The Adventures of a Forty-Niner: An Historic Description Of California, With Events And Ideas Of San Francisco And Its People In Those Early Days (Timeless Classic Books) - Softcover

Knower, Daniel; Books, Timeless Classic

9781456513498: The Adventures of a Forty-Niner: An Historic Description Of California, With Events And Ideas Of San Francisco And Its People In Those Early Days (Timeless Classic Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1456513494 ISBN 13: 9781456513498

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011

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Written in the early 1900’s, this book is a wonderful historic look at the Gold Rush as seen through the author back then. Here is the beginning of the preface to Mr. Knower’s book: The discovery of gold in California, in 1848, with its other mineral resources, including the Alamada quicksilver mine at San Jos�, which is an article of first necessity in working gold or silver ore; and the great silver mines of Nevada, in 1860, the Comstock lode, in which, in ten years, from five to eight hundred millions of gold and silver were taken out, a larger amount than was ever taken from one locality before, the Alamada quicksilver mine being the second most productive of any in the world, the one in Spain being the largest, said to be owned by the Rothschilds. Its effect upon the general prosperity and development of our country has been immense, almost incalculable. Before these discoveries the amount of gold in the United States was estimated at about seventy millions, now it is conceded to be seven hundred millions. The Northern Pacific coast was then almost unpopulated. California a territory three times as large as New York and Oregon and the State of Washington, all now being cultivated and containing large and populous cities, and railroads connecting them with the East. Why that country should have remained uninhabited for untold ages, where universal stillness must have prevailed as far as human activity is concerned, is one of the unfathomable mysteries of nature. It is only one hundred and twenty-five years since the Bay of San Francisco was first discovered, one of the grandest harbors in the world, being land-locked, extending thirty miles, where all the vessels of the world could anchor in safety. The early pioneers of those two years immediately after the gold was discovered.

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