“I have seen several pounds of this gold, and consider it very pure, worth in New York 17 dollars to 18 dollars per ounce; 14 dollars to 16 dollars, in merchandise, is paid for it here.  What good or bad effect this gold mania will have on California, I cannot foretell.  It may end this year; but I am informed that it will continue many years.  Mechanics now in this town are only wailing to finish some rude machinery, to enable them to obtain the gold more expeditiously, and free from working in the river.  Up to this time, but few Californians have gone to the mines, being afraid the Americans will soon have trouble among themselves, and cause disturbance to all around.  I have seen some of the black sand, as taken from the bottom of the river (I should think in the States it would bring 25 to 50 cents per pound), containing many pieces of gold; they are from the size of the head of a pin to the weight of the eighth of an ounce.  I have seen some weighing one-quarter of an ounce (4 dollars).  Although my statements are almost incredible, I believe I am within the statements believed by every one here.  Ten days back, the excitement had not reached Monterey.  I shall, within a few days, visit this gold mine, and will make another report to you.  Inclosed you will have a specimen.

“I have the honour to be, very respectfully,

“THOMAS O. LARKIN.

“P.S.  This placer, or gold region, is situated on public land.”

“Mr. Larkin to Mr. Buchanan.

“Monterey, California, June 28, 1848.

“SIR:  My last dispatch to the State Department was written in San Francisco, the 1st of this month.  In that I had the honour to give some information respecting the new ‘placer,’ or gold regions lately discovered on the branches of the Sacramento River.  Since the writing of that dispatch I have visited a part of the gold region, and found it all I had heard, and much more than I anticipated.  The part that I visited was upon a fork of the American River, a branch of the Sacramento, joining the main river at Sutter’s Fort.  The place in which I found the people digging was about twenty-five miles from the fort by land.

“I have reason to believe that gold will be found on many branches of the Sacramento and the Joaquin rivers.  People are already scattered over one hundred miles of land, and it is supposed that the ‘placer’ extends from river to river.  At present the workmen are employed within ten or twenty yards of the river, that they may be convenient to water.  On Feather river there are several branches upon which the people are digging for gold.  This is two or three days’ ride from the place I visited.

“At my camping place I found, on a surface of two or three miles on the banks of the river, some fifty tents, mostly owned by Americans.  These had their families.  There are no Californians who have taken their families as yet to the gold regions; but few or none will ever do it; some from New Mexico may do so next year, but no Californians.