Accounting Tools for Business Decision

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CHAPTER 17
Activity-Based Costing
ASSIGNMENT CLASSIFICATION TABLE

Brief A
Learning Objectives Questions Exercises Do It! Exercises Problems

*1. Discuss the difference 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 1, 2 1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1A, 3A,

between traditional costing 10, 11 4A, 5A
and activity-based costing.

*2. Apply activity-based 6, 7, 9, 10, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 2 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1A, 2A, 3A,

costing to a manufacturer. 11, 12 7, 8, 9, 10, 4A, 5A
11

*3. Explain the benefits and 8, 13, 14, 15, 8, 9, 10, 11, 3 9, 10, 11, 12, 1A, 5A
limitations of activity-based 16, 17, 19 12 13, 16
costing.

Copyright © 2016 WILEY Kimmel, Accounting, 6/e, Solutions Manual (For Instructor Use Only) 17-1
*4. Apply activity-based 18 9, 12 4 14, 15, 17 5A
costing to service
industries.

*5. Explain just-in-time (JIT) 20

processing.

*Note: All asterisked Brief Exercises, Exercises, and Problems relate to material contained in the appendix to the
chapter.

17-2 Copyright © 2016 WILEY Kimmel, Accounting, 6/e, Solutions Manual (For Instructor Use Only)
ASSIGNMENT CHARACTERISTICS TABLE
Problem Difficulty Time
Number Description Level Allotted (min.)

1A Assign overhead using traditional costing and ABC; Moderate 35–45

compute unit costs; classify activities as value- or
non-value-added.

2A Assign overhead to products using ABC and evaluate Moderate 25–35

decision.

3A Assign overhead costs using traditional costing and ABC; Moderate 35–45
compare results.

4A Assign overhead costs using traditional costing and ABC; Moderate 40–50
compare results.

5A Assign overhead costs to services using traditional Moderate 35–45

costing and ABC; compute overhead rates and unit costs;
compare results.

Copyright © 2016 WILEY Kimmel, Accounting, 6/e, Solutions Manual (For Instructor Use Only) 17-3
Copyright © 2016 WILEY

BLOOM’ S TAXONOMY TABLE

Correlation Chart between Bloom’s Taxonomy, Learning Objectives and End-of-Chapter Exercises and Problems
Learning Objective Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation
*1. Discuss the difference Q17-1 BE17-1 E17-10 E17-3 P17-3A
between traditional costing and Q17-2 BE17-2 E17-11 E17-4 P17-4A
activity-based costing. Q17-3 E17-1 P17-1A E17-5 P17-5A
Q17-4 E17-2
Q17-5
DI17-1
Kimmel, Accounting, 6/e, Solutions Manual

*2. Apply activity-based costing to Q17-6 BE17-3 DI17-2 P17-1A E17-3 E17-8
a manufacturer. Q17-7 BE17-4 E17-1 P17-2A E17-4 P17-3A
Q17-9 BE17-5 E17-9 E17-5 P17-4A
Q17-10 BE17-6 E17-10 E17-6 P17-5A
Q17-11 BE17-7 E17-11 E17-7
Q17-12
**3. Explain the benefits and Q17-8 DI17-3 BE17-11 E17-9 E17-11 BE17-8 E17-13
limitations of activity-based Q17-13 BE17-12 E17-10 P17-1A BE17-9 E17-16
costing. Q17-14 BE17-10 P17-5A
A4-15 E17-12
Q17-16
Q17-17
Q17-19
*4. Apply activity-based costing to Q17-18 BE17-12 E17-14 E17-17 BE17-9
(For Instructor Use Only)

service industries. DI17-4 E17-15 P17-5A

*5. Explain just-in-time (JIT) Q17-20
processing.
Broadening Your Perspective BYP17-2 BYP17-3 BYP17-1 BYP17-2
BYP17-6 BYP17-4 BYP17-5
BYP17-7

17-4 Copyright © 2016 WILEY Kimmel, Accounting, 6/e, Solutions Manual (For Instructor Use Only)
17-3
 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

1. Direct labor is a valid basis for allocating overhead when: (a) direct labor constitutes a significant
part of total product cost, and (b) there is a high correlation between direct labor and changes in
the amount of overhead costs.

2. The amount of direct labor in many industries has greatly decreased, due to advances in
computerized systems, technological innovation, global competition and automation.
Total overhead costs resulting from depreciation on expensive equipment and machinery, utilities,
repairs, and maintenance have significantly increased. Many companies now use machine hours
as the basis on which to allocate overhead in an automated manufacturing environment.

3. In many automated manufacturing environments, machine hours is a more relevant basis on which
to allocate overhead.

4. Under a traditional volume-based costing system where overhead cost is allocated on the basis of
units of output, the high-volume product will undoubtedly absorb more overhead than the low-
volume product.

5. The principal differences are:

Activity-Based Costing Traditional Costing
(1) Primary focus Activities performed in making Units of production
products
(2) Bases of allocation Multiple cost drivers Single unit-level base

6. Activity-based overhead rates are computed using the following formula:

Estimated Overhead per Activity

Expected Use of Cost Drivers per Activity

7. The four steps involved in developing an ABC system are:

1. Identify and classify the major activities involved in the manufacture of specific products, and
allocate manufacturing overhead costs to appropriate cost pools.
2. Identify the cost driver that has a strong correlation to the costs accumulated in the cost pool.
3. Compute the overhead rate for each cost driver.
4. Assign manufacturing overhead costs for each cost pool to products, using the overhead rates
(cost per driver).

8. A value-added/non-value-added activity flowchart is based on a systematic analysis of all the

activities (resource-consuming actions and transactions) performed to manufacture a product or
render a service. The flowchart documents each activity and the time involved in each activity. The
flow chart also documents management’s proposed reengineering of the manufacturing process.

