--_Philadelphia Times._
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.
It was on the 19th day of January, 1848, that James W. Marshall, while
engaged in digging a race for a saw-mill at Coloma, about thirty-five
miles eastward from Sutter's Fort, found some pieces of yellow metal,
which he and the half-dozen men working with him at the mill supposed to
be gold. He felt confident that he had made a discovery of great
importance, but he knew nothing of either chemistry or gold-mining, so
he could not prove the nature of the metal nor tell how to obtain it in
paying quantities. Every morning he went down to the race to look for
the bits of metal; but the other men at the mill thought Marshall was
very wild in his ideas, and they continued their labors in building the
mill, and in sowing wheat and planting vegetables. The swift current of
the mill-race washed away a considerable body of earthy matter, leaving
the coarse particles of gold behind; so Marshall's collection of
specimens continued to accumulate, and his associates began to think
there might be something in his gold mines after all. About the middle
of February, a Mr. Bennett, one of the party employed at the mill, went
to San Francisco for the purpose of learning whether this metal was
precious, and there he was introduced to Isaac Humphrey, who had washed
for gold in Georgia. The experienced miner saw at a glance that he
had the true stuff before him, and, after a few inquiries, he was
satisfied that the diggings must be rich.
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