A company of nineteen have just commenced damming the river at the head of an island above the falls, nearly a mile in length, by which they expect to lay bare the channel, on one side, the whole length of the island. The proceedings of a meeting of the company to-day, with reference to my admission, were truly Californian. It was first resolved that I should be admitted, and then, as they had been at work two days, that I should furnish the company five bottles of brandy as the condition of my membership. The brandy was bought and drank, and then a committee waited upon me to notify me that I was a member, and that the trader had furnished them brandy to the amount of $10 on my account. As they knew that there was no other way by which they could obtain a “treat” from me, it was bought and drank before I was informed of the transaction. On my way from Weaver’s Creek yesterday, I made the acquaintance of an intelligent gentleman from Washington City, who had held there a profitable office under government, and had left a family behind him. He came hoping to better a good condition. A few days labor in the mines was sufficient to convince him that it would have been better to “let well enough alone.” His is not a solitary case. The mines are full of such. The wonderful instances of success which those at home are made to believe are common, are about in the proportion of one to a thousand. Of the nine hundred and ninety-nine cases of failure, or at least of limited success, those at a distance know nothing--nothing of the privations and discouragements, trials, dangers, and deaths.