the streams, and in the ravines which they had
traversed. But so common were these reports, so
familiar were the conquerors with the presence of
precious metals everywhere within the subjugated
domain, that a sprinkling more or less, here or there,
was little regarded. Nevertheless, it is reported that
later they built furnaces, and brought sand from the
seashore to be used in smelting antimonial silver lead.
A map was made of southern California in 1775
by a priest showing the explorations of the Jesuits on
the Colorado river for several hundred miles, and
thence to the Tulare valley. J. H. Carson is the
author of a little book, printed in Stockton in 1852,
entitled Early Recollections of the Mines, and a Descrip-
tion of the Great Tulare Valley, and worth fifty times
its weight m gold. This writer was informed that in
the Mexican archives was a letter from a priest, dated
at one of the Jesuit missions in 1776, notifying the
government that while searching the mountains for
mission sites he and his confreres had met with pure
silver in masses weighing several tons, and that they
had forbidden all mention of the matter under pain
of excommunication and death, lest a sudden influx
of population should destroy their schemes for con-
version. Upon the strength of this assertion Wright
and his associates fitted out an expedition under a
Mr Hoyt, who proceeding to California from Mexico,
in due time sent back a letter with rich spechnens of
silver ore, almost solid, as Mr Wright declared.
Neither Hoyt or any of the party returned, nor were
they ever heard from; and it was supposed that they
were murdered by the natives. Exploring at a much
later period in the vicinity of Moore creek, Carson
encountered a shaft sunk apparently twelve or twenty
years before. Part of the windlass was still standing,
though in a state of decay, and the place agreed with
the description given by Hoyt. When Carson ques-
tioned the natives about it, he was told that the shaft
had been sunk by Mexicans who had been in that
