FACSIMILE OF PAGE FROM DIARY
Although this is early May—the middle of Spring, we have already the warmer days of August and the ground which had hardly got a good soaking during Winter is dry now as ever it gets in our Northern States. So with the vegetables. The flora and fauna of the country, which have already seen their infancy—although now everything is verdant and budding—in but a short month more will pass away and the green will change to yellow, the bud to the ripened fruit and all nature put on the attire of mellow Fall, and be finally resuscitated by deluges of rain which pour down in Winter in this country. If ever by some natural change this country shall be blessed by seasonable rains through the Summer, it will undoubtedly exert a most beneficial influence upon the soil of the land and make agricultural business more permanent and profitable and vastly benefit the mining community and make living itself more pleasant and comfortable on the shores of the Pacific. There is a certain fact which manifests itself in new settled countries—namely, that the amount of rain which falls every year increases in proportion to the cultivation and irrigation of the soil. At Salt Lake, and so here, when settlers first arrived rain was hardly known to fall but has increased in amount every year since that period. This is a fact experience has taught us to hold true although its cause is hardly known.
The merry month of May has passed away; June holds reign over prairie, hills and dales. The weather in general is just warm enough to make it pleasant to work—which in itself is pain enough without having it doubled by exposure to a scorching sun. A pleasant breeze being wafted up from the smooth waters of the Pacific moderates the climate to a genial warmth which only for want of sufficient rain would be as beautiful as any person could wish for. But from a want of this infinitely useful element at the proper season of the year, the soil, otherwise fertile produces but little vegetation. July generally sees this dying off for want of moisture. Still there are many fertile spots in the valleys watered by mountain streams which intersect the country—heading in the snow clad mountains and pouring their icy waters like veins into the heart of the country to give vigor and health to the country in their proximity. A traveler therefore can see in one day's journey and less both the budding and refreshing Spring and the yellow Autumn, the former in the valleys, the latter in the higher parts of the land. It is on highlands that these lines are written—with a valley spread at the foot of it, which extends to the Coast Range of mountains whose outlines I can plainly trace on the horizon and this minute its highest peaks stand out in bold relief, illuminated by the setting sun close upon their brow. Ten minutes more—they will hide it from view where, in the pacific waters of the broad Ocean it will seek a resting place after its daily journey through the heavens, to rise with new splendor and magnificence in the morning. To many thousands who gaze upon the rising and setting of the sun its movement from East to West is still a great mystery.
September twelfth, eighteen fifty-four. Over three months have passed since I made my last entry in this journal and not only have I changed my residence but my profession. I have exchanged the miner for the confinements of the Store Room to which I intend to adhere in the future.
July and August passed in indolence and mental indifference. It is but a few days back that I left off mining and find myself now comfortably seated in my store writing these notes. This place—French Hill—is within one-half mile of Camp Secco which was destroyed by fire about three weeks ago, which however by the enterprise of its inhabitants is rapidly building up and this time is an improved place. The place of present residence is rapidly springing up into a little village as yet nameless from its recent date and gives fair promise towards a prosperous business. That this may be the case is my earnest wish, as I hope to realize if no unforeseen mishaps befall me—enough to leave California for a better home far to the East.
February, eighteen fifty-five. Four months have passed away since I made the last notes but although the above dates indicate the Winter season when in the Eastern States snow and frost are plenty, we still enjoy as beautiful warm and dry weather as one can wish for—no snow, nor cold chilly days but pleasant weather in their place. As miners mainly depend upon the rain to wash their dirt, hove up throughout a period of nine months, a failure of it in Winter when it is anxiously looked for is a great disappointment to the miners all over the country. When mining is stopped, everything else is dull and depressed. We may have some rain yet for California presents such a strange instance of change that it is hard to tell when it will come. It is this morning cloudy and has every indication of rain. Three or four weeks of even moderate rain would furnish a great deal of water—the great commodity for the miner.