9. An activity cost pool is the overhead cost attributed to a distinct type of activity.

10. A cost driver is any factor or activity that has a direct cause-effect relationship with the resources
consumed.

Copyright © 2016 WILEY KIMMEL. ACCOUNting, 6/e, Solutions Manual (For Instructor Use Only) 17-5
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famous style, first over on one side then the other, the colonel
occasionally addressing his team with “D—— you, don’t touch one of
them!” meaning the rocks, through which we were picking our way. But,
near the bottom of the hill, we got our off-wheels into a mud-hole and
declined gently on that side, a fine specimen of volcanic formation
preventing the waggon from going over altogether. The colonel, without
hesitation, made all his passengers hang their weights to the near side of
the waggon, and, sitting on my lap, with a crack of the whip he started the
whole concern, and sent it flying and swaying from side to side to the
bottom of the hill. Here we pulled up, and the colonel, relieving me from
his weight, observed, in extenuation of what might otherwise have
appeared a liberty, “that he was obliged to be a little sarcy on this road.”
 Fleas are very prevalent in the southern mines, and my first
introduction to the species was in this wise. The colonel turned suddenly
to me, his hands being occupied with his ribbons, with “I guess there’s a
flea on my neck;” and I perceived on the instant that there was a large,
broad-shouldered insect, refreshing himself on the place indicated, in
apparent oblivion of all around. As in duty bound as box seat, I pulled
him off and put him to death, the colonel remarking as he nodded his
thanks, that he generally had three or four of the “darned cattle put
through” in that fashion during the journey.
With so many teams and waggons on so narrow a trail, there is
occasionally much disputing for the right of way. Men carry arms on the
road as a general rule; but very seldom use any worse weapon than their
tongues in these disputes. In a very awkward descent we found the road
entirely and unnecessarily blocked up by a waggon, drawn by eight yoke
of oxen. The Colonel at a glance recognised a teamster with whom he had
previously had many words on the same subject, and he opened fire by
ordering him to his own side of the road; to which the teamster sulkily
acquiesced after some delay, our driver, as he passed, threatening him
with a “lamming” on the next convenient occasion; to which the teamster
replied by a promise of blowing the top of the colonel’s head off; which
so incensed the colonel, that he forgot himself, and rising in his seat,
solemnly assured the driver of the ox team, that at some future period
nothing should deter him from “spiking” him; to which the driver replied
with such a shout of derision, that, believing as I do in the colonel, I have
no doubt that before this the teamster has met his fate, and is a spiked
man. The colonel felt very “ugly” for some minutes after this, but soon
recovered his equanimity of temper. And here I shall take leave of him,
for we now approach Sonora; the sun was disappearing behind the red
wood trees that capped the surrounding mountains; we began to pass
rapidly through mining villages and mining populations, of which more
anon, and after dashing through several bad places, in which, as the
colonel remarked, the best driver might get mired, or stuck in the mud, the
town of Sonora appeared in sight; and dashing in at full gallop, we pulled
up at the principal hotel.
It was dark when we entered Sonora; and as the habits of the people
here are nocturnal, the evening may be said to have commenced as we
alighted. It certainly had commenced, for Greenwich Fair might be
spoken of as a sober picture of domestic life, compared to the din and
clamour that resounded through the main street of Sonora. On either side
were gambling houses of large dimensions, but very fragile structure,
built of a fashion to invite conflagration, though offering little of value to
the devouring element when the invitation was accepted, which it was
about every other night or so. In most of these booths and barns the
internal decorations were very glittering; chandeliers threw a brilliant
light on the heaps of gold that lay piled on each monté table, whilst the
drinking bars held forth inducements that nothing mortal is supposed to
be able to resist. On a raised platform is a band of music, or perhaps some
Ethiopian serenaders, or if it is a Mexican saloon, a quartet of guitars; and
in one house, and that the largest, is a piano, and a lady in black velvet
who sings in Italian and accompanies herself, and who elicits great
admiration and applause on account of the scarcity of the fair sex in this
region.
Each gambling house is full; some are crowded, and the streets are full
also, for it is Saturday, a night on which the miners flock into Sonora,
with the avowed intention of purchasing necessaries for the ensuing
week, and returning the same night; but, seduced by the city’s
blandishments, they seldom extricate themselves from its temples of
pleasure until very early on the ensuing Monday morning, when they
return to their camps and long toms,[15] and soothe their racking
headaches by the discovery of chunks of gold.
The Mexican population preponderates in Sonora and its vicinity, and
nearly everything is stamped with their nationality. The gambling tables
are surrounded by them; and, dirty fellows as they are, they are very
picturesque at a distance with their slouch hats and long serapes. The
American population, between whom and the Mexicans a rooted hatred
exists, call the latter “greasers,” which is scarcely a complimentary
sobriquet, although the term “greaser camp,” as applied to a Mexican
encampment, is truthfully suggestive of the filth and squalor the passing
traveller will observe there. Sonora has a large French population, and to
this Gallic immigration is attributable the city’s greatest advantages; for
where Frenchmen are, a man can dine, which is very important. The
“Trois Frères Provençaux,” has its namesake here, where good cooking
and excellent light wines are at all times to be relied on; but where
Frenchmen are, there are also good bakers; and there is, moreover, a great
deal of singing and gaiety, and good humour, which is a pleasant contrast
to the coarser hilarity of a generally very drunken population.
The long bar of a saloon is always actively engaged, and the bar-
keeper must be prepared for all demands in all languages. Here he serves
a Mexican group with agua diente; now he allays a Frenchman’s thirst
with absinthe, in the pouring out of which he displays much art; again he
attends with rapidity to the demands of four Americans, whose orders
embrace respectively, a “gin-cocktail,” a “brandy-straight,” a “claret
sangaree,” and a “Queen Charlotte;” these supplied, he must respond with
alacrity to the call of a cockney miner, whose demand is heard even above
the surrounding din:
“Hain’t you got no hale hor porter?”[16]
J. Bellow expounded a great deal more than I have attempted to
describe, before we had been many minutes at Sonora. As soon as we had
bathed and freed ourselves from the dust with which we were covered,
and which, perhaps from its having been ground off an auriferous soil,
resembled a fine rich plate powder, we dined at a French restaurant and
commenced our perambulations: not before J. B. had conducted me to his
residence. This was situated in the main street, and was a small canvas
house rather ostentatiously placed between two glittering saloons. The
interior consisted of one large room, filled with stores and provisions, and
another very small apartment in which J. B. slept. The front of the house
was entirely occupied by black letters, more than a foot in length, which,
so soon as you got far enough off to read them all at once, informed you
that Joseph Bellow carried on the business of auctioneer. In one of the
saloons, a very interesting and well-looking young girl was attending at a
part of the bar where confectionary was sold. I should not have supposed
her to have had black blood in her veins; but J. B. assured me that she had
been a slave, and had been once sold at New Orleans at a very high price,
which he mentioned, and I ascertained this to be true; she was free now,
but freedom had come too late, I suspect, to bring much value with it to
her. J. B. knew every miner in the place, and to each he had something to
say, and with most he took something to drink. It was, “Well, Jones, how
did those pickles suit you?” and if Jones disparaged the condiments in
question, as he probably did, it was, “Well, let’s have a drink: allow me to
introduce my friend, Mr. M——,” and if I had not managed to elude him,
I should have had to shake hands with every man in Sonora on the first
night of my arrival.
I had been directed to a place called Holden’s Hotel as a sleeping
place. The lower floor formed the gambling saloon, in which were the
Ethiopian serenaders already alluded to; the upper being converted, as I
had understood, into sleeping apartments. On applying at the bar for a
bed, I was requested to pay a dollar and enter my name on a slate opposite
a vacant number; 80 it was. I wished to go to bed, and was directed to
mount the staircase and find No. 80 for myself. On reaching the second
storey, I found myself in a long and dimly lighted room of the same
dimensions as that below, and round and about which were ranged about a
hundred wooden stretchers, covered with canvas, and furnished each with
one dark-blue blanket, and a small bag of hay to represent a pillow. It is
satisfactory to me to remember, that, so far from expressing surprise, I
displayed a stoicism that would have brought the blush through the
vermilioned cheek of a Pawnee warrior; I wound my way through the
settees, most of which were occupied, until I arrived at one on the head of
which was a card bearing my number. A glance assured me that the bag
of hay that rightfully belonged to me was there, but that the blanket was
not. A momentary inspection further developed the fact, that on all the
occupied stretchers were two or more blankets, whilst the unoccupied
beds had been denuded of this covering. Having been educated as a
midshipman, it is needless to say that to be in possession of three
blankets, for it was cold, and an extra bag of hay, was the work of a
moment; and making myself as snug as I could in No. 80, I was soon
asleep, notwithstanding that the chinking of the monté-bankers, and the
noise of the crowd below, and the calls for brandy-smashes, and the
chorus of the serenaders, were by no means “fainter in the distance;” and
no wonder, for close to No. 80 there was a chink between two planks, so
wide that I could see “Bones” lolling out his tongue at the public, as he
accompanied the chorus to the popular song of “Charlestown Races.”
I awoke about daylight, very chilly, and found that my blankets had
disappeared. The law of reprisal had been fairly enforced, and one cannot
always be wide-awake. It was a comfort to me to reflect, that he who took
the blankets, took the fleas that belonged to them; and as these creatures
feed about daylight, I had the best of it after all. It was a capital idea of
the landlord’s, to have all the blankets of the same colour, for as every
man deposited his revolver under his head before retiring for the night, it
prevented all possibility of the joke becoming serious.
As I have already observed, the Spaniards enclose their wild horses in
a “corral.” Here, closely packed, the best horse kicks himself into the best
place, and keeps it. These wholesale human dormitories are also called
corrals, and the principle is much the same as regards the occupant; you
must kick or get kicked—and indeed for that matter the whole world is
conducted on much the same principle.
 CHAPTER XV.
THE GOLD MINE—THE INNOCENCE OF SONORA—SUNDAY IN SONORA—SELLING
A HORSE—CARRYING WEAPONS—BOB—WE LEAVE VALLEJO—WE ARE
“BOUND TO GO”—THE SHADOW OF A CROW.

