e only began to be discovered, and although the
gulch and ravine diggings are pretty much worked out, yet all those
mountains and hills composed of gravel and earth, will be found to
contain riches of great value, on the surface of rock upon which they
rest. Mining hereafter will be attended with greater expense, on
account of the depth which the miner will have to dig to reach the
gold, but there will be rich gold diggings in California for a hundred
years to come, in my opinion. Great sickness has prevailed thro' the
fall in the mines, there being buried from Hangtown alone about 13 a
day. At the least calculation, one fourth of the emigration of 1850
have, or will die, by the first of January 1851. Miners at this time
are getting but small pay, very many not more than paying board. Almost
all who came here thought that they should make from 12 to 20 dollars a
day, but instead of those prices, they are glad to get from four to
eight per day, and very many do not make but half that sum. Yet
nevertheless California is a good country, and if people would move to
it with their families, and make their homes here, in a few years they
would be richly paid.

The old adage, "a rolingstone gathers no moss," is exemplified every
day here. The same restless spirit that prompted men to come, keeps
them constantly on the move while here. Many who are making from three
to six dollars a day, work until they obtain two or three hundred
dollars, then hearing of richer diggings otherwheres, pull up and leave
sure work and travel until they have spent what they have got and a
month or two in prospecting, when they become strapped, to use a
favorite expression here, and are compelled to work for less pay, until
they make a raise, when the same spirit puts them in motion again. I
have known men who have been here two years, and have sometimes had a
thousand dollars on hand, that, when I saw them, had not a dollar, and
were compelled to obtain credit to enable them to live for a time until
they could make a raise again, and all the result of this restless
spirit. In my opinion one half of the aggregate time of the miners of
California is spent in traveling from one section of the mines to
another. California may be properly divided into four ranges, or
divisions. The first, the alluvial bottoms of the rivers or bays, and
the plains, which comprise all of the agricultural country in the
State, the area of which would probably amount to one