.230 EL DORADO.
fornia, like frogs about a frog-pond, — sat thus and croaked, cursing California, and looking at the gravel beds, and crying, "There is no gold in them," That did not bring fortune. Steady persistent work, with reasonable economy, though it seldom rewarded one with a strike or a large return, was sure to result in something. Laziness and captious disquiet were the two evils. There were comparatively few miners at the end of their first two years in California who had $1,000 laid by, and yet a claim would have to pay but five dollars a day to give the miner of it $2,000 at the end of two years, allowhig $1,000 during the meantime for food and clothes. But during the earlier years, wages were ten dollars a day or more, and the miner who could not get that, or twice as much, would stop work, and either do nothing or prospect for something nearer the laro-e ideas brouo;ht hither.
Often in making excavations for buildings the spade uncovered the bones of some unknown wanderer, thrust hurriedly beneath the cover of earth by the stranger next to him, thrust beneath a light covering of earth and straightway forgotten.
Very early there appeared a mania for rushes, as they were called, that is, a hurrying hither and thither after the echoing cry of gold. Whole camps were thus stampeded ; at times the wildest stories of new finds being enough to cause men to leave good diggings in the hope of finding better. Almost all of these excitements ended in disaster, like that of the Gold Lake affair, about which one thus writes :
" One day, while in Sacramento city, I heard an old citizen relating his experience in the gold mines of this country. Among other incidents, was that most memorable of California humbugs, the Gold Lake ex- citement. I shall not attempt to follow the old miner through all his mountain wanderings, nor is it neces- sary to mention his hopes and fears, his sufterings and toils, and ultimate disappointments — rbut he made one hair-breadth escape which I shall mention. For many