September 1851.
E the next morning I proceeded on horseback with Joe Bellow
and an engineer to the mine, which was situated near a mining village
called Tuttle-Town. To reach this spot we had to cross a table mountain,
so covered with the débris of former volcanic eruptions, that it was a
perfect cinder-heap upon a large scale. The ground reverberated as we
passed over concealed craters, and for two or three miles we were
confined to a foot pace, as we picked our way through the rough boulders
that lay half buried in the earth, like a field of winter turnips.
The Tuttletonians were not actively employed at the time of our
arrival, principally from the fact that the diggings had “given out.”
The quartz vein, however, was there, and after a day’s inspection, I
was satisfied that in external appearance at least it bore out the report that
Joe Bellow had given of it. To the man who wants more money than he
has (and few of us are free from that craving), the sight of massive veins
of rock, peppered with specks of gold, is a trying spectacle.
As he sits upon a boulder on the outcrop, and extracts a piece of pure
metal with the point of a knife, he is subject to a thrill which I am afraid is
indicative of the sordid ideas of his nature;—when he descends the shaft,
and by the aid of a candle still beholds the specks of gold, he draws a long
breath, in mental contemplation of the wondrous wealth before him; then
when the wealthy seam is placed at his service, on terms so easy that it
appears quite thrown away, in all probability he will do as I did, swallow
the bait, hook and all. The opinion of the engineer was highly satisfactory,
as engineers’ opinions generally are; we therefore returned to Sonora,
where I plunged at once into the subject of mining statistics. I remember
now how ridiculously plain the whole matter appeared; here was the gold,
—you could see it and feel it,—well, all you had to do was to get it out!
Argument would have been wasted upon any thick-headed fellow who
looked upon the matter in any other light. But none such existed,—all
Sonora was quartz-mine-mad,—and although no machinery had as yet
reached this region, shafts were being sunk, and adits cut, in every hill
around the town. One mine, which extended from the rear of the principal
hotel, was owned entirely by Cornish miners; these had sunk two deep
shafts, and connected them by a gallery, by which means two or three
hundred yards of the vein were laid bare.
This vein was called the “Englishmen’s mine,” and it had not only the
merit of being sufficiently rich to all appearance to justify the erection of
machinery, but it was about the only lode that had been scientifically
opened by miners, and which was ready without further expense to supply
any amount of ore. But up to the time of my leaving the country, the
owners of this vein, although Englishmen, had not been able to exert
sufficient interest to get it “looked at,” and if this incident should be read
by any victim who has had two and twopence returned to him in
exchange for the sovereign he invested in California Mining Companies,
let him not as he contemplates his “small returns” lay the blame on the
quartz rock of the country, for I assure him that the cause of failure is
much nearer home; but of this I shall speak in its proper place.
Sonora is dependent for existence on the surrounding mining
population; it is a town with a resident population of about three thousand
souls, but with accommodation on the corral principle for about ten
thousand more. Sonora is advantageously situated in one respect,
inasmuch as it is irresponsible for the morals and conduct of its floating
population; if Sunday is desecrated in Sonora by five thousand pleasure-
seeking miners, Sonora washes its hands of that.
Sonora is one large house of entertainment for bonâ-fide travellers; and
although nearly every one makes a point of travelling thither on a
Saturday, to have a “burst” on Sunday, and return in penitence on
Monday, Sonora washes its hands of that,—otherwise I should say that
Sonora in 1851 was as loose a community as was that of San Francisco in
1849.
No church bells here usher in the Sabbath; but auction bells arouse the
inhabitants equally to a full sense of the duties before them,—the sun
shines for Sonora on this day alone, and in accordance with wise maxims,
the population commences early to make hay.
The miners prefer buying everything at auction, and although I
imagine the purchasers suffer in the long run by this principle, the
“loafers” gain by it; for (supposing you are a loafer) you have only to mix
with the crowd of bidders, and take out your clasp-knife; you can then
make an excellent meal from the samples exposed to view, presuming
always that your constitution will stand a mixture of salt butter, Chinese
sugar, pickles, and bad brandy. Joe Bellow was an auctioneer, and
certainly he understood his business. Long before his sale commenced he
would place a keg of butter, or a bag of dried apples, outside his store, and
the miners would surround these luxuries like flies. Joe Bellow’s object
was to get a “crowd” and this accomplished, the auction would
commence in this style:—
Joe Bellow takes his stand on a cask in the midst of his samples, and
startles you suddenly with “And I’m only bid one dollar for a dozen of
mixed pickles; one dollar, one dollar, one doll—try them, gentlemen.” In
the meantime Joe nods to an imaginary bidder in the distance, and rattles
on, “One and a half, one and a half, one and h—” “Doo,” says a
Dutchman, with his mouth full of pickled gherkin. “Two dollars I’m
offered for a dozen of mixed pickles.” “Dos y medio,” says a Spaniard,
under the influence of a green bean. “Ah! Senor Don Pacheco,” says Joe,
“son los escabéches d’Inghelterra, muy buenos, muy finos!”
“Have I any advance on two dollars and a half?” “Trois piastres,” says
a French restaurateur. “Three dollars I am bid for a dozen of pickles that
cost five dollars in the States, Tenez! Monsieur Leon voici des cornichons
comme il faut. Three dollars, three doll’s, three doll’s”—“Dree-and-a-
half,” says the Dutchman, to whom they are finally knocked down, just as
an old miner observes that “darn him if his knife aint turned blue with the
darned vitrol juice.” No description, however, can do justice to the
rapidity with which Joe Bellow knocks down his lots, or to the easy
impudence with which he meets all disparaging remarks from his tasters;
and such is human nature, that even in the mines, where few simpletons
are to be found, there was no butter so rancid but Joe Bellow could
dispose of it on a Sunday by means of his volubility and soft-sawder! I
heard a Dutchman enquiring very anxiously one day for some one in
Sonora whose name he did not know;—“What is he like?” said one, but
the Dutchman was apparently not apt at description, and no clue could be
gained; at last he spluttered out, “Tyfel! I mean dat man dat cries always
‘bickel, bickel, bickel,’ ” and everybody knew at once that Joe Bellow
was the individual required, and directed the Dutchman accordingly.
The auction extending as it does across the street will be interrupted
most probably by a Mexican funeral procession, headed by a brass band,
playing dolefully; scarcely has this filed by when the same
 HORSE MARKET—SONORA.

