“To give you an instance, however, of the amount of metal in the soil—which I had from a miner on the spot, three Englishmen bought a claim, 30 feet by 100 feet, for fourteen hundred dollars. It had been twice before bought and sold for considerable sums, each party who sold it supposing it to be nearly exhausted. In three weeks the Englishmen paid their fourteen hundred dollars, and cleared thirteen dollars a-day besides for their trouble. This claim, which is not an unusually rich one, though it has perhaps been more successfully worked, has produced in eighteen months over twenty thousand dollars, or five thousand pounds’ worth of gold.”[9] Mr Coke is here describing the riches of a spot on the immediate banks of the river, where circumstances had caused a larger proportion than usual of that gold to be collected, or thrown together—which the river, in cutting out its gravelly channel, had separated or _rocked out_, as we have described in the previous part of this article. This rich spot, therefore, is by no means a fair sample of the country, though, from Mr Coke’s matter-of-fact language, many might be led to think so. Few spots so small in size could reasonably be expected to yield so rich a store of gold, though its accumulation in this spot certainly does imply that the quantity of gold diffused through the drift of the country may in reality be very great. It may be so, however, and yet not pay for the labour required to extract it. That many rich prizes have been obtained by fortunate and steady men in these diggings, there can be no doubt; and yet, if we ask what benefit the emigrant diggers, as a whole, have obtained, the information we possess shows it to be far from encouraging. On this subject we find, in one of the books before us, the following information:—[10] “The inaccessibility of the _placers_, the diseases, the hardships, and the _very moderate remuneration resulting to the great mass of the miners_, were quite forgotten or omitted—in the communications and reports of a few only excepted. “A few have made, and will hereafter make, fortunes there, and very many of those who remain long enough will accumulate something; but the great mass, all of whom expected to acquire large amounts of gold in a short time, must be comparatively disappointed. I visited California to dig gold, but chose to abandon that purpose rather than expose life and health in the mines; and as numbers were already seeking employment in San Francisco without success, and I had neither the means nor the inclination to speculate, I resolved to return to my family, and resume my business at home.”—(P. 207.) Thousands, we believe, have followed Mr Johnson’s example; and thousands more would have lived longer and happier, had they been courageous enough, like him, to return home unsuccessful.