Journal of a Trip to California Part 7

12th. Started again this morning, but our road led across a sand plain 12 miles wide, when we struck the river again, following a packing trail, thus avoiding the desert back from the river.

22 miles.

13th. Our road followed the river until noon, when we had another stretch of desert for 13 miles. The valley begins to narrow somewhat.

23 miles.

14th. Pa.s.sed through a canon seven miles, continually crossing brooks of cold clear water from the mountains--beautiful meadows and rich land on the bottoms. Desert plains back, and still back lofty Sierra Nevadas, their sides covered with the evergreen pine, their summits with snow.--Pa.s.sed some hot springs, and trading stations. The latter have little to sell but whiskey; some few of them beef.

27 miles.

15. Pa.s.sed the Mormon station, saw a party of Californians and Mexicans prospecting. There is gold this side of the mountains. Entered the seven mile Kanyon, which begins the real pa.s.s of the Sierra Nevada. A branch of the Carson River runs through it, which stream we follow to its head. The Kanyon is a wild, picturesque place, with perpendicular wall of gray granite hundreds of feet high, with lofty pines in the bottoms, and a perfect chaos of granite blocks rent from the walls above. We were compelled to camp in it with nothing for our horses to eat, which somewhat destroyed the romance of the thing; as for eating ourselves, it is so long since we have had anything to eat that we don't trouble ourselves about it.

23 miles.

16th. Got out of the Kanyan into the valley, and stopped to bait. Drove about six miles and camped for the night; gra.s.s abundant in this valley. J. Ingalls killed a California partridge to-day. It is larger than a partridge In the States, and finely flavored.

8 miles.

17. This morning we had the Nevadas to climb; this is the point which will stop the Pacific Railroad on this route, if anything will do it.

This rise is said to be 9000 feet in 13 miles. After climbing the first mountain we descended to a lake, which is the head of one of the branches of the Sacramento. It is the crater of an extinguished volcano. The next mountain, the Snowy Peak, is still worse than the last, although both for most part of the way are as steep as the roof of a house; in climbing it our road lay over the snow, which was 20 feet deep for 80 rods up its side. Having reached the top of the snowy peaks, we took a cut-off, descended about two miles and camped at a small brook where we found good gra.s.s. We had the good fortune to shoot three woodchucks [groundhogs,] this evening which, in addition to three lbs. of flour we coaxed out of a Californian, made us feel as rich as the Rothschilds. We have not eaten for the last two weeks (all of us) as much as one man would have eaten if he could have had all that he required, consequently we are living in the greatest luxury and abundance to-night, having all we can eat. It does not take much to make man happy after all; here we have been starving along for the last month, crossing deserts, drinking rotten, alkali or salt water, or deprived entirely, and now we've got to the top of the Nevadas, around our camp fire amid snow drifts, with plenty of good water and three woodchucks for three of us, and we are the happiest mortals alive; we seem to have forgotten that we ever suffered privation.

16 miles.

18th. Killed another woodchuck this morning; begin to feel as if we are getting into a land of plenty again. Pa.s.sed a small lake at the foot of the snowy peak, which was well filled with spotted trout. We made a mistake and took a wrong trail this morning, after pa.s.sing the lake which took us over some tremendous granite ridges to ascend and descend which we had great difficulty, often climbing and descending bare smooth rocks for rods at a place, the horses frequently sliding down such places on their haunches. We found good gra.s.s in the ravines, which was some compensation for the badness of the route. We got out to the road about dark, and reached Leek, Springs where we found some gra.s.s, and camped.

18 miles.

19th. Our road lay along the summit of a ridge covered with heavy pine and cedar forests, but no gra.s.s, and but little water. Had nothing for our horses to eat but brush this evening. A man was shot just back of us. A trader had left the road to look for gra.s.s and water, when coming to a fallen tree by a thicket, several men rose up from behind it and snapped a gun at him, which did not go off, but the trader's revolver did, tumbling one of them into the bushes, and the trader went off too, before they could make another attempt.

28 miles.

20th. We Pa.s.sed the forks of the Weaver Creek and Hangtown road, but got on a wrong trail which we followed nearly to the Weaver Creek.

Found plenty of gra.s.s and cut enough to supply our horses for the night, which would have cost us in Hangtown about five dollars. Met some miners who, not knowing the country much better than we did, directed us to go back by the way of Johnson's Ranch, which was about 12 miles, when we were by the right route, only seven miles from Hangtown. We reached the diggings at the head of the emigrant ravine, three miles from Hangtown, about nine o'clock, P.M., and camped.

20 miles.

