Where Marshall discovered gold, January 19, 1848.
The Rush to the Gold Mines.
Scene in San Francisco in 1849.
"Next day, that was January 19, 1848, Marshall goes down to the river below the tail-race to see how she's shapin' an' if the cut-out is big enough. He's walkin' along the bank when he notices something glitter. He looks again, an' sees what he thinks is a bit o' Spanish opal, not the real gem, Clem, but a soft stone they find out there which looks even prettier'n an opal, but wears off an' gets dull in no time. They sell 'em to greenhorns, still.
"Marshall don't worry none about that, but by-'n-by, seein' a lot more, as he thinks, he figures to pick up some, jest to show. Accordin' as he used to tell the tale, he didn't think it was worth the trouble, but spottin' one that looks different from the rest, he reaches down into the water an' fishes it out.
"It ain't no opal at all. It's a bit o' shiny white quartz wi' a line o' yellow runnin' through. That's what makes the glitter. He hunts around some, rememberin' that he'd seen other bits shinin' yellow the same way, an' finds quite a few, all of 'em looking like scales o' pure gold. They was jest about the size an' thinness o' the scales that comes off a rattlesnake's skin after it's dry, an' for a while, Marshall figured they was some kind o' scale or horn, washed down thin by the water.
"In them times, the folks in Californy hadn't no idee o' minin'. It was still Spanish territory, for one thing, an', for another, there wasn't any minin' done. So Marshall wasn't thinkin' about gold. It was jest curiosity what made him hunt up some more o' those queer yellow scales.
"The more he found, the more puzzled he got. They was heavy; they bent like a bit o' metal, a thing a stone won't never do; they could be scratched with a pocket-knife; they didn't show no layers like horn does when it's old. The biggest bit he found weighed less'n a quarter of an ounce, an' this one was stickin' in the bank o' the tail-race, where the water had been washin' the earth away.