Johnson, J. H. Baker, Samuel Gideon J. Carpenter............ 433 37. View of Fort Miller........ 38. Brigham Young................................. HUTCHINGS' CALIFORNIA MAGAZINE. VOL. II. OURSELVES. JULY, 1857. N this, the advent of the first-fruits of your continued kindness, and our second volume, gentle reader, we may, perhaps, be permitted to congratulate, and say "God speed ye," to each other. Thus far we have traveled together over plain and mountain, meadow and hill, among forest trees and shrubs, and wild-flowers of the ever-varying landscape of California experience. We trust that our converse by the way has been to each other's heart like NO. I. alternating sunlight and shadow to a beautiful scene, gilding the sorrowful with hope, and shading the joyful with a common brotherhood and sympathy, for the unfor tunate. We hope that during the coming months, our friendly interest in, and communion with each other, will be increased; and our presence become a welcome identity with every household in our Pacific State. It may be cheering to our friends to know, that their words of kindness, and acts of co-operation, have crowned our efforts with unexpected success, so that now there is scarcely a glen or a valley, a settlement or a camp, a town or a city, in California, where our Magazine does not find its way; and thousands every month are sent to distant friends, to give them greeting and remembrance. Gratitude for these con tinually extending favors, will, we trust, nerve us to fresh endeavors, to make the California Magazine in every way more worthy of the kind approval of the public for the future; believing it to be the cheapest publication on the Pacific coast, we are determined also, that it shall be among the best. MINING FOR GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. | of what they are, or how they are worked. The reader, no doubt, well remembers the peculiar impressions which the first tidings of the discovery of gold in California produced upon his mind. How in every possible way the imagination industriously endeavored to picture the exhilarating scenes which surrounded, and the pleasurable excitement which attended the enviable employment of digging for gold. What lucky fellows they must be, who, untrammeled by the common-place constraint of ordinary business, could, with their own hands, take the precious metal from the earth, and in a few brief months, perhaps, by their own labor, become the fortunate possessors of sufficient wealth to make a whole lifetime happy for themselves and family, as well as useful to others. What enchanting visions of the good to be accomplished-of the pleasures to be PICK. enjoyed-of the greatness to be achieved,or the triumphs to be won, influenced his decision and turned his thoughts and footsteps towards the Land of Gold. No wonder that his impressions were somewhat vague, and his knowledge limited and indefinite; as but little was then known of the country, manner of living, the labor required, or methods in use for working the mines. Even to this day, with all that has been written, and all the pictorial illustrations which have been published, those who have not actually visited the mines, have but a very incorrect conception |