21st. Leaving packs and horses in camp we entered the town this morning, where we found great numbers of our friends and county people, as also my brother, who had reached the mines 25 days ahead of us, having started on the Council Bluffs route at the same date that I did.

3 miles.

CALIFORNIA--GENERAL REMARKS.

Having reached the mines, I shall close with some remarks in relation to the country, &c. California is a country of contrarieties in every respect. Probably there is no country so much belied, for, generally, those who admire the country and speak in its praise, tell the truth in such a way that it amounts to a falsehood, when judged by the lights which his audiences in the States will have, to enable them to understand him, while the man who has been unfortunate gives it the same false coloring when detracting from its merits, and what is worse, both parties speak literally the truth, but unless his auditors have been here they cannot obtain a correct idea of the country. It is the best country in the world, and at the same time the worst, as every man will find that comes here, according to the circ.u.mstances in which he may chance to be placed. It is thought that the diggings are exhausted, but from observation I am satisfied that so far from this being the case, their riches have 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 half of the area of the State of Illinois. This range is exceedingly fertile, probably equal to any soil on the earth. The climate is excellent, the air pure and healthy, neither too cool nor too hot, and well calculated for the products of a temperate climate, as well as many of tropical. Gra.s.s grows on the bottoms all the year, and farming may be carried on in all months of the winter, if not prevented by the rain. No frosts ever nip the crops, and the seasons present a perpetual spring. The plains are somewhat elevated from the bottoms, gently rolling, and resemble our prairies. The soil is fertile, but cannot be cultivated without irrigation in the summer, although crops are raised by sowing in November and December, which enables them to get so far advanced by the commencement of the dry season as to avoid the drouth. In the spring they are covered with a great variety of flowers, wild oats, and clover. The timber on this range consists of live oak, and various oaks resembling white burr and black oak, besides various shrubs. The second range is the lower hill or mountain range, which is also the gold range. The soil would admit of cultivation if it could be irrigated, but this would be impossible, from the nature of the country. It will be only available for its gold, which is inexhaustible in my opinion, although the business of gathering it will not be as profitable hereafter as it has been. The timber in the range consists of the various kinds of oak and pine, with some cedar and spruce; it is not valuable, but will answer the wants of this range for the present. The third range is the timber range, which in time will be the most valuable part of California. Probably no part of the world will furnish such pine and cedar timber. The valleys are filled with trees from two to three hundred feet high, clear from limbs nearly to their tops, and of the best quality for lumber; many of the trees from five to ten feet in diameter at the foot. I saw a pine tree said to be 11, and a cedar 15 feet thro', and have no doubt but such was the fact. They can only be got out of the mountains by railways or the rivers at flood time, consequently it will be some years before the attention of the Californian will be turned to this branch of trade. But little gold has been found in this range, or probably ever will be, as the quartz veins, the original deposit of gold, if they exist at all in it, lie deep under the granite ridges.

The next range and the last lies upon the bald peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, and is too much elevated even for timber to grow to any extent. Their summits are covered eternally with snow, and their sides, where uncovered, present a barren shingle, or ragged walls of lava. But little gold is found in this range, and I know of no use of it in the economy of nature except to hold the world together. The valleys fit for cultivation, are so cold that vegetation cannot grow, except gra.s.s, which is of better quality where it can grow, than in the two next lower ranges. This range was also the district of volcanoes, the extinct craters of which indent the mountains in every direction, and are now generally lakes and ponds forming the heads of the various streams. The water in them is very pure and clear; they are well stocked with trout. By their sides in many places, the ragged perpendicular walls of lava rise thousands of feet high, black and gloomy, as it cooled off, when thrown from the bowels of the earth. The east side of the mountains on the descent to the Carson Valley is well timbered, and furnishes some good gold diggings, although not very much prospected. The Carson Valley is perhaps one of the most desirable farming districts in California. The bottom is very fertile, and covered with a heavy growth of wild clover, wheat, oats, &c. The plains by the side of the bottoms are barren deserts covered with wild sage, and utterly worthless. The climate is very favorable to the growth of the cereal grains, but the nights are too cold for corn. It is best calculated for stock growing, and is capable of supporting a population of many thousands.--The air is very pure, and the water power and water very abundant, and of excellent quality, the valley being well supplied with numerous small clear streams of ice cold water, running from the mountains across the valley, and emptying into the Carson River. The California railroad, if built by way of the South Pa.s.s of the Rocky Mountains, will follow up the valley of this river, in which case this fertile valley will soon teem with populous villages of civilized men, instead of the few squalid, thieving diggers who are now its sole tenants.

