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nents of the so-called old world. White people heard of it, and black people ; coppery, red, and yellow peo- ple,— came rushing in from every quarter, all eager for some of the delectable dirt.
Much has been written regarding the Coloma gold- discovery. Much about it worth knowing remains unwritten. The choicest unpublished information to my knowledge is that contained in the manuscript of Henry W. Bigler, Diary of a Mormon in California, who was on the ground at the time, with a remarkably clear head and ready pen. The statement given me by Mr Sutter at Litiz, and contained in the manuscript entitled Personal Reininisceiices of General John Augus- tus Gutter, is also exceedingly interesting and valuable. I will herewith present verbatim several of the more important accounts of the discovery.
Marshall was a queer genius. I speak with exact- ness, for he was both a genius and queer. I have in my possession an old daguerreotype which is unlike any other portrait that I have seen. Parson's Life of Marshall is the best book upon the subject extant. Naturally kind and humane, his mind dreamy while his faculties were in repose, but of cragged disposition and inclined to be a little fierce when roused, all along his later life he was made morose by what he deemed injustice and neglect on the part of the people, and of the government. "The enterprising energy of which the orators and editors of California's early golden days boasted so much as belonging to Yankeedom," he.writes bitterly in 1857, "was not national but indi- vidual. Of the profits derived from the enterprise it stands thus, Yankeedom $600,000,000; myself indi- vidually $000,000,000. Ask the records of the coun- try for the reason why ? They will answer, I need not. Were 1 an Englishman, and had made my dis- covery on English soil, the case would have been different." Mr Hittell visited him at Coloma in his retirement, where he alone remained of all those early discoverers. "No photograph of him has ever been
