. Old Ironsides, the hero of Tripoli and 1812, and other tales and adventures on sea and land . stone. On the morning of January 19th, 1848, Mar-shal] went out as usual to superintend the work ofthe hands. He closed the gate of the forebay, thusshutting off the water, and then walked down thetrail-race to see how much sand and gravel hadbeen washed away during the night. He strolledto the lower end, and stood several minutes examin-ing the debris that had been washed down, whenhe saw something glitter in a crevice on a rift ofsome granite several inches under water. .Marshall had expressed the
. Old Ironsides, the hero of Tripoli and 1812, and other tales and adventures on sea and land . stone. On the morning of January 19th, 1848, Mar-shal] went out as usual to superintend the work ofthe hands. He closed the gate of the forebay, thusshutting off the water, and then walked down thetrail-race to see how much sand and gravel hadbeen washed away during the night. He strolledto the lower end, and stood several minutes examin-ing the debris that had been washed down, whenhe saw something glitter in a crevice on a rift ofsome granite several inches under water. .Marshall had expressed the opinion more thanonce that valuable minerals existed in the moun-tains, but Slitter always laughed at him. He nowstooped down and picked up the shining fragment,which was different from anything he had ever i/ O seen before. He studied it closely, and finally be-came convinced that it was one of three metals—mica, sulphurets of copper, or gold. It was too heavy to be mica, and therefore mustbe one of the other two metals. He recalled thatgold was malleable, while sulphurets of copper is. MARSHALL FINDING THE FIRST NUGGET. r i- 55 56 OLD IRONSIDES. brittle. He therefore laid it on a stone and ham-mered it smartly with another. It did not crackor break off, but bent under the repeated was almost certain it was gold, but kept cool,probably unaware of the momentous importanceof the discovery he had made. He showed the nug-get to the men, indulged in a few speculations asto the extent of the auriferous deposit, and con-tinued his work. He kept a sharp watch, how-ever, of the stream, and, in the course of a fewdays, gathered several similar specimens. With these in his pockets, he saddled his horseand rode down to the Fort to look after some de-layed stores. When they had been attended to, hetook Sutter aside and showed him the gentleman was incredulous, and had themweighed and tested. The result was established be-yond all question that they were GOLD. This w
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