I remember one day, in the spring of 1848, that two men, Americans, came into the office and inquired for the Governor.  I asked their business, and one answered that they had just come down from Captain Sutter on special business, and they wanted to see Governor Mason in person.  I took them in to the colonel, and left them together.  After some time the colonel came to his door and called to me.  I went in, and my attention was directed to a series of papers unfolded on his table, in which lay about half an ounce of placer gold.  Mason said to me, “What is that?” I touched it and examined one or two of the larger pieces, and asked, “Is it gold?” Mason asked me if I had ever seen native gold.  I answered that, in 1844, I was in Upper Georgia, and there saw some native gold, but it was much finer than this, and that it was in phials, or in transparent quills; but I said that, if this were gold, it could be easily tested, first, by its malleability, and next by acids.  I took a piece in my teeth, and the metallic lustre was perfect.  I then called to the clerk, Baden, to bring an axe and hatchet from the backyard.  When these were brought, I took the largest piece and beat it out flat, and beyond doubt it was metal, and a pure metal.  Still, we attached little importance to the fact, for gold was known to exist at San Fernando, at the south, and yet was not considered of much value.  Colonel Mason then handed me a letter from Captain Sutter, addressed to him, stating that he (Sutter) was engaged in erecting a saw-mill at Coloma, about forty miles up the American Fork, above his fort at New Helvetia, for the general benefit of the settlers in that vicinity; that he had incurred considerable expense, and wanted a “preemption” to the quarter-section of land on which the mill was located, embracing the tail-race in which this particular gold had been found.  Mason instructed me to prepare a letter, in answer, for his signature.  I wrote off a letter, reciting that California was yet a Mexican province, simply held by us as a conquest; that no laws of the United States yet applied to it, much less the land laws or preemption laws, which could only apply after a public survey.  Therefore it was impossible for the Governor to promise him (Sutter) a title to the land; yet, as there were no settlements within forty miles, he was not likely to be disturbed by trespassers.  Colonel Mason signed the letter, handed it to one of the gentlemen who had brought the sample of gold, and they departed.  That gold was the first discovered in the Sierra Nevada, which soon revolutionized the whole country, and actually moved the whole civilized world.  About this time (May and June, 1848), far more importance was attached to quicksilver.  One mine, the New Almaden, twelve miles south of San Jose, was well known, and was in possession of the agent of a Scotch gentleman named Forties, who at the time was British consul at Tepic, Mexico.  Mr. Forties came up from San Blas