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Show 146 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. bilities. But to you who will be content with two or three times the amount you can possibly earn at pome, in the same length of time, until by experience, you learn something of the requisites necessary to successful mining, by connecting your labors with those who have this experience, till you are properly informed, the chances never ·have been, but little better for you than now. Clothing, provisions and implements, can be obtained at very low rates, almost anywhere in the mines. Water for gold washing is being introduced almost monthly, by ditches and canals, to new, rich, and extensive gold fields. Mining has been reduced to something like oystem, so that a steady yield of gold is sure to follow a proper application of labor upon a good claim, and there are thousands of these, as yet undiscovered and unworked. Be industrious, prudent, moral and temperate, and we know of no country on the earth, so full of hope and promise, to the healthy, willing laborer, as California. WHEN SHALL I START ? • Having determined to emigrate- for so we most certainly shoulrl were we back again, or having never seen California, could in any way be possessed of our present knowledge of the country- and having resolved to go by the Isthmus route, or by either of the steamship lines, as the easiest and most speedy mode- but not the best or cheapest, for we consider the overland route prefera- \ APPENDIX. 147 I ble- another question very naturally arises, when, or at what season of the year shall I start for California? we will suppose rthat you' are coming with willing hearts and able bands to dig for gold. We well remember previous to' leaving the States east, of hearing that the autumn or early winter, was the best time to reach California, inasmuch as at that time, the winter rains were just setting in', furnishing everywhere, the indispensable requisite for gold-washing. And such was the I fact to a great extent at that time, and the same reason-ing will apply even now, to many localities not watered by artificial means. · But then there were always drawbacks attendant upon an arrival so near the rainy season. These were, in part, the liability to sickness from constant exposure to cold, drenching rains, through a long winter, which it is impossible to avoid, if anything like a regular, paying system of mining is carried on above ground. Or if to avoid the wet and cold, you provide yourself with the necessary oil-cloth or India rubber clothing, you are rraet at once by a heavy expenditure, and at a time too, when you are but a mere novice at mining, and consequently not working to advantage, and at the very season when your necessary provisions or board costs you the m·ost. Within the last four years, however, a great change has been wrought in the mining districts, by the introduction of water by ditches and canals, rendering gold mining practicable at all seasons of the year ; conse- |