band will return to an inspiriting tune, accompanied by merry-andrews

and torredores, who proclaim the day’s amusement in the bull arena. A
man goes rapidly by on a lean horse he is selling at auction; he is bid
twenty dollars for a flea-bitten roan, “Will anybody say twenty-five?”
Half-an-hour elapses, and back he comes, will anybody advance on thirty
dollars?—By-and-by he is seen tearing through the street, scattering Joe
Bellow’s pickle-eaters to the right and left, and sending the mud flying
into the sample keg of butter,—going for forty dollars, going for—and as
he does not appear again upon the scene, it is presumed that the animal
has either been sold, or withdrawn until the ensuing Sunday.
The horses that are sold this way are not very showy, nor do they fetch
much, but it may be remarked that if the high-priced horses that are
occasionally sold with us on account of their owners “going abroad,”
were first subjected to a four hours’ galop, over a stony road, in presence
of the bidders, many of them would be “knocked down” for even less
than are these Californian ponies.
For these animals have at least the advantage of possessing four sound
legs, and unless my experience much misleads me, three are as many as
you can reasonably expect in any animal whose pedigree will admit of a
gentleman mounting him. Civilisation has done for horses, what in some
instances it has for their masters, improved their exteriors at the expense
of a ruined constitution. I wonder what Choctaw would think, if he could
be made to comprehend the fact, that there were horses of twice his size
and strength who couldn’t “feed” without the aid of gentian, just as their
masters take a glass of “vermeuthe” before dinner to “gammon an
appetite.”
In Sonora, every man carried arms, generally a Colt’s revolver,
buckled behind, with no attempt at concealment. In countries where men
have no protection from the law, and the vicious preponderate, this is
necessary. And although it is much to be deplored, that this necessity did
exist, its consequences were less deleterious to society than would have
been expected. For the fear of the law, in the best regulated community is
not so strong as the fear of sudden death; and if quarrels and
assassinations were rare, comparatively, in the mountains, it was owing to
the fact that every man was able to protect himself. It is generally
inferred, as a matter of course, that where all men carry arms, blood is
shed on the first passionate impulse, and life is not safe. This is not so; it
is where all carry arms that quarrels are less rare, and bullying less known
than elsewhere, although the population may be more vitiated and
intemperate than that of other countries.
From the fact of all men being armed, robberies are less frequent in the
mines than would be expected, and in most cases where murders have
been perpetrated, the victims have been unarmed.
There are many countries where the carrying of defensive weapons is
imperative as a preventative against outrage, but to those who from
choice or necessity visit such places, this Californian rule may be of some
value:—
“Never draw your pistol unless you intend to use it.”
Previous to the last San Francisco fire I have recorded, burglaries were
so common, that it became necessary to carry fire-arms after dark, more
particularly as the streets were not lighted. An acquaintance of mine was
walking late one night through a street which was apparently deserted,
and in which one dim light alone shed a sickly ray from over the door of a
closed restaurant. As he reached this spot, a man started from the
obscurity, and requested with the politeness of a Claude Duval to know
the time. With equal civility, my friend presented the dial of his watch to
the light, and allowing the muzzle of his revolver to rest gracefully upon
the turnip, he invited the stranger to inspect for himself. Slowly the latter
advanced, and the sickly ray gleamed likewise on the barrel of his “six-
shooter,” as with some difficulty he satisfied himself respecting the time.
 Both then prepared to depart, and for the first time the light fell on
their faces; then these desperate fellows discovered that they were no
burglars, but old acquaintances, who had dined in company on that very
evening.
But this is not the only part of the world where it is prudent to look on
every man as a rogue until you know him to be honest.
Having completed my mining calculations to my entire satisfaction
(unfortunately), I returned to Vallejo, and on my arrival there discovered
that the order for this young city had been countermanded by the
government. Everybody was preparing for departure, and as the place
owned a justice of the peace, writs were being served in every direction.
My hotel[17]
was placed under execution on account of the two horsetails, before-
mentioned; the law was arrayed against me, but as in Vallejo the law’s
authority was represented by one man, and the individual supposed to be
amenable was represented by another, the law did not always get the best
of it, and as far as my own case was concerned, it consisted in requesting
the sheriff to leave the premises, which he did gladly enough, having
business of his own to look after. Many of those who come overland to
California, bring one or two young blacks from the plantations with them;
these of course if not previously freed, become so on their arrival, but
they are in all cases much attached to their masters, and are very useful
servants, so much so, that they assume great importance and begin to
think that nothing can be done without them. I was amused one day at
overhearing one of these young niggers, who being aroused from his
sweet slumber, under a waggon, by his master’s reiterated cries of “Bob,”
drew himself slowly out and muttered, “Bob here, Bob there, Bob
everywhere; b’lieve, by Gad, you could’t come to California without
Bob.” “What’s that you say, sir,” said his master, who unluckily heard the
last part of the speech. There was no reply, but Bob made for the hills
there and then, and his guilty conscience would not permit him to appear
for three days, when he returned very thin, but set himself to work so
assiduously, that it really did appear as if nothing could be done without
him.
I paid a short visit to San Francisco, and returned with such stores as I
thought necessary, and with these, Barnes and Thomas started at once for
Tuttle Town.
Among these stores was a bale of canvas, of which I determined my
next Californian house should be built, and a barrel of gunpowder, with
which I contemplated disturbing the bowels of the earth.
Rowe had decided upon accompanying me, a circumstance which I
shall never regret, for he was in every respect an excellent companion to
the day I parted with him. In mountain life, a friend whose tastes are
congenial to your own is indeed an acquisition; for each happiness is
doubled then, and let misfortune come as it will, its sting is ever allayed
by the sympathy of one true heart beside you.
With the “Old Soldier,” “Choctaw,” “Tiger,” and “Bevis,” we
embarked late one evening on board a Stockton steam-boat; this latter
was naturally a slow boat, but she managed to perform her journey in as
good time as the rest, for her engineer was a famous fellow, who held life
cheap, and maintained as his creed that “she was bound to go anyhow;”
so she went anyhow, trembling fore and aft, with an engine-room full of
steam, and a blaze from her funnel that lit up the banks of the river on
either side. There were few passengers on board, which was fortunate, as
there were few sleeping bunks.
It is not customary to undress when seeking repose in these bunks; in
fact, decency forbids you doing so; for they are openly exposed on either
side of the saloon, and this latter is generally filled up, for the best part of
the night, by card-players.
A placard informs you that “gentlemen are requested not to go to bed
in their boots;” but as the proprietors do not guarantee that your boots
shall not be stolen if you take them off, this request is seldom complied
with. I remember attending a political meeting in a little church at
Benicia; in each pew was a poster, which requested that you would
neither cut the wood-work, nor spit on the floor, but the authorities had
provided no spittoons, so, as a gentleman observed to me whilst inside the
sacred edifice, “what the something was a man to do who chewed”?
At daylight we were at Stockton, and landing our horses we were soon
in the saddle and making the most of the cooler part of the day. Nothing
worthy of mention occurred on our journey, excepting that at the end of
forty miles our animals were as fresh as when they started. We pulled up
to dine at the Stanislaus, which river we crossed in a ferry. An
acquaintance of mine once crossed at this spot under peculiar
circumstances. He was proceeding from one digging to another, and had
three quarters of a pound of gold dust sown up in his pantaloons; he was
an Englishman, and after the manner of many of his countrymen, he
carried an umbrella, which nothing could induce him to part with.
 There was no ferry in those days, and when he arrived at the banks of
the river, he determined to swim across; but then his clothes and the
umbrella, how was he to get these across, and how could he go over
without them? He was seized with an idea, and at once acted upon it;
extending his umbrella, he placed his clothes inside, and fastened a line to
the handle; with one end of this in his mouth, he plunged into the current,
and struck out manfully with his boat in tow for the opposite bank. But
the gingham, like most experimental vessels, leaked so much on her first
cruise, that when the centre of the stream was

reached, nothing could be seen above water but the vessel’s mast head,
which was represented by an ivory hand clasping a round ruler. Now the
order of things became reversed, for the current was strong, and having
taken firm hold of the umbrella, the question was whether to go down the
stream with it or let it go. The latter course was adopted, not on account
of the gold dust or the clothes, but from a pure and unshaken attachment
to the parachute itself. After some effort, not unattended with danger,
“gingham” was safely brought into port, but on beaching it, the cargo had
vanished. Madam, our adventurer had a straw hat on his head with a very
narrow brim, and with this article of attire and his umbrella, he proceeded
for about seven miles without encountering a soul, when he reached what
had been an encampment. The diggers had left, but there was as much
second-hand clothing lying about as would have furnished a regiment.
Selecting the best of this and washing it, my friend was soon equipped,
and went on his way rejoicing; rejoicing for this reason, that although
gold dust and clothes had gone to the bottom, he had not only saved his
precious umbrella, but had newly equipped himself from a “ready-made
clothing mart,” with no bill to pay.