The gold digging of California is much less profitable than it was in 1849, the shallow ravine diggings having been pretty much worked out, but there is no doubt but that the hills still contain inexhaustible supplies, which though attended with greater expense in obtaining, will nevertheless pay well for working, when the same shall be worked by a permanent settled population, aided by mechanical science. It is folly in my opinion for a man to leave home and family, with all his home interests, to go to California for a mere temporary sojourn for one or two years. A man should take his family and household goods with him, and make a permanent settlement, which would aid him very materially in his business prospects. He would then remain in one location, and would consequently save both time and money. And there is another gain in locating more permanently, that is in acquiring a better knowledge of his location. Every section of the mines has its distinct characteristic, and a person having learnt the location and features of gold deposits in one section, in removing to another will have to learn this anew. When this fact is taken into consideration it will be quite evident that a man will always succeed best when permanently located.

Any man of sober, industrious habits, who may make his home in California, will in 10 years, with ordinary luck and health, and the vicissitudes of life, acquire a fortune sufficiently ample to maintain himself for the balance of his life in the old states, but many who have resided for that length of time in California will be unwilling to leave its beautiful climate to go back to the old states to live in their variable climates.

Many conjectures have been put forth as to the cause of the deposits of native gold on the surface, and many have a.s.serted that it came there by being thrown out of the craters of volcanoes. This idea is now pretty much exploded amongst intelligent miners. It is evident that the gold originally lay in the quartz mines, and has been loosened by the action of fire decomposing the quartz, and by abrasion of the atmosphere and water. In evidence of this it will be observed that in those sections richest in melted or deposit gold, there are but few gold bearing quartz veins, and those bearing evidence of great heat, while in those locations rich in quartz veins, there is but little surface gold, and that very fine, and generally found on the bars of the rivers, and along their banks. The whole country has at some day been in a state of fusion, as the quant.i.ty of cinders found in the gulches bear ample testimony, and in those sections where the heat was greatest, the quartz became intirely decomposed, allowing the gold to drop like molten lead upon the slate and granite substratum, where when undisturbed by the action of water, it now remains imbedded in the rock. This is not mere opinion, but a statement made from personal observation in working in deep diggings, where it was evident that the gold had not been disturbed since it was melted from the quartz veins, I having frequently taken pieces from the slate that fitted the interstices as closely as it would have done if I had melted it myself and turned it in to cool.

The best mining country appears to be a strip of land about 30 or 40 miles wide, running north and south, or nearly so, and extending the whole length of California, and as I have been informed on reliable authority as far north as Puget's Sound, where gold has been found in small quant.i.ties. This information I had from a gentleman of intelligence and observation, from Missouri, Mr. Sherwin, who spent the summer of 1850 at that place. The quartz veins also lie in this general course, one of which may be traced hundreds of miles. No great amount of gold has been found out of this district, although it is possible that in time it may be; but in my opinion, if the original stratum of quartz veins extended back into the mountains, that it there ceases to be the surface, and becomes the substratum; if this proves to be the case, there is no estimating the mineral wealth of California. It will take ages to exhaust the supply. The supposition that this stratum does reach back of the now known district, under the mountains, is a reasonable one, as the rock in view, generally, on the first range or plains, is slate; in the second range, quartz veins resting in and on slate, in the third range granite ridges, with occasional spur quartz veins in view, and on the fourth or summit range, either granite, or molten rock, or lava cooled off, as it was cast out of the numerous extinguished craters, California furnishes a great field for study to the geologist, and much may be learned which is not now known, and which will be useful in developing her vast resources.

Many suppose that gold was not known here until discovered by the Americans. This I am disposed to doubt, but whether known to civilized man, or only the native digger, I would not hazard an opinion. A discovery which occurred immediately under my own observation, satisfies me that the gold had been sought for many years before that time. A miner in sinking a hole at the head of the Spanish Ravine, which had been one of the richest in California, found a plain gold ring of rude workmanship, soldered together with silver, or some white metal, about four feet from the surface of the ground. On the inside of it was a cross stamped very legibly, indicating that it was made by a christian. This was in new diggings, where the earth had never been disturbed so far as appearances would indicate, and moreover he found but one small piece of gold besides that in the claim. How long it would take to form four feet of solid earth, or how it came there, no one can say, but certainly it must take a great number of years for that depth of soil to form, and the ring itself shows workmanship of an early and rude age.

