minds of ignorant persons wlio receive tliem at second
or twentietli hand, lead to remarks like the following
by Mr Simpson, author of Three Weeks in the Gold
Regions, 'published in 1848. *' It is also known that
an expedition was fitted out by the governor of Sonora
during the last century, which owing to various dis-
courao-ements failed.
~ . . . /t
In his Travels in Mexico, when near the mouth of
the Colorado in 1826, Lieutenant Hardy says: "The sand is full of a o'litteringr sort of tinsel, which shines beautifully when the sun is upon it. It is common all over Sonora, and is, I imagine, nothing more than broken laminae of talc, the, surface of which being probably in a state of decomposition, the original color is changed to that of copper and gold. It crumbles easily between the fingers, and cannot there- fore be metallic ; but its delusive appearance may pos- sibly have given rise to the reports, which were spread, as it is supposed, by the Jesuits, who formerly endeavored to make an establishment upon the river, of gold dust being intermixed with the sand." Fay- ette Robinson thinks the Jesuit priests were aware of the existence of gold in California, meaning Lower California, but carefully diverted the attention of the natives from it in favor of mission labor. Osio in his manuscript Historia de California expresses the opinion that the Franciscans were too busy with conversions to ascertain whether the river sands held gold. The recent conjectures, he says, that they knew of gold are not probable, because the secret could not have been kept among so many.
Since 1775 the Mexicans have met with silver in the vicinity of the Colorado, and some say with small de- posits of placer gold, but with none that would yield profitable returns. Very soon after the organization of the missions in Lower California, converted Indians sent into the upper country to persuade the natives there to listen to the teachings of the padres, talked, on their return, of the shining sand that they saw in