The road was very dusty and the heat intense, but nothing seemed to
tire our beasts. The last part of our journey consisted of a gradual ascent,
and in many places the ground was covered with small round rocks, that
would materially have impeded the progress of most horses; but Choctaw
allowed no obstacle to arrest his long swinging “lope,” and the Old
Soldier, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, followed his protégé
unflinchingly. I have sketched these two worthies; the Old Soldier, it will
be perceived (to show that he has still a kick left in him) is expressing his
disgust at the shadow of a crow that is thrown on the road, whilst
Choctaw, still suspicious, plants his Indian legs among the loose rocks
with an accuracy really marvellous. Before night we arrived at Sonora,
having by a circuit that we purposely made, completed a journey of
nearly seventy miles.
 CHAPTER XVI.
I EXPLAIN TO THE PATIENT READER—PIONEERS—A LADY’S BOOT—MAINSPRING
—MEXICAN ROBBERS—VICTIMS OF PREJUDICE—WORKS ON AMERICA—TWO
PIGS—POWER OF THE HUMAN WILL.

Sept. 1851.
I less than a fortnight we had a couple of canvas houses erected at
Tuttle Town; each of these had a large fire-place and chimney, built of
mud and stones, and surmounted by an empty barrel for a chimney-pot,
after the popular architecture of the mines. Rowe and I occupied the small
shanty, whilst in the larger one I had Barnes, Thomas, and a couple of
English miners.
Our houses faced the main street of Tuttle Town; this at the time was
indicated by stakes, there being as yet but three buildings in the place.
Higher up the hill and near the main shaft were eight Mexican miners,
whom I had hired for the purpose of quarrying the ore; having supplied
these with about twenty yards of canvas, half a dozen raw bullock hides,
an unlimited quantity of beans and a frying-pan, they made themselves
very comfortable in their own way. I must not omit to mention that I had a
canvas stable for our four horses, not that these required any shelter
during the warm dry nights, but simply because I wished to avoid the
inconvenience of losing twelve of my party at once, and finding some
morning that my four horses and eight Mexicans had departed in
company. Most of the Mexicans of California are from Sonora,[18] and
horse-stealing is a characteristic weakness of that country. These people
become such adepts at this trade, that I dare say if a party of them were to
visit New York, they would steal the woolly colt out of Barnum’s
Museum, although to lure a dead horse from a man of that gentleman’s
acuteness, would require a great amount of ingenuity and patience.
Having now established myself at the mines, it is incumbent on me to
explain to the patient reader my exact position there, as otherwise I shall
be accused of having attempted to accomplish that for which I was
incapacitated, a censure which I do not wish to be applied to me
otherwise than as an author, in which quality I must perforce admit its
truth.
My object at Tuttle Town was to test the value of the quartz vein there,
and if with the assistance of such miners as I had engaged, I could satisfy
myself that the vein held out sufficient promise of remuneration, it had
been agreed between myself and a friend at San Francisco (he whose
death I have recorded) that sufficient machinery should be erected to give
the ore a fair experimental trial.
Amateur performances are seldom successful; and whether he wishes
to fatten short-horn bullocks for an agricultural show, or take the helm of
his yacht in a race for the cup, your amateur in one way or the other,
generally “comes out wrong.” “Chacun a son metier,” is a motto more
generally applicable than we are willing to admit, although there are few
of us who have not tried something that we had no business with. Still
man is emulous and vain, and until the end of the world fat Muggins will
waltz, ignorant Foodle will talk, and travellers like myself will appear in
print, and let us appear ever so ridiculous to others, we cannot, and will
not, acknowledge that “every one to his trade” applies in any degree to us.
But where a new course is opened for emulation, all may start in the race,
and former experience bore so little on the subject of the quartz mines of
California, and the means of extracting the gold therefrom, that I entered
upon my new employment with no more difficulties to contend against
than others in the same field. And this, be it understood, should always
give courage and confidence in a new country, for although a little more
retiring modesty would become both Muggins and Foodle (not forgetting
myself in a literary capacity), the same diffidence in the mines of
California would act as a bar to the research and experience so necessary
for that country. And however we may fail in our exertions we ought not
on that account, as is too often the case, to be ridiculed, for the failure of
one brings experience to the many, and some one must “pioneer” the
road. The prudent wait until the track is clear and the way is easy, and
when every tree is blazed and every obstacle removed, they advance
chuckling, of course, as the miner does who follows the prospecter; thus
the pioneer and his follower resemble two boys, one of whom will not
enter the river until his companion has tested the temperature of the water
and the depth of the stream.
The quartz mines of California were discovered and opened almost
entirely by men who had no previous knowledge of gold mining,
therefore in many respects they worked in the dark, and from want of
capital their hard bought experience served only to benefit others.
But the more fortunate of these bands of pioneers are now receiving an
ample compensation for the privation they suffered, the toil they
underwent, and the ridicule with which they were assailed. Auriferous
quartz has been found in numerous cases to yield a rich return, even to the
unscientific miner in California; how great then must be the wealth
amassed, one would suppose, by those experienced gentlemen, who, with
capital at their command, have been deputed by English companies to do
the same work on a larger scale. Yet experience has proved that the great
mining captains of the age have nothing to laugh at, even in the
unsuccessful efforts of such a worm as I.
Unity and goodwill had been so long established amongst my little
party, that we were soon comfortable in every respect, and actively
employed. The vein extended for about half a mile, and the three spots I
selected for exploration had each its band of men sinking a “prospecting”
shaft.
Rowe and I had ample employment in superintending the operations,
and testing the samples of ore that were daily selected from each pit; so
with windlasses and buckets, crowbars and drills, gunpowder and fuze
matches, pestles, mortars, retorts, and quicksilver, we each of us had our
occupation, and were happy as the day was long. The quartz was sharp
and cut like glass, so we wore deer-skin “trowserloons,” our beards grew,
our muscles increased to an alarming extent, our manners were less toned
down than was usual, in fact they were swaggering, our appetites were
very large, but for all that we were so happy that even the pleasures of the
“little valley” fell into insignificance before those of our Tuttletonian life;
and this arose in a great measure from the fact that we all entertained a
strong belief, that one day or other our labour would be rewarded.
Who talks of hope and disappointment in the same breath? Shall a day
of the one efface or tarnish the recollection of a year’s happiness
brightened by the other?—Not with me whilst I live. “See here, now,
boys,” said a Tuttletonian miner, one day, as he held up to an admiring
crowd a small and well-constructed lady’s boot. “The chunk aint found
that can buy this boot; ’taint for sale, no-how!”
A lady’s boot to you, or I, reader, is not much unless we are married
and have to pay for a pair occasionally; but so long as we can associate
our hopes of earthly happiness for the future with some emblem held out
to us even at arm’s length, as was the miner’s “lady’s boot,” we may go
on our way to work as did his gratified spectators more cheerfully and
light of heart.
 When a man recals some sensation with more than ordinary pleasure, it
is very usual for him, particularly if he is a writer of travels, to ask you if
you have experienced the same. Says one “reader, did you ever witness a
sun-set from Chimborazo?” Says the other “reader, did you ever eat a
mangostein?” Unfortunately the reader is unable to reply until the
description of these wonders has been perpetrated. I have alluded to this
custom in excuse for asking the reader if he ever groomed his own horse
and derived pleasure from it? If not, I recommend him after he has
managed Chimborazo and the mangostein to try it. Mainspring’s coat was
daily rubbed by me, when my own coat hung neglected on a peg; but the
fact is, he was a very handsome horse, and in the mines such a rarity is a
passport. With the natural vanity of man, I found that Mainspring
attracted more attention than I did, so I allowed my beard to run to seed,
and bestowed all my pains in beautifying the dumb animal.
You, madam, who have viewed with pleasure the envious glances that
have been cast on the lovely bonnet you wore at Chiswick, will
understand the emotions I felt when miners left their pits and claims to
pronounce with less spleen upon the beauties of my steed.
The Old Soldier and Choctaw were seldom groomed; the mud in
which, of course, they wallowed, was generally removed from their coats
with a spade, and on grand occasions they were finished off with a broom.
Rowe had a cream-coloured mare that was considered by the miners
“some pumpkins,” an expression which indicates great merit, and is
equally applied to a chew of tobacco, or the President of the United
States.
We generally rode into Sonora of an evening, for we were always in
want of something, and our drills and pickaxes, in particular, soon became
blunted by the hard quartz, and had to be tempered again by the Sonora
blacksmith. We would return by moonlight, and had always to pass
through a camp of Mexicans of the worst character; these fellows not only
cast their covetous glances on our horses in open daylight, but on more
than one occasion they attempted at night to entrap us into a position that
would have left us unable to defend either our lives or our beasts. They
had a quantity of curs in their camp, and these, as we rode through in the
moonlight, would rush out, being set upon us, and worry us on all sides
with their yelping; they would follow us, howling, for some distance, and
our natural impulse was to shoot them with our revolvers, for they were
like wolves, but we were soon wise enough to refrain from discharging
our fire-arms, for we should thus have left ourselves defenceless, against
the half-dozen mounted ruffians we would encounter higher up the road,
