assertions. A Mexican named Salvador, he says, was shot at Yerba Buena in the autumn of 1845. On his person was gold-dust to the value of a thousand dollars or more. He at first refused to tell where he obtained it; but in his dying hour relented, and pointing "in the direction of the San Jose mountains," cried, "lejos! lejosl" Where the San Jose mountains are situated, or what mines were ever found beyond them, Mr Evans does not relate. While with a party of Mormons, who, in the autumn of 1846, ascended the San Joaquin river, on " the sand point of the small island opposite to what is called the entrance to Stockton, then called Lindsey's lake," he picked up some yellow specks from the bank, and remembering what the Mexican, Salvador, had said, wrapped them in paper, took them to Yerba Buena, and testing them with acids found them to be gold.
If this be true, why did not Mr Evans gather gold, or publish his discovery? Because, as he claims, of "not having any idea of the gold being in such quantity as was afterward proved." But if it was not there in quantity sufficient even to be worthy of mention, where did Salvador obtain his bag of it? Again in August, 1847, in company with Beading and Perkins, Evans writes, "we explored the mountains near San Diego, and near the river Gila, where we found gold more abundant than has since been found on the north fork of the American." If this was true it is singular that some one did not go there and gather it.
Once more, on being informed by Henderson Cox that he and others were about to explore a route across the mountains for the approaching Mormon exodus, he told him of Salvador, and drew for him a chart of the country. Cox went his way, came upon Mormon island and the gold there, and invited Evans to join him. The latter reached that point on the 19th of January, 1848, and by the 8th of February had nineteen thousand dollars. On the next
