Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/264

 chasing hills in low rounded rythm, while November's moisture tints the gray plats with green, and the swelling bud begins to push from the branches of the trees their dry leaves.

"Eureka!" exclaimed Archimedes, as the method of determining specific gravity flashed upon him while in the bath. "Eureka!" cried the gold-thirsty thousands as, striking their picks in the gravelly bottoms of the Pactolian streams, they turned up the glittering-sand which was to be healing balm for all the nations.

In the hope of a sudden acquisition of wealth there is that which strikes the imagination and rouses the spirits not found in the patient plodding walks of industry or commerce. At such times the mind becomes so inflamed, and the judgment so warped, that the venturer closes the eye to danger and disappointment, and visions of the coveted treasure only absorb the mind.

To these early diggers California was the Omphalos, the earth's navel-stone, the very centre of created things; she was what Ithaca was to Ulysses.

They were no brainless brood of mad adventurers, though among them were many such. They were gods, and god-makers. First of all labor was deified, digging for gold being no child's play, but work—labor and rags. Into Jove's hands was placed a pick, and Minerva was made to stand in the state seat; Jupiter was not permitted to go naked, neither must he wear store clothes. They themselves displayed their contempt of conventionalities by dressing as badly as they could, and if by chance one of them became suddenly rich, he dressed worse than the rest. Some, if they did not attempt the perfect nudity of the Picards in Flanders, and ape Adam in paradise, came near to it, their wardrobe being shirt and overalls, with the shirt usually left off.