California as it is, and as it may be : $b or, A guide to the gold regionWierzbicki, Felix Paul
History
California as it is, and as it may be : $b or, A guide to the gold region
Wierzbicki, Felix Paul
California -- Description and travel; California -- Gold discoveries
On the Feather river and the Yuba, there were very good diggings;
crowds of people, whites and Indians, have worked there for these two
seasons; however, by going farther up these rivers some untouched
spots may be found. We will remark here once for all, that the higher
you go up the rivers the greater difficulties you will meet in getting
over the ground, as they are more inaccessible; at the same time mules
and horses are needed to carry you and your provisions, and you may
also lack grass for your animals. But to know how far one may go up
the rivers of the gold region, he must exercise his judgment, and he
may depend on this fact, that there is no gold at the heads of these
rivers, as we have examined them, and they all spring in the Sierra
Nevada; as soon as you see the oak and red soil disappear from the
hills surrounding them, you need not go beyond this line farther than
from five to ten miles to convince yourself there is no gold there.
The Bear Creek was not very rich in the precious metal, and now may
be less so as it has been worked. On these rivers people generally
were making an ounce per day, some much more; but how long it may
continue so we are not able to say. These rivers being accessible for a
considerable distance to waggons, diggers crowded there, as provisions
were cheaper there than anywhere else. These rivers have their forks,
or in other words, tributaries of more or less importance. Below the
mouth of these forks it is well to look for deposits of gold in the
main streams. The Bear Creek has a tributary called the North Fork, in
extent probably from forty to fifty miles. The Yuba has two forks on
the north bank of some importance. The distance from the Bear Creek
to the Yuba in some places hardly can be more than ten miles. The
general course of the Bear Creek is West by North nearly; it meets the
Feather river about ten miles below the Yuba, which likewise mingles
its waters with the latter. The Feather river, which heads far at the
North, taking almost a parallel course with the Sacramento, runs on in
a South-Westerly direction, and having thus accumulated its waters is
lost in the last mentioned majestic stream some distance below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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