Sutter's Mill, Discovery of Gold

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Capt. Sutter's account of the first discovery of the Gold. I was riting one afternoon," said the Captain, "just after my siesta, engaged, by the bye, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucern, when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshal a gent leman with whom I had frequent business transactions-bursting hurriedly into the room. From the unusual agitation in his manner I imagined that something serious had occured, and, as we involuntarely do in this part of the world, Iat once glanced to see if my rifle was in its proper place. You should know that the mere appearance of Mr Marshal at that moment in the Fort, was quite enough to surprise me, as he had but two days e left one place to make some alterations in a mall for sawing pine planks, which he had just run up for me, some miles higher up the Americ- anos When he had recovered himself a little, he loid me that, however great my surprise might be at hu unexpected reappearance, it would be much greater whom I heard the intelligence he had come to bring me. Intelligence, he added which if properly profited by, would put both of us in possession of unheard-of-wealth millions and millions of dollars, in fact: I frankly own, when I heard this that I thought something had touched Marshall's brain, when suddatly all my misgivings were put at an end to by his flinging on the table a handful of scales of pure virgin gold. I was fairly thunderstruck and asked him to explain what all this meant, when he went on to that say according to my instructions, he had thrown the mill-wheel out of gear, to let the whole body of the water in the dam find a passage through the tail race, which was previously to narrow to allow the watter to run of in sufficient quantity, whereby the wheel was prevented from efficiently performing its work. By this alteration the narrow channel was considerably enlarged, and a mass of sand gravel carried of by the force of the torrent. Early in the morning after this took place, Mr Marshal was walking along the left Bank of the stream when he perceived something which he at first look for a piece of opal-a clair transparant stone, very common here-glittering on one of the spots laid bare by the sudden crumb ling away of the bank. He paid no attention to this, bub while he was giving directions to the workmen, having observed several similar gittering fagments, his curiosity was so far excited, that he stooped down & picked on of them up. Do you know, said Mr Marshal to me, I positively debated within tayself two or three times whether I should take the trouble to bend my back to pick up one of the pieces and had decided on not doing so when further on, another glittering morsel caught my that it was a thin scale of what appears to the largest of the pieces new before you I condescended to pick it up, and to my astonishment found be pure gold. He then gathered some twenty or thirty pieces which on examination convinced him that his suppositions were right His first impression was, that this gold had 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 who dwelt on this continent centuries ago, and built those cities and temples, the ruins of which are scattered about thes solidary, wilds. On proceeding, however, to examine the neighbouring soil. he discovered that it was more or less auriferous, This at once decided him. Hemounded his horse, and rode down to me as fast as it could carry him vith the news. At the conclusion of Mr Marshals account, and when I had convinced myself. from the specimens he had brought with him, that it was not exagerated, I felt as much excited as himself. I eagerly inquired f he had shown the Cold both work people at the mill and was glad to hear that he had not spoken to a ingle person about it. We agreed not to mention the circumstance to any one and arranged to set off early the next day for the mill. On our arrival, just before sundown, we poket 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 al Mr Marshall's that night, and the next day we proceeded some little distance up the south Fork, and found that golol existed along the whole course, not only in the bed of the main stream, where the had subsided but in every little dried-up creek and ravine. Indeed I think it is more plentiful in these latter places, for myself, with nothing more than a smal knife, picked out from dry gorge, a litte way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold with weighed nearly an ounce and a half. Notwithstanding our precautions not to be observed, as soon we came back to the mill we noticed by the excitement of the working people that we had been dogged about, an to complet our des op- pointment, one of the indians who had worked at the gold mine in the neighbourhood of la Paz tried out in showing to us some specimens picked up by himself,- Oro-Oro-Oro!!! PORTAIT OF M MARSHAL, TAKEN FROM NATURE AT THE TIME WHEN HE MADE THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA VIEW OF SUTTER'S MILL OR PLACE WHERE THE FIRST COLD HAS BEEN DISCOVERED Covered surding to of in the year 1854 Bitton RYA leechs office of the Dutert lot the Nethere D of California. Fath & Pub by Britton & Rey San Francisco. Cal.

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1 c Mexican 2 c THE SPACE ABOVE IS RESERVED FOR POSTMARK. Made Exclusively for G. P. Smith, Sacramento, Cal. No. 8249. IN SPACE BELOW MAY BE WRITTEN SENDER'S NAME AND CARD