with-
drawn during the revolution. A large body of natives, headed by his brother who was a chief, then attacked and killed the miners, and the priests who were with them ; since which time the lode has not been worked, and the place had been forgotten by all except those engaged in the massacre. M. S. Brockway saw there in 1851 veins of antimonial silver.
Count Scala writing in the Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, in 1854, asserts that although local tradition has not preserved any souvenir of the excursions of the Russians into the auriferous regions which have since been of such value to California, yet there are unanswerable proofs that several officers of the Rus- sian company have at different times, between the 3' ears 1812 and 1841, procured a considerable quantity of metal from the native tribes of Yuba and Cliico. " Nous montreros tout a I'heure," he goes on to say, " que c'est aux Russes de Bodega que les Americains sont redevables de 1' heureuse decouverte qui leur donne aujourd' hui la faculte d'etendre leur souver- ainete dans la Nou\elle-Grenade et le Nicaragua, et d'imposer leur influence a toutes les republiques es- pagnoles du Pacifique." In proof of his premise Scala's chain of argument is not in every link consis- tent with fact. I will give it for what it is worth. He does not know how it occurred, or what might have been the nature of the services which Sutter had rendered to the government of Archangel, but certain it is that one day the captain arrived in Cali- fornia well recommended to the authorities at Ross and Bodetja. M. Gorieff, a rich merchant established at Yakoutsk, pretends to have shown him in 1838 or 1839 a score of "kilos de lingots d'or et de pepites," which he had gathered five years before in the Sac- ramento valley, while on an excursion with the ciboleros of the company. And Gorieff- counselled Sutter to devote himself exclusively to the investigation of these auriferous lands. However that might have been, Scala continues, "no one then in California was igno-
