I feel
confident in saying there are fifty men in this 'Placer' who have on an
average 1,000 dollars each, obtained in May and June. I have not met
with any person who had been fully employed in washing gold one month;
most, however, appear to have averaged an ounce per day. I think there
must, by this time, be over 1,000 men at work upon the different
branches of the Sacramento; putting their gains at 10,000 dollars per
day, for six days in the week, appears to me not overrated.
"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.
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