the requisite water-power, nearer than the foothills of
the mountains to the east. Just what point along
this base line would prove most suitable, search would
determine; and for some time past this search had
been going on, until it was interrupted by the war of
conquest. The war being over, explorations were
renewed.
Twoscore miles above Sutter's Fort, a short dis- tance up the south branch of American River, the rocky gateway opens, and the mountains recede to the south, leaving in their wake softly rounded hills cov- ered with pine, balsam, and oak, while on the north are somewhat abrupt and rocky slopes, patched with grease-wood and chemisal, and streaked with the deepening shades of narrow gulches. Between these bounds is a valley four miles in circumference, with red soil now covered by a thin verdure, shaded here and there by low bushes and stately groves. Culuma, 'beautiful vale,'* the place was called. At times sunk in isolation, at times it was stirred by the presence of a tribe of savages bearing its name, whose several generations here cradled, after weary roaming, sought repose upon the banks of a useful, happy, and some- times frolicsome stream. Within the half-year civil- ization had penetrated these precincts, to break the periodic solitude with the sound of axe and rifle; for here the saw-mill men had come, marking their course by a tree-blazed route, presently to show the way to the place where was now to be played the first scene of a drama which had for its audience the world.
Among the retainers of the Swiss hacendado at this time was a native of New Jersey, James Wilson Marshall, a man of thirty-three years, who after drift- ing in the western states as carpenter and farmer,'
mountains. Bidwell himself, in ootnpany with Semple, was on one of these unsQccessfal expeditions in 1846. Mrs Wimmer states that in June 1847 she made ready her household effects to go to Battle Creek, whei*e a saw-mill was to be erected, but the men changed their plans and went to Coloma.
- We of to-day write Coloma, and apply the name to the town risen there.
'Bora in 1812 in Hope township, Iluuterdon county, New Jers
