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Show 148 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. quently there is not that difference in the gold yield of the seasons that there formerly was. But all things considered, if you will come by steamship, perhaps the early spri.ng time should have the pre,ference. 'The trip by water can as well, or better, and perhaps safer, be n1ade in winter or spring, than in mid-sumn1er, You then reach California at a season when all is pleasant and delightful; frequent heavy showers perhaps ; but not long continued, cold rains, and the weather every day improving. Th~ ground for mining, sott and easily worked, and water in almost every great gulch and ravine, costing you nothing. No vvinter clothing is necessary, and the weather just delightfully cool for work; and by the time you have become somewhat acquainted with mining operations, I and the water from natural channels begins to fail, you· will be in a condition and can afford, if upon a good claim properly situated, to pay a reasonable price for water, from some one of the many artificial water courses near you. Then with a prosperous summer's work, and your experience gained, you will be in condition to make every needful preparation for a full and profitable winter's work. Should your mining operations be carried on by tu.nneling, summer and winter will be nearly alike to you, the only difference in the working, is the facility with which water can be procured for washing out, and the presence of a greater or ~esser quantity in the claim, to impede the vrorl\ing of it. So that at any season of the year, if ready to come to California, COME RIGHT ALONG. ·, APPENDIX. 149 WHAT SHALL I DO ? / \ Almost every man on starting for California, thinks he knows just what ·he will do orr arriving here ; and a very large number of those 'without capital, think they will take hold of mining, and stick to it till they have made their" pile.'' And it would have been far better now. for thousands, had they but held to their first resolve. Ifow many there are, of the '49,.'50 and '51 men, who ~ight with truth say, had I but stuck to t~e pick, pan and· shovel, and let trading and speculation alone, I might no\V have been worth a hand orne fortune. And yet not a week, hardly a day pas ,es, that we ~o. not see men, capable of doing a full day s 'vork at mtntng, and earning at least from two to three dollars, if only upon hire, that either totally abandon it because it is work, and therefore don't agree with them ; or because they see in others, those who seem to be making money by t;ading or speculation a little faster or easier than themselves. In mercantile, commercial, professional and mechanical pursuits, there is much of competition every where in California, as well among the mines and mountains, as in the cities and valleys of the lower world, and a trader no sooner finds himself located and doing a. fair living business, than on comes a competit~r, and you are compelled to divide the business, and of course the profits of the trade with hirn. Not so in mining; in this business there is room for |