Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/49



to guard  their  gold  from  the  Russians. They were not fierce  at  all,  but  rather  as  Sutter  found  them
 * ' aux  moeurs  douces  et  faciles.'

Holinski tells  of  a  laborer,  a  servant  of  the  Rus- sian American Company  in  California,  who  one  day went to  the  commandant  with  the  story  that  he  had seen gold  in  the  bed  of  a  stream,  and  advised  that  a party  be  sent  to  examine  it. The man  was  told  to mind  his  own  business.

Add to  the  statement  of  Scala  the  testimony  of Governor  Alvarado,  given  in  the  first  volume  of  his Historia de  California,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  the Russians of  Ross  and  Bodega  were  aware  of  the  ex- istence of gold  in  the  valley  of  California  as  early  as 1814. During: the  administration  of  Governor  Ar- guello, Alvarado  says  that  gold  was  found  in  the possession of  a  Russian,  El  Loco  Alexis  he  was  called. The man  was  in  jail  at  Monterey  at  the  time,  impris- oned with three  others,  perhaps  for  drunkenness,  or' for killing  beaver,  or,  more  likely,  for  being  Russians. Alexis would  not  tell  how  or  where  he  obtained  the gold, and  as  he  was  shortly  afterward  sent  to  Sitka, nothing came  of  it. Alvarado does  not  hesitate  to assert  further  that  "we  well  knew  of  the  existence  of gold  deposits  on  the  slopes  of  the  northern  mountains, but  the  Indians,  who  were  so  much  more  numerous than  we,  prevented  our  exploring  in  that  direction."

Because Phillips,  in  his  Mineralogy,  edition  of  1818, spoke of  gold  in  California,  many  thought  he  had knowledge of  the  existence  of  that  metal  in  the  Sierra foothills.

In the  possession  of  the  San  Francisco  Society  of Pioneers  is  a  stone  tablet,  indicating  the  discovery  of gold  on  Feather  river  in  1818. It was  presented  to the  society  by  W.  F.  Stewart  in  1868,  and  is  held  in great  estimation  by  the  wise  men  of  the  day. The stone is  of  hard,  yellowish,  sandy  texture,  about  twelve inches in  length  by  an  average  of  three  inches