authorities differ considerably, and generally are somewhat less
generous than these figures.

At first the diggings were chiefly along the rivers. These were
"flumed,"--that is, the water was diverted by wooden flumes from the
natural channel and the sand and gravel in the bed were washed. All the
"gulches" or ravines leading down into the canyons were also worked
over, with or without water. These were the richest "placers," but in
them the gold was very unequally distributed. Those who first got
possession of the rich bars on the American, Yuba, Feather, Stanislaus
and the other smaller streams in the heart of the gold region, made
sometimes from $1000 to $5000 a day; but after one rich spot was worked
out it might be days or weeks before another was found. In 1848 $500-700
a day was not unusual luck; but, on the other hand, the income of the
great majority of miners was certainly far less than that of men who
seriously devoted themselves to trade or even to common labour. Many
extraordinary nuggets were found, varying from $1000 to $20,000 in
value. The economic stimulus given by such times may be imagined. For
several years gold-dust was a regular circulating medium in the cities
as well as in the mining districts of the state. An ounce of dust in
1848 frequently went for $4 instead of $17; for a number of years
traders in dust were sure of a margin of several dollars, as for example
in private coinage, mints for which were common by 1851. From the record
of actual exports and a comparison of the most authoritative estimates
of total production, it may be said that from 1848 to 1856 the yield was
almost certainly not less than $450,000,000, and that about 1870 the
billion dollar mark had been passed. Just at this time came the highest
point and the sudden fall of the second great mining fever of the state.
This was a stock speculation based on the remarkable output
($300,000,000 in 20 years) of the silver "bonanzas" of the Comstock lode
at Virginia City, Nevada, which were opened and financed by San
Francisco capitalists. The craze pervaded all classes. Shares that at
first represented so many dollars per foot in a tangible mine were
multiplied and remultiplied until they came to represent paper
thicknesses or almost nothing, yet still their prices mounted upward. In
April 1872 came the revulsion; there was a shrinkage of $60,000,000 in
ten days; then in 1873 a tremendous advance, and in 1875 a final and
disastrou