Not one in ten of the thousands who have gone, or may go, to California to hunt for gold, will return with a fortune. Still the great tide of emigration will set there, till her valleys and mountain glens teem with a hardy, enterprising population. As the gold deposites diminish, or become more difficult of access, the quicksilver mines will call forth their unflagging energies. This metal slumbers in her mountain spurs in massive richness. The process is simple which converts it into that form through which the mechanic arts subserve the thousand purposes of science and social refinement, while the medical profession, through its strange abuse, keep up a carnival in the court of Death. But for this they who mine the ore are not responsible; they will find their reward in the wealth which will follow their labors. It will be in their power to silence the hammers in those mines which have hitherto monopolized the markets of the world.
But the enterprise and wealth of California are not confined to her mines. Her ample forests of oak, red-wood, and pine, only wait the requisite machinery to convert them into elegant residences and strong-ribbed ships. Her exhaustless quarries of granite and marble will yet pillar the domes of metropolitan splendor and pride. The hammer and drill will be relinquished by multitudes for the plough and sickle. Her arable land, stretching through her spacious valleys and along the broad banks of her rivers, will wave with the golden harvest. The rain-cloud may not visit her in the summer months, but the mountain stream will be induced to throw its showers over her thirsting plains.
Such was California a few years since—such is she now—and such will she become, even before they who now rush to her shores find their footsteps within the shadows of the pale realm.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.