And then, O Squib, he set out to explain that he meant "gneiss," not "nice!" The ignorance of these English about a joke is really wonderful. It is easy to see that they have never been brought up on them. But perhaps there was some excuse for the professor that day, for he was the president _pro tem._ of our projected temperance society, and as such he head been making a quantitative and qualitative analysis of another kind of quartz. So much for the chemist or metallurgist or something scientific. The gentleman and I get on better. His name is Beaver, which he persists in spelling Beauvoir. Ridiculous, isn't it? How easy it is to see that the English have never had the advantage of a good common-school education--so few of them can spell. Here's a man don't know how to spell his own name. And this shows how the race over there on the little island is degenerating. It was not so in other days. Shakspere, for instance, not only knew how to spell his own name, but--and this is another proof of his superiority to his contemporaries--he could spell it in half a dozen different ways. This Beaver is a clever fellow, and we get on first rate together. He is going to California for gold--like the rest of us. But I think he has had his share--and spent it. At any rate he has not much now. I have been teaching him poker, and I am afraid he won't have any soon. I have an idea he has been going pretty fast--and mostly down hill. But he has his good points. He is a gentleman all through, as you can see. Yes, friend Squibob, even you could see right through him. We are all going to California together, and I wonder which one of the three will turn up trumps first--Beaver, or the chemist, metallurgist or something scientific, or Yours respectfully, JOHN PHOENIX. P.S. You think this a stupid letter, perhaps, and not interesting. Just reflect on my surroundings. Besides, the interest will accumulate a good while before you get the missive. And I don't know how you ever are to get it, for there is no post-office near here, and on the Isthmus the mails are as uncertain as the females are everywhere. (I am informed that there is no postage on old jokes--so I let that stand.) J.P. DOCUMENT NO. 11. _Extract from the "Bone Gulch Palladium," June 3d, 1850:_