“Should this news reach the emigration of California and Oregon, now on the road, connected with the Indian wars, now impoverishing the latter country, we should have a large addition to our population; and should the richness of the gold region continue, our emigration in 1849 will be many thousands, and in 1850 still more.  If our countrymen in California, as clerks, mechanics, and workmen, will forsake employment at from 2 dollars to 6 dollars per day, how many more of the same class in the Atlantic States, earning much less, will leave for this country under such prospects?  It is the opinion of many who have visited the gold regions the past and present months, that the ground will afford gold for many years, perhaps for a century.  From my own examination of the rivers and their banks, I am of opinion that, at least for a few years, the golden products will equal the present year.  However, as neither men of science, nor the labourers now at work, have made any explorations of consequence, it is a matter of impossibility to give any opinion as to the extent and richness of this part of California.  Every Mexican who has seen the place says throughout their Republic there has never been any ‘placer like this one.’

“Could Mr. Polk and yourself see California as we now see it, you would think that a few thousand people, on 100 miles square of the Sacramento valley, would yearly turn out of this river the whole price our country pays for the acquired territory.  When I finished my first letter I doubted my own writing, and, to be better satisfied, showed it to one of the principal merchants of San Francisco, and to Captain Fulsom, of the Quartermaster’s Department, who decided at once I was far below the reality.  You certainly will suppose, from my two letters, that I am, like others, led away by the excitement of the day.  I think I am not.  In my last I inclosed a small sample of the gold dust, and I find my only error was in putting a value to the sand.  At that time I was not aware how the gold was found; I now can describe the mode of collecting it.

“A person without a machine, after digging off one or two feet of the upper ground, near the water (in some cases they take the top earth), throws into a tin pan or wooden bowl a shovel full of loose dirt and stones; then placing the basin an inch or two under water, continues to stir up the dirt with his hand in such a manner that the running water will carry off the light earths, occasionally, with his hand, throwing out the stones; after an operation of this kind for twenty or thirty minutes, a spoonful of small black sand remains; this is on a handkerchief or cloth dried in the sun, the emerge is blown off, leaving the pure gold.  I have the pleasure of inclosing a paper of this sand and gold, which I from a bucket of dirt and stones, in half-an-hour, standing at the edge of the water, washed out myself.  The value of it may be 2 dollars or 3 dollars.