Page:History of California (Bancroft) volume 6.djvu/82



best gold-fields,  for  all  must  eat  while  they  live."^ Others  looked  around  and  saw  with  prophetic  eye  the turn  in  the  tide  when  different  resources  must  spring into  prominence;  not  only  land  grants  with  farms  and orchards,  and  forests  witU  their  varied  products,  but metals  and  minerals  of  a  baser  kind,  as  quicksilver, copper,  coal.^  They  foresaw  the  rush  from  abroad  of gold-seekers,  the  gathering  of  vast  fleets,  the  influx of  merchandise,  with  their  consequent  flow  of  traffic and  trade,  the  rise  of  cities  and  the  growth  of  settle- ments. Those  were  the  days  of  great  opportunities, when  a  hundred  properly  invested  would  soon  have yielded  millions.  We  might  have  improved  an  oppor- tunity like  Sutter's  better  than  he  did.  So  we  think; yet  opportunities  jiist  as  great  perhaps  present  them- selves to us  every  day,  and  will  present  themselves, but we  do  not  see  them.

^Archives Santa  Cruz,  MS.,  107;  HalCa  HiaL^  190-1;  Larkin*s  Doc,, MS., vi.

''^ Men  began  to  quarrel  afresh  over  the  New  Almaden  claim,  now  aban- doned by  its  workmen  for  more  fascinating  fields;  in  the  spring  of  this  year the country  round  Clear  Lake  h^d  been  searched  for  copper.