James Smithson of England, when he died in 1829, bequeathed his large estate for the purpose of founding the Smithsonian Institution at Washington "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." In 1838, his estate, amounting to more than half a million dollars, was secured by a government agent and deposited in the mint. John Quincy Adams prepared a plan of organization, which was adopted.
The Smithsonian Institution, so named in honor of its founder, was placed under the immediate control of a board of regents, composed of the President, Vice-President, judges of the supreme court, and other principal officers of the government. It was provided that the entire sum, amounting with accrued interest to $625,000, should be loaned forever to the United States government at six per cent.; that from the proceeds, together with congressional appropriations and private gifts, proper buildings should be erected for containing a museum of natural history, a cabinet of minerals, a chemical laboratory, a gallery of art, and a library. The plan of organization was carried out, and Professor Joseph Henry of Princeton College, the real inventor of the electro-magnetic telegraph, was chosen secretary.
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.
For many years hardy hunters and trappers had penetrated the vast wilderness of the West and Northwest in their hunt for game and peltries. Some of these were in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, whose grounds extended as far toward the Arctic Circle as the rugged men and toughened Indians could penetrate on their snowshoes.
At points hundreds of miles apart in the gloomy solitudes were erected trading posts to which the red men brought furs to exchange for trinkets, blankets, firearms, and firewater, and whither the white trappers made their way, after an absence of months in the dismal solitudes. Further south, among the rugged mountains and beside the almost unknown streams, other men set their traps for the beaver, fox, and various fur-bearing animals. Passing the Rocky Mountains and Cascade Range they pursued their perilous avocation along the headwaters of the rivers flowing through California. They toiled amid the snows and storms of the Sierras, facing perils from the Indians, savage beasts, and the weather, for pay that often did not amount to the wages received by an ordinary day laborer.
Little did those men suspect they were walking, sleeping, and toiling over a treasure bed; that instead of tramping through snow and over ice and facing the arctic blasts and vengeful red men, if they had dug into the ground, they would have found wealth beyond estimate.