The limited s.p.a.ce of this work necessarily precludes me from going into a lengthened detail of incidents and description of California, but in closing I must remark that California, from its variety of climate, which is so great that a man may walk in a day from the region of snow through a temperate climate to another of perpetual summer, where the flowers cover the earth, and render the air fragrant with their perfume. From its great resources in gold and other mineral treasures, and its boundless forests of pine and cedar, from its great amount of water power, and its great agricultural and commercial advantages, is yet destined to be the first State in the Union, as it now is the most pleasant to reside in, and it behooves our government to so cement the bonds of union in commercial interests--while now cemented by the feelings of "Padre pais"--with a belt of iron from ocean to ocean, with the iron horse with the sinew of steel and breath of fire for a messenger, that the time may not come, when the diverse interests of the Pacific states may induce their inhabitants to form a government of their own.

It is a well known fact in history, that a country divided by a great natural barrier, cannot remain long under one government, but that their several interests call for separate governments. The great natural barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific States is, the Rocky mountains and the deserts, which can only be overcome by railroads, which will bring the two sides of the continent within a few days of each other, and render much now useless territory available, either in an agricultural, manufacturing or commercial point of view. Although the country, from the Missouri river to the Pacific, is quite as well adapted to the building of railroads--if we except the Nevada Mountains, and this exception would not apply to the Oregon route--as any of the eastern States, yet no private company can, or should be allowed to build such road, but it should be a national work, and subject to the regulation of the government, for the good of the people, when completed. If it should be built by a private company, it would become one of the greatest and worst monopolies in the country, rivaling the British East India company monopoly. This may not be so evident to a person who has not traveled the route, but I believe that every thinking man who has traveled it will agree with me. This is a matter which it were well for our legislators to consider well and act upon before it is too late, for it will soon be found that those routes now opening through Central America and the Isthmus, will not answer the wants of the growing commerce with the Pacific, and every year is cementing the bonds of interest between California and Oregon, and the Spanish countries on the Pacific.

But I must bring my work to a close, and bid farewell to California, its lofty snow capped peaks, its beautiful valleys, its flowery plains, its rapids, rivers and broad bays. Farewell! It was with a feeling of sadness, that I turned, on the last range of hills to look back towards those busy valleys teeming with life and energy, and when on the planks of the vessel crossing the bar into the broad ocean, I turned to look for the last time on the Queen City of the Pacific, embosomed in hills, by the sparkling waters of the Bay. But home, family and friends, call me away.

Farewell Reader!

Improved Farms for Sale.

_A RARE CHANCE FOR EMIGRANTS AND OTHERS WISHING TO PURCHASE IMPROVED FARMS._

The undersigned, Real Estate Agent, has constantly at his disposal, Improved Farms of various size and quality of improvement, which he offers for sale to Emigrants and others as cheap, if not cheaper than can be bought in the Western country. These farms are located in and about Antioch, Lake county, Illinois; also in McHenry county, Ill., and Kenosha county, Wisconsin.

They are situated in one of the most desirable sections of the western country, are mostly opening timber and small prairie, combining the advantages of excellent land, easy of cultivation, with abundance of timber and fuel, and good water on the same farm. The country is well watered by the Fox and O'Plain rivers and their branches, and by numerous small clear lakes of excellent water, well stocked with fish.

The country around is one of the best stock and grain countries in the world, and from its proximity to Lake Michigan, and to the valuable markets, which its numerous part towns afford, and the cheapness of improved farms, the emigrant cannot find a more desirable country to locate in.--All who are desirous of purchasing a farm will find it for their interest to give the undersigned a call at Antioch, Lake county, Illinois, before buying elsewhere.

Antioch is a flourishing village, situated in the north-west corner of the county, four miles east of Fox River, and one mile south from the Wisconsin State line. It has two dry goods stores, one shoe store, one hotel, a saw-mill, and various mechanics, and more are wanted. Chicago is distant 48 miles south and east; Waukegan 17 miles south and east; Kenosha 18 miles north and east; Racine 25 miles north and east, Milwaukee 42 miles north and east, consequently Antioch has _five lake cities_ within a day's drive of it. There are five flouring mills, and five saw-mills within 12 miles of the village, two of which and three saw-mills are within six miles of it. Besides these, a company has been formed and a part of the stock subscribed for a steam flouring mill to be built in the village, and a Plank Road is in contemplation of being built directly from Waukegan to Antioch. The country around being removed from the raw winds near Lake Michigan, and at the same time near enough to it for all practical wants, is one of the most desirable to locate in that the emigrant, seeking a new home in the far west, will be able to find, combining all the advantages of proximity to good markets, and good lands, good society, and everything that the heart of man can desire. Remember to call on the undersigned, who will give you the best bargains in farms that can be got in this country.

The following is the route from different cities on the Lake to Antioch: From Chicago to Dutchman's Point, 12 miles; to Indian Creek 26 miles; to Libertyville 32 miles; to Antioch 48 miles.