Gold mining was neither novel nor rare, but the unexampled combination of wonderful richness, highly favorable geographical conditions, high intelligence in the miners, and great freedom in the political institutions of California led to such a sudden rush of people, and such an immense production of gold, that the whole world was shaken. The older placers of Brazil and Siberia, and the later ones of Australia and South Africa, had a much smaller influence on general commerce and manufactures. The discovery of the mines was an American achievement. It was the result of the American conquest, and of preparation for American immigrants. It was made by an American, one of a little group of laborers in which all the white men were Americans, as were the first men who devoted themselves to mining. They also were Americans who subsequently invented the sluice and the hydraulic process of placer-washing, and who planned and constructed the great ditches, flumes, and dams that gave a distinctive character to the placer-mining of California. Let us now consider the consequences of the discovery. First, as to the men at Coloma in January, 1848, Marshall was not enriched. His lumber was soon in demand at $500 a thousand feet of board measure, or twenty-fold more than he had expected when he commenced his work; but not many months elapsed before all the good timber trees near Coloma had been cut down by the miners, and then the mill had to stop. He turned his attention to mining, but was not successful. When he had money he did not know how to keep it. When he had a good claim he did not stick to it. [Illustration: Marshall Monument at Coloma (erected in 1889 by the Society of the Native Sons of the Golden West).] Sutter's popularity with the pioneers was so great that when he had lost all his property the legislature came to his aid with a pension of $3,000 a year, which sum was paid for six years; and it would perhaps have been continued till his death if he had not left the State in order to demand justice from Congress for the spoliation of his property. But he did not possess the same popularity and influence in the Eastern States as in California. He spent winters of vain solicitation at Washington, and there he died on the 18th of June, 1880, at the age of seventy-seven years. His grave is at Litiz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he had made his home.