obtained " he said. ** I requested him to let me get a
negative, from which I would have pictures taken
and sold in San Francisco for his benefit, but he re-
fused indignantly. The thought of the injustice that
had been done him made him unhappy. He wanted
no allusion made to the debt due by California to him.
Others have been loaded with wealth and honor, and
he has been left to struggle along; in poverty and ob-
scurity, he who discovered the gold that made Cali-
fornia what it is." Poor Marshall ! Too simple and
sensitive by half 1 Had he made the gold, and it had
been stolen from him by an ungrateful republic, he
would not have been in his own opinion more cruelly
wronged than by this neglect to reward him for —
what? Yet we can but feel kindly toward the man
who, though mistaken in what constitutes greatness,
and merit worthy of public reward, was nevertheless
well-meaning, honest, and industrious. His name will
forever be conspicuous in the annals of the country,
howsoever accidentally it became so.
Yet far more than in picking from the historic tail- race the first particle of the divine dirt founcl there, Marshall had often played the hero. The world knows its impudent men, its brassy, bellowing fellows; but how few of its real noblemen ! Many generous deeds are recorded of Marshall while in the war ; and it was not an unmanly act, the saving his saw-mill, in the way he did, from a freshet which threatened it just before the discovery of gold. The dam was built of brush with the butts laid down stream. The rains coming on, the river rose, and fears were entertained that the works would all be swept away. Side by side with his men, Marshall worked day and night, and received therefor the praise of his partner, and the respect and admiration of his associates. Up to his waist in water, in constant peril of his life, for many hours he worked, and finally succeeded in anchoring the mill in safety.
Marshall claimed to have been the cause of the dis-
