since visited, and how much metal has been taken
from them ?
Perhaps twenty times the following passage -in Shelvocke, A Voyage Round the World in 1719-22, by no means a rare or remarkable book, has been pointed out to me by men whose superficial investigations have led them to believe that gold was known to exist in California nearlv two centuries aoo. Here is the passage : " The eastern coast of that part of California which I had a sight of, appears to be mountainous, barren and sandy, and very like some parts of Peru ; but nevertheless, the soil about Puerto Seguro, and very likely in most of the valleys, is a rich, black mould, which as you turn it fresh up to the sun ap- pears as if intermingled with gold dust, some of which we endeavored to wash and purify from the dirt; but though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mhigled with common earth, yet we endeavored to cleanse and wash the earth from some of it, and the more we did the more it appeared like gold ; but in order to be further satisfied, I brought away some of it which we lost in our confusions in China."
Now in the first place this navigator— whose map by the way shows the two Californias together as an island — never was in Alta California at all; and sec- ondly, he may or he may not have seen particles of something resembling gold at Cape St Lucas, the only pomt at which he touched. In a word, what- ever he saw or said has nothing whatever to do with the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills. And yet I have seen printed in more than one Pacific coast newspaper this statement of Shelvocke's without any reference to the fact, and apparently without the knowledge of it, that the California referred to was not Upper California.
At the time Shelvocke was engaged in his circum- navigation, the Hudson's Bay Company was explor-
