forma, states that the first gold was found in the
Santa Clara valley m 1833, and that other deposits
were discovered in various places in the Sierra Madre,
Blount, the pioneer, assured Bishop Kip in 1864, that thirty years before, that is to say in 1834, he en- countered ore, which at the time he thought to be copper, but then knew to be gold. The bishop dis- plays extreme credulity even in repeating such a statement. About on a par with this is the assertion of Mr Gray, who wrote what he calls a History of Oregon, that two jovial priests, brought to the Oregon coasts by the Hudson's Bay Company, discovered, when wandering among the Bocky Mountains, pure silver and golden ores, specimens of which they car- ried to St Louis and Europe. What their jollity had to do with it the historian does not explain ; nor does he give us proof that any assertion of this kind was made by them prior to the discovery of Marshall.
Governor Alvarado thinks it impertinence on the part of Sutter and Marshall to claim the honor of the gold discovery ; for in the fourth volume of his His- toria de California he observes, " que el pueblo Amer- icano es esencialmente egoista cuando trata de hacer aparecer al senor Marshal] como primer descubridor del oro en California ; que en buena hora la legislatura de premios y pensiones a quienes se le Antoje, yo no me mezelo en esos asuntos, desde que mi voz seria demasiado clebil para efectuar reformas que la mayo- ria de los legisladores no desean ver implantadas ; pero exijo que no se cina con laureles que de justicia perte- necen a mis compatriotas, la frente de Sutter, Mar- shall y demas aventureros que a cada bienio se presentan ante la legislatura del Estado reclamando recompensas por servicios que han estado muy lejos de prestar, y por descubrimientos que habian sido hechos mas de quince anos antes que los titulados descubridores del oro Viniesen a California."
My old friend Warner gives the most plausible ex- planation as to the origin of the many ungrounded
