SATURDAY, OCT. 7. I had come to the mines without a pick, but this morning fell in with a trader who had one for sale: his price was ten dollars in specie, or eighteen in gold dust. I gave him the specie; the pick weighed about four pounds, was of rude manufacture, and without a handle; but this appendage was readily supplied from the limb of an ash. Thus accoutred I strode down the ravine, not doubting but what I should, before night, strike upon some deposit which would fill my pockets. Passing groups who were engaged in digging into this bank and that, I fell in with a sailor, whom I recognized as one of the men who had been honorably discharged from the Savannah. He was groping about as if in quest of something he had lost. “What is the matter, Jones?” I inquired; he sprung to his feet, gave me his rough hand, and pointed to a cliff which overhung the glen. “There, on that crag,” said he, “I have been at work ever since the peep of day, and got out several bits of gold, and one good-sized lump: I put them in my tin cup, when, striking away again, my pick glanced, struck the cup, and knocked it, gold and all, half-way across this ravine; and I might as well hunt a clam in the Pacific as that gold, though it was a jewel of a piece—the biggest I have seen here.” So I laid down my pick, ascended the cliff, ascertained, as near as possible, the direction in which the cup flew, and commenced the search. Every bunch of leaves, every hole and gulley were examined, and the cup recovered, but the gold was not in it. Fatigued, I threw myself into the shade of a scrub-oak, and went to sleep; but the gold of poor Jones glanced through my dreams. I saw, in that fantastic realm, a small birch-tree, a bubbling spring at its root, and in its fount a piece of gold. I seemed to know at the time it was only a dream; still the picture remained in my mind so clear, so distinct, that on awaking I identified at a glance the birch, and springing to its root found the little fount, and with a hoe fetched up the piece of gold!—the same that had been lost, for none other could answer so exactly to the description which had been given. It weighed about three ounces, but did not seem larger than the sparkling eye of the sailor as I placed it in his hand. They may laugh who will at dreams, but now and then some Sibyl leaf floats through them. I tried to dream again where gold might be found; saw plenty of birch-trees and fountains, but never discovered an ingot in either.