I know most of this talk is wildly exaggerated, but I
am sensible enough to discount all that sort of thing and to disbelieve
absurd stories. I shan't go with the slightest notion of finding the
thing true, but will be satisfied if I do reasonably well. In fact, if I
don't pick up more than a hatful of gold a day I shall be perfectly
satisfied."
Men's minds were full of strange positive knowledge, not only as to the
extent of the goldmines, but also as to theory and practice of the
actual mining. Contemporary writers tell us of the hundreds and hundreds
of different strange machines invented for washing out the gold and
actually carried around the Horn or over the Isthmus of Panama to San
Francisco. They were of all types, from little pocket-sized affairs up
to huge arrangements with windmill arms and wings. Their destination was
inevitably the beach below the San Francisco settlement, where, half
buried in the sand, torn by the trade winds, and looted for whatever of
value might inhere in the metal parts, they rusted and disintegrated, a
pathetic and grisly reminder of the futile greed of men.
Nor was this excitement confined to the eastern United States. In France
itself lotteries were held, called, I believe, the Lotteries of the
Golden Ingot.
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