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would fill fifty thousand volumes, each as large as this. And then the subject would not be fully pre- sented, unless into each of these fifty thousand vol- umes the breath of inspiration might place true and living soul ; for the winds of California were redolent of soul, and every morning's sun kindled new fires of energy that went not out at night. The 1849 of California, of America, of the world! It was the pivot on which the frame-work of human progress turned a fresh side to the sun, a side breeding mag- gots hitherto, but now a new and nobler race of men.
Since the days of Adam, whose eyes were opened to behold himself by his maker, there never has beea a mirror held up before man which so reflected him in his true light, stripped of all the shams and con- ventionalities of staid societies. Leaving^ in their old homes every restraint, every influence that bound them to ancient forms and traditions, the latter-day argonauts entered the mines with name and identity sunk. They were no longer their former selves ; they were born and baptized anew. Hence arose a social organism at once complex and peculiar, whose growth is at every turn a new development.
In dress the people of California were as inde- pendent and original as in everything else. Free thought and free habits pervaded the whole domaia of society. Even those who dressed genteelly de- clined slavery to fashion. They claimed the privilege of exercising taste in preference to bowing before French law. Hence it was that the streets of San. Francisco presented every variety of style in dress the world had seen for the last quarter of a century.
An English writer speaks of "some forlorn indi- vidual exhibiting himself in a black coat and a stove- pipe hat, looking like a bird of evil omen among a flock of such gay plumage." But the ancient miner of early days prided himself to the last in his rags and patches, in his torn hat and boots awry, and open- breasted woollen shirt with up- rolled sleeves, display-
