The most prominent man in the neighborhood of the "diggins," is Captain Sutter, the Daniel Boone of that part of the country. He was formerly an officer in the Swiss guards of Charles X. of France. After the revolution of 1830, in that country, he came to the United States. Emigrating to California, he obtained a grant of land from the Mexican government, and founded the settlement known as Sutter's Fort. Upon his land, the first discovery of the richness of the soil was made, and his house and the settlement around it has been, ever since, the resort of persons going to and from the _placers_, and a depot for provisions and articles used by the miners. Stores and workshops have been established, and a considerable amount of business is transacted there. Captain Sutter is held in very great respect by the people of the settlement and those stopping at his house on the road to the _placers_. Several versions of the account of the discovery of the gold mines have been circulated, but the true one, in the Captain's own words, is given in a work recently published.[6] The account is here inserted, both on account of the interest connected with the discovery, and in order to correct wrong versions of the matter. "I was sitting one afternoon," said the Captain, "just after my siesta, engaged, by-the-bye, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshall--a gentleman with whom I had frequent business transactions--bursting hurriedly into the room. From the unusual agitation in his manner, I imagined that something serious had occurred, and, as we involuntarily do in this part of the world, I at once glanced to see if my rifle was in its proper place. You should know that the mere appearance of Mr. Marshall at that moment in the fort was quite enough to surprise me, as he had but two days before left the place to make some alterations in a mill for sawing pine planks, which he had just run up for me, some miles higher up the Americanos. When he had recovered himself a little, he told me that, however great my surprise might be at his unexpected reappearance, it would be much greater when I heard the intelligence he had come to bring me. 'Intelligence,' he added, 'which, if properly profited by, would put both of us in possession of unheard-of wealth--millions and millions of dollars, in fact.' I frankly own, when I heard this, that I thought something had touched Marshall's brain, when suddenly all my misgivings were put an end to by his flinging on the table a handful of scales of pure virgin gold. I was fairly thunderstruck, and asked him to explain what all this meant, when he went on to say, that, according to my instructions, he had thrown the mill-wheel out of gear, to let the whole body of the water in the dam find a passage through the tail-race, which was previously too narrow to allow the water to run off in sufficient quantity, whereby the wheel was prevented from efficiently performing its work.