rom all the settled parts of the territory,
and as they came they went to work mining, and gradually they moved
farther and farther from Coloma, and before the rainy reason had
commenced (in December) miners were washing rich auriferous dirt all
along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, from the Feather to the
Tuolumne River, a distance of one hundred fifty miles; and also over a
space of about fifteen miles square, near the place now known as the
town of Shasta, in the Coast Mountains, at the head of the Sacramento
Valley. The whole country had been turned topsy-turvy; towns had been
deserted, or left only to the women and children; fields had been left
unreaped; herds of cattle went without anyone to care for them. But
gold-mining, which had become the great interest of the country, was not
neglected. The people learned rapidly and worked hard.

In the latter part of 1848 adventurers began to arrive from Oregon, the
Sandwich Islands, and Mexico. The winter found the miners with very
little preparation, but most of them were accustomed to a rough manner
of life in the Western wilds, and they considered their large profits an
abundant compensation for their privations and hardships. The weather
was so mild in December and January that they could work almost as well
as in the summer, and the rain gave them facilities for washing such as
they could not have in the dry season.

In September, 1848, the first rumors of the gold discovery began to
reach New York; in October they attracted attention; in November people
looked with interest for new reports; in December the news gained
general credence and a great excitement arose. Preparations were made
for a migration to California by somebody in nearly every town in the
United States. The great body of the emigrants went either across the
plains with ox or mule teams or round Cape Horn in sailing-vessels. A
few took passage in the steamer by way of Panama.

Not fewer than one hundred thousand men, representing in their nativity
every State in the Union, went to California that year. Of these, twenty
thousand crossed the continent by way of the South Pass; and nearly all
of them started from the Missouri River between Independence and St.
Joseph, in the month of May. They formed an army; in daytime their
trains filled up the roads for miles, and at night their camp-fires
glittered in every direction about the places blessed with grass and
water. The excitement continued