waiting, undoubtedly, for this result.
Two armed white men need fear little interruption from Mexicans
provided a proper amount of caution is exercised, and no sign of
trepidation is evinced. But their first principle is to attempt to throw you
off your guard, therefore the best rule in meeting such men is to insist at
once that they do not approach within the distance at which they can
throw their deadly lasso, a weapon more formidable in the dark than fire-
arms. Whenever, singly or with Rowe, I met a party of mounted Mexicans
in the mines, I drew up on one side of the road until they passed, and after
dusk I took the precaution of warning them to a respectful distance, nor
was this unnecessary, for the Mexicans encamped round Tuttle Town
committed many murders, and my horse alone was sufficient inducement
for them, independent of the sums of money that the necessities of my
party often required me to carry of a night.
One morning on entering the canvas stable that adjoined my hut, I
discovered that Mainspring was gone; his halter had been cut, and there
was no doubt that he had been stolen. Fortunately a drizzly rain was
falling sufficient to moisten the ground, and this had probably set in about
an hour after the thieves had removed the horse at the risk of their lives.
Without some knowledge of Mexican cunning, it would have been useless
to have attempted to track a stolen horse of Mainspring’s fleetness. We
presumed at starting that he had been taken over the table mountain in our
rear, as his foot prints could leave no trace behind for some miles in that
direction.
Rowe and I then started on the search, and after crossing the mountain
we halted at a gulch. With some trouble we discovered at last that the
horse had crossed here, for he had one cutting shoe, the heel of which left
a slight imprint; from the gulch we traced him to a tree, and here the
ground being covered with dead leaves and brushwood, all sign was lost.
Accident favoured us, for a few miles further on we again hit his trail at
another gulch, but here he appeared to be returning. A close inspection,
however, proved that his shoes had been turned, for the heel of the cutting
shoe was on the wrong side, still we lost him again among the trees, and
as evening advanced we began to despair. But soon we arrived at a
Mexican encampment, and here by some stupid oversight on the part of
the thieves, Mainspring’s rug was left lying exposed on the ground. All
had protested their ignorance of the matter on our arrival, but now with
the blanket staring them in the face, they soon produced the horse from a
distant tent in the bushes, and assured us that a man had left it there that
morning, and had gone on his way.
But a Mexican who was sleeping in a tent in mud-splashed clothes was
the thief, I knew: he started when I roused him up suddenly and held the
blanket before his eyes: but he swaggered out in apparent unconcern, and
lighting a cigarito with admirable sang-froid, he began to play at cards
with one of the others. I was too glad to recover Mainspring, to care about
troubling myself by taking the Mexican back to Tuttle Town on suspicion,
and I dare say he was not sorry when Rowe and I departed, for a horse
thief in the mines has not much chance of his life when detected, and of
this he is fully aware. It has ever puzzled me on reflection, that where so
much pains had been taken to remove all trace of the horse, the glaring
evidence of the theft should be left forgotten in open daylight, and I am
inclined to think that the horse thieves considered themselves safe from
pursuit, and were rather surprised at our appearance. From that day our
horses were chained and padlocked every night.
The American residents of our mining village were very sociable and
kind, and the good feeling they evinced towards us added materially to
our comfort.
Englishmen and Americans are for the most part the victims of
prejudice, and when they meet, too often each one expects to find in the
other one who is prepared to depreciate and misunderstand him and his
country. They approach each other like two strange dogs who stand head
and tail, with bristling hairs, rubbing their ribs together with an angry
scowl, for no reason on earth except that they are two dogs.
It may have been my fortune to have effaced some false impressions
respecting my countrymen from American minds; but, at all events, I
have had an opportunity of divesting myself of much prejudice by a social
intercourse with them.
It is asserted that the Americans are great boasters, and I grant that
retiring modesty is not the chief characteristic of the race; but it is right to
remember, that for a long period, the Americans have been rather
depreciated than otherwise, and unmerited depreciation will probably
induce a habit of boasting more than anything else. When we tell our
friend reprovingly not to blow his own trumpet, we presume that such
merit as he possesses will be fully acknowledged. Public opinion has not
until latterly dealt fairly with the Americans in all respects, and it is
perhaps for this reason that they sound their own praises with stentorian
lungs; if they have not been justified in doing so they have at least
practically overturned that old saw of our revered ancestors, that “those
who talk most do least.”
American character is necessarily very varied, and nowhere is this
more clearly perceived than in California, where all classes, freed in a
great measure from conventional restrictions, appear in their true garbs. I
do not presume to write of American character, I can only record my
experience of individuals as I have seen them in the shifting scenes of
colonial life; but I think that I have had sufficient intercourse with
Americans of all grades to warrant my asserting that foreign historians
have too often unfairly paraded their faults, whilst their own writers have
in many instances erred equally on the side of their virtues; I believe
therefore that there is ample room on our bookshelves for one fair
unprejudiced work on the people of the United States of America. Man is
ordained to be charitable, and authors are not, that I am aware of,
exempted from this command; if, therefore, in writing of a people, a little
more pains were taken to discover their virtues, and a less wholesale
principle was adopted in regard to the record of their vices, great good
might be done to the nation written of and no harm that I know of would
accrue to the author. The man who can kindle a warmer feeling in one
nation towards another by displacing, with a little judicious reasoning, the
prejudices that may affect the latter, waves a stronger wand than the most
bitter satirist that ever lived and wrote.
Our vices are generally uppermost; this was exemplified in the “Old
Soldier,” for your first acquaintance with that animal might possibly be
cemented, as it were, by a kick in the ribs, or a bite on the shoulder; but,
recovered from this shock, the longer you knew him the better you liked
him; and the old fellow, when once satisfied that you were his friend,
would appear to you in a very different light than when under the
influence of suspicion, justified, I’ll be bound, by the experience of his
life, he attempted to do you a mischief.
I do not wish to compare this poor beast with a man, much less a
nation, but the simile serves me so far as to illustrate the fallacy of first
impressions as applied either to man or horse; yet, while all acknowledge
this for a truism, we find that half the books of travels that analyse so
fearlessly the character of the people visited are valueless as
commentaries on them, either from hastiness or unfairness of opinion, on
the one side, or laboriously-studied partiality on the other. But seldom
does the work of an alien run into this latter fault, and most books on
America remind me of a volume of Veterinary Surgery, of which, open
what page you will, you are met with a description of a curb or a splint, a
spavin or a ring-bone, with the author’s directions for a complete cure!
* * * *
How small a trifle will disturb, at times, the even current of one’s life;
let me recal the sole drawback to our otherwise complete contentment at
Tuttle Town.
One of our neighbours had two pigs, and these, like all four-footed
animals in the mines, had a roving commission, and lived by nocturnal
plunder. This practice we could bear with, as much from our reverence for
pork, as from the fact that it was a free country for man or pig. But these
wretches took a fancy to scratching themselves, in the dead of night,
against the canvas shanty that Rowe and I inhabited; there were plenty of
posts, but they preferred a shanty; now, as the only hard substances they
could find were our recumbent bodies, as we pressed against the canvas
wall, the pigs scratched themselves against us, and as this occurred for
about four hours every night, accompanied by the satisfactory grunts
which the temporary alleviation of cutaneous disease elicits from the pig,
our rest was continually being broken upon. We kept water boiling, and
waking up suddenly we would scald them, we harpooned them with
crowbars, damaged the vertebræ of their backs with the sharp edges of
spades, fired blank cartridges under their noses, and scarified them with a
deadly fire of broken bottles; but to no purpose, they would come back
and rub us out of bed again regardless of any injury we could do them.
The owner of them was absent, and there was no “pound,” honour
forbade our shooting them, and we never could catch them to “corral”
them. So, for the best part of a twelvemonth, we were nightly roused up
by these intruders, who itched so badly that they rubbed our frail
tenement out of the perpendicular. Soon they had a litter, and then, while
they still rubbed, the little pigs would get under the house and squeal, and
although we kept a long pole with a steel fork attached to it, with which
we tried to “grain” them, as we do dolphins at sea, yet it was to no
purpose, and they did as they liked with us up to the day we left. At first
we used to set the dogs at them, but, being savage combatant pigs,
rendered reckless by a free life, they would stand at bay with their sterns
bulging against our tent, which they evidently mistook for the rock which
was “to fly from its firm base as soon as they,” which it nearly did on one
or two occasions; moreover, the dogs had enough to do to keep off six
donkeys and about a dozen curs, who were generally very musical when
the moon was up.
I mention this circumstance because we hear so much of the power of
the human will, and I am satisfied that a pig’s will is stronger; and it is,
moreover, not only a traveller’s duty to record a fact, but he is expected
likewise to discover something new.
 CHAPTER XVII.
YIELD OF GOLD—ITS DURATION—MORMON GULCH—THE DISTRIBUTION OF
GOLD—TUNNELLING—DAMMING RIVERS—HOLDEN’S GARDEN—ENERGY IN
THE MINES—QUARTZ-MINES—QUARTZ MINING SUCCESSFUL—THE AUTHOR
GETS OUT OF HIS DEPTH.

