these effects to be perceived) represents less labour on the one hand, and less property on the other. But it will be argued that such a depreciation is caused by the indirect means of emigration, and that this is temporary. Granted: but if it is a depreciation, may it not last, in a temporary way, as fresh gold-fields are discovered, until it is supplanted by the permanent depreciation which will arise when the vast influx of precious metal shall first make itself felt throughout the world? Already out of my depth, I leave the foregoing remarks as they stand, and the reader will observe that they are only suggestive. If I have allowed myself to plunge from a firm bank of facts into a small puddle of conjecture, with which I had no business, all I can say is that I am very sorry for it, and will wade out of it as fast as I can. CHAPTER XVIII. CONSTABLE TRANSPORT MACHINERY TO THE MINE THE CARPENTER JUDGE, AND JOHN CHINAMAN-CHINESE November, 1851. IN the course of three months we had collected two or three hundred tons of ore, and as the tests we daily made still bore out our preconceived opinions of the value of the mine, I proceeded to San Francisco for the purpose of procuring the steam power and machinery requisite for a trial of the metal we had quarried. The life of the quartz miner at this date was tortured by doubts; he was ever in doubt as to the value of his rock; he was ever in doubt as to the depth of his vein; and he was ever in doubt as to the machinery best adapted for securing gold; nor is his position, taken generally, much happier in these respects at the present time; and I will be bound, sir, that the directors who led to your victimization,* * Obsolete term revived. and the subordinates that they employed, are as much trammelled by these doubts as any quartz miners I could mention. I was profoundly meditative on the subject of machinery as I jogged along on the Old Soldier to Stockton. I recalled to mind that for pulverising the rock we had stampers, rollers, grinders, and triturators, which you pleased; that for amalgamating the gold with quicksilver we had "trapiches," erasteros," wooden tubs, and iron basins, which you pleased also. That we had design No. 1, that had been so successfully employed by Professor A, in the Ural Mountains; design No. 2, that Professor B had made his fortune with (by selling the patent though), and which had never failed in the Swiss Cantons, where gold was rather scarce than otherwise; and design No. 3, an infallible invention by Professor C, an American gentleman, who hadn't sold his patent yet, but was quite ready to part with it for a consideration. All this I knew, but I was also aware that none of these plans had been attended with complete success; some were too simple in construction and too slow, others were too complicated in mechanism and too fast and furious. One machine would catch every metal the quartz contained except the gold; another would allow every TRANSPORT MACHINERY TO THE MINE. 325 thing to give it the go by, except the refuse tailings that were not wanted; none secured the gold but those which required more manual labour than it would have been profitable to employ. When, therefore, I arrived at San Francisco I determined on trying a newly invented machine which had not yet been proved in the mines, but which looked very promising for my experimental work; with this, and an eight horse power steam engine, I returned to Tuttle Town, It was hard work to get the boiler of the engine over the mountains, for the rains had commenced to fall, and in many places the mud was very deep. Three or four days' rain entirely change the character of the Sonora road; and wherever there is a hollow in which the water can accumulate, there, throughout the winter, you have a quagmire which becomes deeper as each fresh waggon or mule passes through it, until at last having become impassable, it is avoided by a circuit, which one traveller having made every other traveller from that day follows. Although I had given the boiler two or three days' start, I found it on arriving at Table Mountain, with the worst part of the journey still before it; however, we had sixteen yoke of oxen, and after a couple of days of great trouble, the machinery was at length safely planted in Tuttle Town. Its arrival created great sensation, and the town increased in size and importance on the strength of it. A French baker and a butcher established themselves in our main street; and at the first general election a justice of the peace and constable were legally elected; the former was a worthy carpenter of good education; the latter post was filled by Rowe. Whenever we saw Rowe buckling on his pistols in a decisive manner preparatory to a start, we knew that he was proceeding to collect a debt due to some Tuttletonian, and this active constable invariably brought back either the money or the man. And although our own small population was very peaceful, our justice of the peace had ample employment from the surrounding miners, and dispensed a great amount of justice in a very firm but off-hand manner; and so much respect was felt for the sagacity and impartiality of our carpenter, that his decisions in those disputes that came before his notice were invariably received with satisfaction on all sides. The following incident will illustrate the summary process by which one judge and one constable could force obedience to the law amongst an armed population in the mountains. One evening as our "judge" was putting the finishing touch to a shanty he had been engaged in |