n, 332.
building erected, water was turned into the flume on the 24th, and the fall being considerable, washed out a hole near the base of the mill on reaching the tail-race, whereupon Marshall, Sutter's partner, and superintendent of the party, examined the spot, fear- ing that the water would undermine the foundations. While thus engaged, he observed there pieces of yel- low glistening metal, and picking up a handful put them in his pocket, not knowing what they were, and supposing probably that he had found nothing more valuable than iron pyrites.
They were no iron pyrites, however, that Marshall had found, but, as it proved, nuggets of gold, the largest of them being worth about five dollars. The discovery was revealed in confidence to three of the saints, who unearthed a few more specimens, and soon afterward removed to a sand-bar in the Sacramento river, since known as Mormon Island. Here was gold in paying quantities, the average earnings of each man being twenty to thirty dollars per day. But though dust and nuggets were freely shown to the brethren, there were few who would believe their senses, and for weeks the matter caused no excitement. At length, however, the secret was disclosed, which soon transformed the peaceful valleys of California into busy mining camps, changing as if by magic the entire face of the country. How throughout the settlements on seaboard and on river the merchant abandoned his wares, the lawyer his clients, the parson his flock, the doctor his patients, the farmer his standing grain — all making one mad rush for the gold-fields, some on horseback, some with pack-mules, some with wheel- barrows, some with costly outfits, and some with no outfit save the clothes on their backs — is fully set forth in my History of California.
When the disbanded soldiers arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake and displayed their treasures, a cry was raised among the saints, "To California; to the land of Ophir that our brethren have discovered!"