There appears to be at present a general depression in business all over the country, money tight and provisions dear and labor scarce. Heavy failures happen almost daily in the Atlantic Cities. Houses which enjoyed the greatest public confidence and patronage are suspending payment, not being able to pay their liabilities by a fearful amount. Even Page and Bacon, one of the best and wealthiest banking houses in the Union, has suspended payment which, however, is more ascribed to the detention of gold shipments from California than to deficiency of funds. The main cause for all this embarrassment in the money market appears to lie in the heavy export of gold to England in exchange for English manufactures and in the extravagance of our bankers, brokers and merchant princes in the last ten years. Nothing but a stoppage in the import of foreign manufacture and a more industrious sort of living will save this country from bankruptcy. Even here, the great source of wealth for the last six years, the pressure is felt. Gold diggings are getting scarcer all the time and as living is almost as dear as in forty-nine and fifty when it was easier to make an ounce than it is at the present day to make a dollar—it is easy to imagine how oppressive the hard times must be. The business I am engaged in at the present yields but a very small profit for everything in the mercantile line is high in the market and as miners reap but a very scant harvest for their labor one has to sell just as low as admissible. Profits therefore are but small. Still, making a little is better than making nothing at all and as long as this can be done I intend to stop here.
March second. Again I pick up the pen to make a few notes in this diary to keep the links in the chain of events which happen in this dull life of mine. While writing these lines the cool breezes wafted from the broad Pacific stir the warm air which was throughout the day oppressive and in the hours of twilight grant comfort and ease to the inhabitants of hot climates. The weather now is already as hot as it ever gets in the middle of the Summer at home. Yes—I believe that the mercury is higher now than it ever gets there. This being only March, when they at home have still snow storms and frost, we have beautiful Spring and nature is already attired in her sprightly dress of green variegated with flowers of all hues and shapes. Trees assume their verdant garments and alongside of streamlets adorn the garden of nature. Oh! nature, grand and beautiful art thou! Beautiful in every scene that meets our eye—the streamlet which meanders through pleasant valleys by picturesque hills ornamented by vines, with the contented peasant gathering the grapes. Mountains with their highest peaks covered with everlasting snows meet our looks in the far off horizon and crown with sublimity the rural beauties of the hills and vales at their foot. Man himself feels stronger and of higher spirits in the Spring of the year, the purity of the air and the balmy smell which emanates from flowers, shrubs and trees exhilarate the soul and body of every animated organic being. In time all this changes to yellow as their life runs out and their vitality, their sweet smell are dried up by the tropical heat of the South to rest and gather life and nutriment anew from Mother Earth.
Man, too, undergoes this change that everything in nature is subjected to. His life compares favourably with the changes in the vegetable world. First, tender and weak he gains care and attention, strength of body and mind. In the Springtime of life, his beauty is of the noblest kind and life is constant happiness. As time rolls on his body and mind mature, he becomes wiser and abler and in this estate of manhood acts and operates for himself and fellowmen. This is the most useful part of man's career and as he grows older he loses the vigour he formerly possessed and at the end—in the Winter of his life droops down, grows weaker and weaker until finally his career is run and he has to join Mother Earth again to serve some new purpose in the organization of nature.
There is one great invention which will ever illumine the time between the Dark Ages and the present epoch. An invention which is as remarkable for its intensity of light as the Middle Ages for their impenetrable darkness and consequent superstition. This is the invention of printing by John Gutenberg of Metz in Germany in fourteen hundred and forty. By one sublime thought which struck the mind of a single man or more properly, by the divine inspiration of a single human being, benefits as great and incalculable were bestowed upon mankind as universal space itself is infinite and beyond human calculation. Before that time all learning was limited to one class—the Clergy of all countries, who had it in their power to devote time which was at their own disposal to literary pursuits, in which they had great assistance in the manuscripts of former ages, therefore enjoyed already although to a limited extent the blessings which the art of printing afterwards bestowed more universally upon the mass of mankind.