“The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the seashore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds to the sordid cry of gold! GOLD!! GOLD!!!” observed a local paper, the Alta California, “while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes, and the means of transportation to the spot where one man obtained $128 of the real stuff in one day’s washing, and the average for all concerned is $20 per diem.” With this statement, the paper announced that it was suspending publication; its entire staff was
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