Soon Juan and his companions were busy digging and washing the earth and
sands in the region where the little wild flowers grew. These mines were
called "placer," from a Spanish word meaning loose or moving about,
because the metal was loosely mixed with sand and gravel, generally in
the bed of a stream or in a ravine where there had once been a flow of
water which had brought the gold down from its home in the mountains.
From these mines Don Abel Stearns sent, in a sailing vessel round Cape
Horn, the first parcel of California gold dust ever received at the
United States mint, and it proved to be of very good quality.
The San Fernando mines, as they were called, because they were on a
ranch that had once belonged to San Fernando mission, yielded many
thousand dollars' worth of gold dust. It is on record that one firm in
Los Angeles, which handled most of the gold from these and other mines
of southern California, paid out in the course of twenty years over two
million dollars for southern gold.
The true golden touch, however, was to come in a different part of the
territory among people of another race and tongue.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172