October, 1851.
T diggings in our immediate vicinity were not actively worked, as
there was not sufficient water for the purpose; this, however, was shortly
to be remedied, for companies composed of miners were at work in every
direction, conducting water from the rivers to the dry diggings; and at this
moment new plots of auriferous soil are daily being added to the area of
“paying ground” in the mines by the artificial introduction of the water
which nature has denied to them. Most of these companies have received
handsome returns; the charge to each miner supplied with water being
about two shillings a day.
This affords another instance of the successful employment of capital
originally procured by gold digging; and if you wanted a few shares in
one of these young companies, you could procure them without money,
for by taking your coat off and helping to cut the ditch, you could in six
months work yourself into a very respectable stockholder. I suppose each
traveller who returns to his home from California, whether he is an
Englishman or a Sandwich Islander, is questioned on all sides as to
whether the “diggings” are nearly exhausted? This is easy to answer in
the negative, but then follows a query far more difficult to reply to, viz.,
“when will they be?” Conjecture must necessarily have much weight in
determining this problem, statistics of the past or present yield of the
placers being almost valueless for that purpose. Yet this should be a
question of very great financial importance, and not alone as regards the
probable duration of the twelve million sterling now annually exported
from California. For we must consider how far we are sustained by facts
in presuming that the present yield of this country will be doubled, nay,
quadrupled annually before the surface-soil is left again as once no doubt
it was, valueless in gold. Of course, the gold mines must some day be
exhausted; let us see then how far we are justified in supposing this day to
be, comparatively speaking, distant, as regards California. I offer the
following remarks with the avowal that they are of worth only as the
crude opinions of one who has had nearly all that practically bears upon
the subject brought before his notice, but as they will necessarily be dull
and heavy as a blue book, I recommend the generality of those who have
followed me thus far, to skip this chapter, which they probably will do
with all the rest of the book.
For you, reader, who have sent to the circulating library for the
“Newcomes,” and have had this book forwarded you as a “new work,”
(the “Newcomes” being out,) can scarcely be expected to peruse in your
present state of disgust, a chapter on gold mines: I therefore dedicate this
“paper” to two individuals, one of whom shall be the gold mine victim
before alluded to, as contemplating the two and twopence he received for
his invested sovereign, and the other is that unknown man, who, in the
ennui of a long sea voyage, shall peruse, mayhap, as I have done before
to-day, the pages with which his trunk is lined.
Mormon Gulch was the name of a ravine that was about a hundred
yards from my tent, it was reported to have been the wealthiest digging in
the mines, and according to rumour, half an hour’s work with a clasp
knife or tin spoon, had invariably enriched any of the fortunate Mormons
who first discovered it in 1848. Since those days, however, the earth, or
stones rather, for these preponderate, had been turned over again and
again, each time yielding less, until the soil ceased to return sufficient
remuneration to the only process of labour that could be at that time
applied to it. But before now water has been conducted there, and by the
more wholesale process of sluice-washing, the gulch claims are again up
in the market.
By-and-by we shall hear of the sluice-washing companies having
deserted the gulch, and perhaps for a short period the red stony gravel will
lie idle; but soon steam-engines and some process of securing the gold by
amalgamation with quicksilver, will brighten up old Mormon Gulch
again, and there is no knowing how remote the day is, when its red banks
shall for once and all, finally and for the twentieth time, be reported to
have “given out.”
The history of Mormon Gulch, and the future I have sketched for it, is
applicable to every ravine in the country, so far as this, that each
auriferous flat or gulch will be subjected to certain processes, until at last
the appliances of steam and science shall have robbed every square foot
of earth of the treasure it contains.
Now, if all the gold territory of this country had been seized upon and
worked at the time that Mormon Gulch was first discovered, we might
form some estimate of the time when machinery should be brought to
bear generally upon the placers; but as yet we cannot ascertain the amount
of gold-bearing soil that exists; for not only are fresh diggings still
brought to light, in the vicinity of the original discoveries, but we have
ample proof that plenty lies beyond in the direction of the Sierra Nevada,
which now, from the presence of hostile Indians, cannot be disturbed, and
indeed, for the present, is not wanted.
The number of those who are now actually collecting gold by mining
in California, may be computed at about one hundred and forty thousand
men.
The obstacles that are alike presented by the extremes of the wet and
dry seasons, will not admit, probably, of these miners working for more
than two hundred days in the year, and the average daily sum amassed by
each man, may be fairly quoted at three and a half dollars, or fifteen
shillings.
This will give an annual yield of twenty-one millions sterling from
California, and I have no reason to doubt that this sum is obtained,
although it does not (for many reasons) appear in the reported exports of
specie from the country.
Now, if this sum can be annually realised by the exertions of
comparatively so small a body of men, who have even at the latest dates
no better plan of securing the gold than by a rude system of washing,
what may we expect when machinery is employed, and labour
concentrated?
Those portions of the placer fields that would reward manual labour
with less than one or two dollars a day, are as yet unmolested, for as yet
the ruling rates of wages in the mines is higher, being guided by the
average yield. Therefore it is difficult to place a limit on the amount of
auriferous earth that now, rejected by the miner, will, by the proper
application of machinery and the reduction of labour, eventually produce
a vast return. There is scarcely a hill-side but gives evidence of the
existence of gold, but although this soil will not at present repay manual
labour, no one can suppose that the metal will be allowed to rest there
undisturbed.
The distribution of gold in the soil is most eccentric, and this is
attributable probably to three causes:[19] firstly, that for the most part it
was disintegrated from the matrix during the stupendous volcanic action
to which all the gold territory of California has been subjected; secondly,
that it has been carried to and fro by vast masses of water, the result of
heavy rains, or more probably of heavy falls of snow in the mountains,
that have suddenly melted and carried all before them; finally, from the
land-slips and accumulations of upper soil that must necessarily result
where steep hills of gravel have been for ages subjected to the sudden
transitions of wet and dry seasons.
I tread very carefully whenever I find myself on the geologist’s
ground, bearing in mind my scientific friend at Murderer’s Bar, who
reached the bottom so much quicker than he desired; therefore I can only
