Numerous small wooden crosses were placed throughout the mine, in niches cut in the rock for their reception, and each separate part of the mine was named after a saint who was supposed to take those working in it under his immediate protection. The day before I visited the place had been some saint’s day, and the Mexicans, who of course had made a holiday of it, had employed themselves in erecting, on the side of the hill over the mine, a large cross, about ten feet high, and had completely clothed it with the beautiful wild-flowers which grew around in the greatest profusion. In fact, it was a gigantic cruciform nosegay, the various colors of which were arranged with a great deal of taste. This mine is on the great quartz vein which traverses the whole State of California. It has a direction northeast and southwest, perfectly true by compass; and from many points where an extensive view of the country is obtained, it can be distinctly traced for a great distance as it “crops out” here and there, running up a hillside like a colossal stone wall, and then disappearing for many miles, till, true to its course, it again shows itself crowning the summit of some conical-shaped mountain, and appearing in the distant view like so many short white strokes, all forming parts of the same straight line. The general belief was that at one time all the gold in the country had been imbedded in quartz, which, being decomposed by the action of the elements, had set the gold at liberty, to be washed away with other debris, and to find a resting-place for itself. Rich diggings were frequently found in the neighborhood of quartz veins, but not invariably so, for different local causes must have operated to assist the gold in traveling from its original starting-point. As a general rule, the richest diggings seemed to be in the rivers at those points where the eddies gave the gold an opportunity of settling down instead of being borne further along by the current, or in those places on the highlands where, owing to the flatness of the surface or the want of egress, the debris had been retained while the water ran off; for the first idea one formed from the appearance of the mountains was, that they had been very severely washed down, but that there had been sufficient earth and debris to cover their nakedness, and to modify the sharp angularity of their formation.