Since the completion of my work, I have received from Col. J. J. Abert, of Washington, the Report of P. T. Tyson, Esq., presented to the Senate of the United States by the Secretary of War.
Although it is too late to avail myself of the valuable information contained in this report from one who has made a thorough and scientific reconnoissance of the mineral and vegetable wealth, the climate and agriculture of California, I am induced to present a few extracts, which refer more immediately to the mines. It was a source of much gratification to find the views and statements I have given so fully corroborated by this report.
It will be noticed that the averages of the daily profits of the miners arrived at by Mr. Tyson, as the result of careful observation, differs but a trifle from the averages given in this volume. In his article upon the gold regions, he writes:
“Although a large amount of gold has been collected in California within the past eighteen or twenty months” (he writes at the close of 1849), “yet, considering the number of persons engaged in digging for it, the average amount to each is far less than is generally supposed. This conclusion is forced upon the mind irresistibly, when the results of the actual experience of a large number of the operators are taken into consideration.
“The newspapers frequently relate instances of the return of individuals with considerable sums of gold. Many of these are much overrated, and the far greater number obtained it by other means than digging with their own hands—one portion by honest trading; but much of the hard-earned treasure in the hands of returned individuals has been borne off in triumph, and brought home as the spoils of the conqueror, in contests where honor belongs to neither winner nor loser.
“Representations from and about California are to be received with many grains of allowance. The preternatural excitement which has been produced by divers causes, in some cases to promote individual benefit, has really impaired to a large extent the faculty of seeing things as they would otherwise have been viewed. And there is yet no prospect of an end to this state of things, because, as soon as the public mind begins to recover from the effects of previous causes of undue excitement, additional ones are presented in the shape of most exaggerated accounts of golden discoveries. Whether the public good will be promoted by this state of things may well be doubted. A reference to some of these causes it is proper to give.
“It is the interest of the numerous traders within the gold region to collect around them as many diggers as possible, and each is very naturally induced to regard favorably the diggings of his own vicinity, and takes means to spread accounts of its richness. Wonderful stories are circulated, in some instances, to increase the population at a particular spot; and when the diggers flock to it, they often find it no better than the one they left, and sometimes less productive. A very large proportion of those persons we saw in the gold region were in transitu; and, upon inquiry, we learned from them usually that the place they had left was unproductive, and they were bound for another which they had heard was producing very largely; and on the same day, perhaps, would be seen other parties prospecting, as they term it, or looking for better diggings than the poor ones they had left, and in many cases just from the reported good diggings the first party were going to. At some of these places you would hear of some one being very fortunate, and that they averaged per day a half ounce, one, two, or three ounces; but, like the tariff for postage, they never appear to get 1½, 2½, 3½, and so on. These accounts from particular spots sometimes find their way into California papers, and from them are copied and spread far and wide at home. Notwithstanding all this waste of time, and that nine out of ten who left their homes under erroneous expectations in reference to the facility with which the gold could be had, have been cruelly disappointed, yet the extent and number of the ravines containing gold is such that the large number of diggers have, in the aggregate, produced a considerable amount of this metal.
“It is impossible to ascertain the amount of labor there has been required, or, in other words, the average number who have worked at the diggings, and the number of days’ work of each. * * If we suppose only ten thousand to have worked steadily during three hundred days out of about six hundred since the digging began, and suppose each to have gained an average amount of $3 per day, the aggregate would amount to $9,000,000, being very much more than the whole amount exported in every way from California up to the first December last, to all countries, Oregon inclusive. As the cost of living fully equals $3 per day, it would appear that gold-digging is not as good as laboring at home, where the laborer can save something. * *
“Many of our citizens hastened to California during the past year in consequence of the numerous exaggerated, one-sided stories which were circulated in reference to the facility with which gold could be gathered. They had been told of various individuals who had collected large sums; a few had done so; but the experience of the many, who did not pay expenses by gold-digging alone, from the nature of the case, is far less likely to be known.