suggest; and the two readers to whom this discourse is dedicated, whilst
they deplore the ignorance which prevents me leading them through a
labyrinth of formations and stratas, must place something to my credit on
the score of modesty.
Wherever gold is discovered in California, particles of quartz are
found adhering to it more or less; this quartz, even when found at great
depths, is generally rounded by the action of water, for quartz, when
detached by violent action, is naturally angular, and inclined to splinter,
and from its hardness it must require ages to give it the form of a pebble,
by the slow process of grinding it receives in a comparatively dry
mountain gorge. This, taken in conjunction with the facts that the gold is
found now on the surface, and now low down resting on the bed rock,
here forced into clefts of granite, and again in clusters of small pear-
shaped nuggets, as if the metal had been ejected by intense heat, and had
dripped from the volcanic boulders that lie scattered around; tends to bear
out the supposition that disintegrated gold has been cast into places that
time and accident alone can reveal, and that the original opinion that the
gold was on the surface only no longer holds good.
Tunnelling has already been applied to rich hills in the mines with
great success, and this fact alone is of great importance, in so far that it
leaves us powerless to place a limit on the amount of auriferous soil that
is imbedded in the small round hillocks that extend over a space of nearly
four hundred miles, north and south.
Where ingenuity aided by science is at fault, a very slight clue will
often accidentally lead to the solution of a problem; thus much capital has
already been devoted to the damming of those streams in California, of
which the banks were found to be wealthy; but in few instances hitherto
have the beds been found to be productive: yet they must be so at some
point, unless we are to imagine, what is improbable, that gold has been
carried by rain water to the verge of a swift stream, and then has been
arrested there without any apparent obstacle.
There is something capricious about this metal in its released state; a
search for it, even where evidence of its existence has been shown, is
seldom attended with success, yet every day almost chance brings to light
some fresh gold field.
I remember a gentleman who, taking an early Sunday walk among the
hills that surround the town of Sonora, struck his foot against a stone. He
should have found a sermon in it, for he was not likely to find one
anywhere else, but in the agony of a mutilated great toe, he turned and
apostrophised the rock in unbecoming language; but he suddenly checked
his impetuous feelings, and we will hope from a good motive; whether or
no, the offending quartz was so richly coated with the dross that we make
a point of despising when we can’t get enough of it, that he took it home.
It was found to contain more gold than quartz, and yet within a few
hundred yards of a populous city, it had protruded itself ostentatiously
without notice for two or three years.
It is difficult to understand why gold remained so long undiscovered in
California, considering that so much of it was on the surface, even in
those parts of the country already inhabited by whites. The Indians, who
will search assiduously for the flints they require for arrow-heads, do not
seem to have been aware of the existence of gold on the plains, although
the savages of the as yet unexplored mountain districts, are found with
gold in their possession. The early Spanish priests evidently sought for it
without success, judging from the old shafts that have been sunk, on part
of the banks of the Stanislaus River; and yet these explorations were
ineffectually made in the centre of a rich district, and by a class of
gentlemen who were never in the habit of overlooking a good thing.
Some of the best diggings have been discovered by market-gardeners,
who have chosen some apparently valueless tract for the purpose of
cabbage growing, and it is a fact that one man with more energy than
agricultural experience, who was abusing the earth for producing
cabbages that were all stalk, found on rooting up one very lengthy
specimen, that a piece of gold adhered to the roots.
Holden’s garden, near Sonora, is a case in point; this was found to be
so rich, that the gamblers of the town sallied out to take possession of it,
and a fight occurred, in which one or two lives were lost before the
“claims” could be adjusted.
For four years Holden’s acre of cabbage ground has been worked with
great profit, pieces of gold of many pounds weight each have been taken
from it, and to this day it is a rich digging, as times go.
It is possible that both my readers have heard of a certain Irish pig that
could only be induced to go in one direction by being at the onset driven
in another; it is somewhat this way with the search for gold.—Start on a
voyage of discovery for copper or coal, and you will probably, if in a gold
region, tumble down and break your nose over a nugget as large as a
paving stone; but if you give chase to the seductive metal itself, the toil of
a lifetime will very likely not counterbalance the first week’s privation.
In respect to gold-fields, even if our argument leads to no definite
conclusion, it is something gained if we can determine that no sign of
diminution of yield is as yet apparent,—as regards the future, the wisest
can only record an opinion. I believe for my part that the gold-fields of
California will certainly yield in an equivalent proportion to their present
produce for many years, even if the diggers are left to their own
resources;—what may be done with the soil eventually, when capital shall
increase in the mines and from the mines, is a question as impossible to
solve as that of the advance of science in other respects within the next
half century.
The miners of California are a highly intelligent and determined race,
possessed of a degree of mechanical genius that surprises me; they have
before them a large area of soil, which they, equally with myself, believe
still to be most wealthy. They may by-and-by have the advantages of
foreign capital to help them; but if not, the capital that their sinews can
accumulate ounce by ounce from the gold soil will, in the long run, so far
answer the end, that the hills will be burrowed and the streams turned,
until the wealth is sifted from them, and then they have a gold territory, as
yet partially explored, to fall back upon—the first range of the Sierra
Nevada.
Now, like enterprising farmers, they sow again perhaps one half of the
year’s harvest, until each fertile spot shall be in cultivation, multiplying
and fruitful; and so long as we see that the gold from the soil is turned
against the soil in the all-powerful form of capital, aided by science; and
so long as we know that what is separated to-day by the “long tom” may
to-morrow be devoted to the erection of steam-engines and the sinking of
vast tunnels; we know that a great system of improvement is being carried
out independent of all external aid: and in the facts that on every side
attest the strong faith the miners hold themselves in respect of the
inexhaustible nature of the soil, and in the evidences of success that meet
us at all points, where fresh inventions are applied, we have the best
guarantee that the “placers” of California are in a state of progressive
improvement.
The reader will better understand this when I state that the miners of
California have many of them had six years experience, are naturally men
of ability, and are now in positions of independence, though still miners.