TUESDAY, OCT. 31. I have collected, since my arrival in the mines, several singular and beautiful specimens of the gold. One of the pieces resembles a pendulous ear-drop, and must have assumed that shape when the metal was in a state of fusion. That all the gold here has once been in that state is sufficiently evident from the forms in which it is found. I have a specimen, weighing several ounces, in which the characteristics of the slate rock are as palpable as if they had been engraved. I have another specimen, in which a clear crystal of quartz is set, with a finish of execution which no jeweller can rival. I have another specimen still, where the gold gleams up, in the shape of buck-shot, from a basis of sandstone; and another still, where it has taken the form of a paper-folder, and may be used to cut the leaves of a book, which have escaped the knife of the binder. A most interesting cabinet of curiosities might be gathered from the variety of combinations and forms which the gold in these mines has assumed. Nature never indulged in fancies more elegant and whimsical. If these are the works of the volcano, then jewellers, instead of looking to the laboratories of Paris, or Amsterdam, for models, should come and seat themselves by the side of these craters. Here are laboratories, which no human power has constructed, and models, which no human skill can rival. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 1. There are several persons among the gold-diggers here who rarely use any implement but their wooden bowls. Into these they scrape the dirt left by others, which they stir and whirl till the gold gradually works its way to the bottom. The earth, as these heavier particles descend, is thrown off by the hands, and the gold remains. This process is what they call dry washing: it is resorted to where there is no water in the vicinity, and will answer pretty well where the gold is found in coarse grains; but the finer particles, of course, escape. The Sonoranians obviate this difficulty to some extent by calling their lungs into requisition. They rub the earth into their bowls, through their hands, detaching and throwing away all the pebbles, and then blow off the sand and dust, leaving the gold at the bottom. But on some of the streams, particularly the Yuba, the gold is too fine even for this process. It is amusing to see a group of Sonoranians, seated around a deposit, blowing the earth out of their bowls. But for the dust they raise, you would think they were cooling hasty-pudding. Their cheeks swell out, like the chops of a squirrel, carrying half the beech-nuts on a tree to his hole. A more provident fellow he than his two-legged superior! He lays in his stores against the inclemency of winter; while the Sonoranian squanders his at the gambling-table. There is more practical wisdom in an ant-hill than is often found in a city. But I am digressing again—a propensity which I shall never get over.