kaow, ' said jSIar.sliall to me, ' I jjosi tively debated within myself two or three
tlmeo, whether I should take the trouble to bend my back to pick lip one of
the pieces, and had decided on not doing so, when, further on, another glit-
tering morsel caught my eye — the largest of the pieces now Viefore you. I
condescended to pick it up, and to my astoniihinent found that it wan a thin
scale of what appears to be pure gold. ' He then gathered some twenty or
thirty similar pieces, which on e^camination convinced him that his supposi-
tions were right. His first impression was that this gold h.ad been lost or
buried there by some early Indian tribe — perhaps some of those mysterious
inhabitants of the west, of whom we have no account, but w!io dwelt on this
continent centuries ago, and built those cit-ies and temples, the ruins of which
are .■scattered about these solitary wilds. On proceeding, however, to examizie
the neighboring soil, he discovered that it v^as more or less auriferous. This
ai once decided him. He mounted his horse and rode down to me as fast as
it would carry him, with the news. At the conclusion of Mr Marshall's ac-
count, continued Captain Sutter, and when I had convinced myself, from
the specimens he had brought with him, that it M'as not exaggerated, I felt
as mucli excited as himself. I eagerly enquired if lie had shown the gold to
the work-people at the mill, and was glad to hear that he had not spoken to a
single person al)out it. We agreed, said the capta'n, smihng, not to r.'.en-
tion the circum itance to anyone, and arranged to set off early the next day
for the mill. On our arrival, just before sundown, we poked the sand about
in various places, and before long succeeded in collecting between us more
than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good deal of sand. I stayed at INIr
Marshall's that night, and the next day we jiroceeded some little distance up
the south fork, and found that gold existed along the whole course; not only
in the bed of the main stream, where the water had subsided, but in every
little dried-up creek and ravine. Indeed, I think it is more plentiful in these
latter places, for I, myself, with nothing more than a small knife, picked out
frona a dry gorge, a little way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold which
weighed nearly an ounce and a half. On our return to the mill, we were
astonished by the work-people coming up to ii.5 ia a body, and showing ui
small flakes of gold similar to those we had ourselves procured. ]\Iar::hall
tried to laugh the matter off with them, and to persuade them that what
they had found was only some shining mineral of trilling value; but one of
the Indians, who l:ad worked at the gold mine in the neighborhood of La
Paz, in Lower California, cried out 'oro! oro!' We were disappointed enough
at this discovery, and supposed that the work-people had been watching cur
movements, although we thoiiglit we had taken every precaution against
being observed by tiiera. I heard afterwards that one of them, a sly Ken-
tuckian, had dogged us about, and that, looking on the ground to see if he
could discover what we were in search of, had lighted on some flakes of gold
himself.
The following is an account taken by Mary P. Winslow, in December 1874, from Mrs Wiemer, who, with her husband, was then in San Francisco seekiniy relief from the society of Pioneers. The writer speaks of Mrs Wiemer as a fine large woman of some sixty summers, with an intelligent kindly face.
We arrived here November 1846, with a party of fourteen families, across the plains from Missouri. On arriving at Sutter's fort, Sacramento, we found Fremont in need of more men. My husband enlisted before we had got the oxen unyoked, and left me and seven children at the fort m the care of Commissary Currin. We drew our rations like common soldiers for four months. Captain Sutter arranged a room for us in the fort. As soon as Mr Wiemer returned from Santa Clara, where he had been station
