out at the port of Tehuantepec in the year 1537, and sailed north to the head of the gulf of California, but never reached the line which marks the southern boundary of the State of California.

Contemporaneously with the departure of this party "four persons, named Alvarez Nuñez, Cabeza de Vaca,

* Up to 1883. See Appendix A.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLACER-MINING. 43

Castillo, and Dormentes, with a negro named Estevancio," arrived at Culiacan, on the gulf of California, from the peninsula of Florida. These were the sole survivors of the three hundred Spaniards who in 1527 landed with Pamfilo Narvaez on the coast of Florida with the intention of conquering that country. Nuñez subsequently conducted the expedition which discovered the Rio de la Plata and effected the first conquest of Paraguay.

Early Explorations—In 1542 Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese, to survey the west coast of California. He explored the coast, naming the numerous headlands, the most northerly of which, in lat. 40° N., he called Cape Mendocino. Thence he proceeded further north to lat. 44°, which he reached March 10, 1543.

In 1578 Sir Francis Drake entered the Pacific and sailed north as high as lat. 48°. According to Hakluyt's account of the voyage, Drake spent five weeks in June and July, 1579, in a bay near lat. 38° N.

First Mention of Gold.-The narrative says: "Our General called this country New Albion. . There is no part of the earth here to be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantitie of gold and silver." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with the facts as known at present, since in lat. 38° N. neither gold nor silver exists in "reasonable quantitie" near the ocean. This is, however, remarkable as the first mention of gold in California proper.

In 1602 the Count de Monte Rey, Viceroy of New Spain, by order of the king, sent Sebastian Viscayno on an exploring expedition. He sailed from Acapulco, May 5, 1602, with two vessels and a tender, with Admiral Gomez in command. The expedition, composed of a large number of men, was fully equipped for one year's voyage. Three barefooted Carmelites accompanied the party, and the several departments were entrusted to distinguished officers, volunteers from Brittany.

After a struggle with northwest winds, on November 10, 1602, the fleet entered the harbor of San Diego * and, having spent a few days there, the expedition again. sailed north. December 16, 1602, anchor was cast in Monterey Bay, which was named in honor of the viceroy. January 3, 1603, the fleet weighed anchor, and a period of one hundred and sixty-six years elapsed before this bay was revisited. January 12 the fleet passed the bay of San Francisco and anchored behind a point of land called "La Punta de los Reyes," but did not enter San Francisco harbor. The voyage was subsequently continued. as far as lat. 43° N., from which point the fleet returned to Acapulco.

First Mission established in Lower California. -In 1697 the first permanent mission was established by the Jesuits at Loreto, Lower California. "These people," says the historian, "with patient art and devoted zeal, accomplished that which had defied the energy of Cortez and baffled the efforts of the Spanish monarchy for generations afterwards."

First Mission in Upper California.-In 1769 the Jesuits were banished from Lower California. On the 9th day of January, 1769, an expedition set sail from La Paz, in Lower California, to rediscover San Diego and Monterey. The vessels stopped at Cape St. Lucas, and left that point February 15 of the same year. On the 1st of July, 1769, a land expedition which had started shortly after the vessels had set sail from Cape St. Lucas, under the immediate charge of Padre Junipero Serra, reached San Diego and established the first Franciscan mission in Upper California.

Notwithstanding the facts revealed by the many expeditions, the geographers of that day still persisted in describing California as an island extending from Cape St. Lucas, at the tropic of Cancer, to lat. 45°

* An interesting account of this voyage is given by E. Randolph, Esq., " Memoirs of the Society of California Pioneers."

N.,* and it was not until Father Begert's map was published at Manheim, in 1771, that California was relieved of its insular character.

Early Discoveries of Placers.-At different times between 1775 and 1828 small deposits of placer gold were found by Mexicans near the Colorado River. In 1802 a mineral vein supposed to contain silver was found at Olizal, in the district of Monterey. In 1828 a small gold placer was discovered at San Isidro, in what is now known as San Diego County.

Forbes, in his history of California, in 1835, says: "No minerals of particular importance have yet been found in Upper California, nor any appearance of metals."

In 1838 the placers of San Francisquito, forty-five miles northwest from Los Angeles, were discovered. These deposits were neither rich nor extensive, but were worked steadily for twenty years.

In 1841 Wilkes' exploring expedition visited the coast, James D. Dana, mineralogist, accompanying the party. In the following year, in his work on mineralogy, Dana mentions that gold was found in the Sacramento valley, and that rocks "similar to those of the auriferous formations" were observed in southern Oregon.

May 4, 1846, Thomas O. Larkin, United States Consul at Monterey, said, in an official letter to James Buchanan, Esq., then Secretary of State: "There is no doubt that gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, lead, sulphur, and coal mines are to be found all over California, and it is doubtful whether, under their present owners, they will ever be worked."

On the 7th of July, 1846, the American flag was hoisted at Monterey and the country taken possession of by the United States.

* See Ogilvy's "America: being the latest and most accurate Account of the New World," published in London in 1671. California is there laid down as an island, extending from Cape St. Lucas to lat. 45° N. See map by Capt. Shelvocke, R.N., "Voyage around the World by way of the South Sea," published in London in 1726. See map published in Venice in 1546, Independent Order of Odd Fellows' Hall, San Francisco.

Marshall discovers Gold at Coloma.-January 19, 1848, James W. Marshall, while engaged in digging a race for a saw-mill at Coloma (thirty-five miles east from Sutter's Fort), found some pieces of yellow metal which he and the half-dozen men working with him at the mill supposed to be gold. "He felt confident that he had made a discovery of great importance, but he knew nothing of either chemistry or gold-mining, and he could not prove the nature of the metal or tell how to obtain it in paying quantities. . . . So Marshall's collection of specimens continued to accumulate, and his associates began to think there might be something in his gold-mine after all." *

In the middle of February, Bennett, one of the party employed at the mill, went to San Francisco and returned with Isaac Humphreys, a man who had washed gold in Georgia, and who, after a few hours' work, declared the mines to be richer than those of his own State. By means of a rocker he obtained daily about one ounce of gold, and soon all the hands of the mill were rocking for the precious metal.

The record of the discovery of gold, as related by Parsons in his biography of Marshall, is somewhat different from that published by Browne, and gives to Marshall alone the credit of the discovery.

Other Gold Discoveries.-Pierson B. Redding, the owner of a large ranch at the head of the Sacramento valley, visited the mining works at Coloma, and immediately resolved to commence washing on, his own property, which he thought was in a similar formation, and in a few weeks he had begun mining on a bar on Clear Creek, nearly two hundred miles north west from Coloma. This example was followed by John Bidwell, who, having seen Sutter's works, commenced prospecting on the bars of the Feather River, seventy-five miles northwest from Coloma.

* See "Reports upon the Mineral Resources of the United States," by J. Ross Browne, 1867.