Crossing the canal by a bridge made of a single log, and walking a few rods over a succession of miniature hills thrown up by the miners, we came to a small hollow where the machine was at work. A sudden weakness,—shall I confess it?—now came over me, and I paused a moment to recover my self-possession before venturing to face this miracle of science. I then slowly advanced till my eyes, rising above the stony ridge that surrounded it, peered curiously down into the hollow.
Three times in my life have I met with severe disappointments—once in my eighth year, hurrying home from school in the confident expectation of having apple dumplings for dinner, and finding that, through some dreadful cook's blunder, there was nothing but salt beef, cabbage, and potatoes—once in my maturer years, in a still more tender point—and now, to complete the mighty three, I saw—instead of the cunning invention possessed of mysterious, almost fearful powers, which I had imagined—only a big, clumsy rocker, mounted on a frame still bigger and clumsier than itself, and weighing altogether some five or six hundred pounds. Underneath the riddle or castiron sieve that extended the whole length of the machine, was a trough about eight inches deep, and divided by numerous low partitions into narrow cells intended to contain the quicksilver used in washing. It was this feature that had suggested the idea of a patent beehive; and in the last or lowest of these cells we had expected to find the gold in a state of perfect purity. We now discovered our mistake—these partitions corresponded simply to the ripple-bars of the common rocker, which indeed the whole machine resembled much more closely than we had supposed. Five men were required to attend to its various wants; one to rock—one to pump into it a constant stream of water—one to feed it—and two to bring the earth from the hole.
Several of the owners, members of the company of which the scientific miner was president, were standing by, watching the operation; and one of them I thought, from his conversation, must be almost as scientific as the scientific miner himself. They were all pleasant, gentlemanly fellows, living in a fine large tent on a breezy hill just above the island, and in such style and comfort as became the owners of a thousand thousand-dollar machines, like themselves.
But our hopes were doomed to receive another and still more overwhelming shock. The scientific miner had assured us that we could make our thousand a week from almost any earth in California—we didn't quite believe him, to be sure—but now the second scientific miner, not indeed so scientific as the first, but horribly scientific for all that, advised us, by all means, not to remain at Mormon Island, but to prospect a bar he had himself visited, just below Coloma, and which he thought from its formation likely to prove unusually rich.
"But," replied Tertium, shrinking from the idea of another long journey, and still possessed by the chimerical notion suggested by the scientific miner, "why wouldn't it be as well to remain here? There's that hill yonder, to the right of the village; I don't see why that shouldn't pay as well as any other place."
You should have seen the smile of benevolent pity with which this audacious speech was received by the miner who was only less scientific than the scientific miner at San Francisco. It was really delightful to see how easily his science enabled him to solve a question which we could have decided only by pickaxe and shovel.
"Ah, my dear sir," he replied, his politeness struggling hard with that noble disdain he could not help feeling, "there is no gold there—the geological formation shows that it is impossible. If you look again, you will see that the river here makes a sudden turn to the right; and besides, gold is never found in such soil as that hill is composed of."
Here Capt. Bill looked at me as much as to say, "He's one of the men you read of;" and we all frowned upon Tertium as a sign that he should hold his peace; while, in accordance with the second scientific miner's suggestion, we did look again—saw, as he said we would, that the river did turn to the right, and of course could never, by any possibility, have flowed in any other direction; whereby our opinion of science in general, and of the second scientific miner's in particular, was marvellously confirmed.
Lest I should forget it, I would here simply mention, that not long after, some ignoramus, not having the fear of science before his eyes, and digging stupidly into this identical hill, discovered veins of such richness as turned half the heads in the village.
This hill in fact seemed one of those awkward exceptions designed by nature expressly for the discomfiture of just such philosophers; as if, like the rest of her sex, she would not give her suitors too much encouragement, lest their presumption should make them forget their modesty. The good lady, if the truth must be told, seemed in this matter even more capricious than ordinary, and bestowed her favours with so little discernment that the least deserving were often the most successful.