By this time, we are not entirely dependent on American books or newspaper correspondence for intelligence from the Californian mines. Some portion of the gold that has come to this country has been brought by the finders; and only the other day, a party of them reached England, having left the diggings as lately as the beginning of October. The details obtained from these men, who are of various European countries, confirm, in all important particulars, the statements of Mr Johnson, with merely the difference of tint imparted by failure and success. Either easily discouraged or physically unequal to encounter the hardships inseparable from the search for and extraction of the gold, Mr Johnson, disappointed in his sanguine expectations, makes a sombre report of the speculation; whereas these more persevering and prosperous miners, having safely returned to Europe, their pockets full of "chunks," scales and dust of the most undeniable purity and excellence, naturally give a more rose-coloured view of the enterprise. They admit, however, (to use the words of one of them,) that "it takes a smart lad to do good in California," and that it is useless for any one to go thither unless prepared to rough it, in the fullest sense of the word. At first, they inform us the amount of theft and outrage was very great; but summary and severe punishment checked this. Mr Johnson deplores the existence of Lynch-law. It really appears to us that California is the very place where such a system is not only justifiable, but indispensable. One miner stated that he belonged to a band or club, thirty in number, who threw together all the gold they found, and shared alike; sharp penalties being denounced against any member of the society who attempted to divert his findings from the common stock. The amount obtained by each member of this joint-stock company during the season of eight or nine months was equivalent to thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds sterling. Not quite the "adequate competency" anticipated by Mr Theodore T. Johnson, but still a very pretty gain for men, most of whom would probably have found it impossible, in any other way, and in the same time, to earn a tithe of the amount. More than one of them proposed, after depositing his treasure safely in Europe, to augment it by a second trip to the gold region; and held the time occupied by the voyage to and fro as little loss, digging being impeded by the winter snows. The winter of 1848-9 was very severe, the snow lying four feet deep on the mountains, and having fallen even on the coast; a circumstance unprecedented in California, whose Spanish and Indian inhabitants attributed the disagreeable phenomenon to the American intruders. Notwithstanding this unwonted rigour, however, we learn from Mr Johnson that "large numbers of hardy and industrious Oregonians spent the last _winter_ in the mines of California, generally with success commensurate with their perseverance,