I recalled
to mind all the metals I had seen or heard of, but I could find none
that resembled this. Suddenly the idea flashed across my mind that it
might be iron pyrites. I trembled to think of it."
Finally, to make sure, Marshall, like Juan Lopez, mounted his horse and
rode away to find some one with more knowledge than himself. That some
one was Captain Sutter, who looked in his encyclopedia, probably the
only one in the territory at that time, and by comparing the weight of
the metal with the weight of an equal bulk of water found its specific
gravity, which proved it to be gold. Still Sutter thought that he should
like better authority. General Sherman, in Memoirs, tells how the news
came to Monterey, where, he was the governor's gay young military
secretary:--
"I remember one day, in the spring of 1848, that two men, Americans,
came into the office and inquired for the Governor. I asked their
business, and one answered that they had just come down from Captain
Sutter on special business and they wanted to see Governor Mason in
person. I took them in to the colonel and left them together.
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