Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/470

392 apparatus the yield on the spot was found to be over fifty per cent. Mr. Charles M. Wetherill of Philadelphia, an accomplished chemist, found the percentage of mercury to be 60, in 123 grains which were submitted to him; and 45 in another parcel containing 61½ grains. Cinnabar ore has been found in about twenty other places within a few miles of this valuable location.

It is asserted that there are extensive veins of silver, iron and copper in California; but there is no information sufficiently accurate to justify a statement of their existence or value.

The commerce of California has of course flourished in proportion to her population and wealth. The aggregate of duties paid on foreign merchandize at San Francisco from the 12th of November 1849 to the 31st of May 1850, was $755,974. At the date of the information there were in the harbor 623 sailing vessels, 12 steamers; and 140 sail vessels and 8 steamers at Sacramento City, Stockton and other places up the rivers. Of this total of 783 vessels, 120 were foreign and 663 American. The amount of tonnage at San Francisco, was 1,020,476, and 100,000 in towns and cities on the Sacramento and San Joaquin; but of this large sum 800,000 tons at least were unemployed.

The singular history of the unprecedented rise in the value of merchandize or the necessaries of life in California after the discovery of gold, is a chapter full of surprising and fantastical incidents, but our narrowing space denies us the tempting privilege of recounting it in this volume.

In all these calculations and estimates we must occasionally approach the dangerous domain of speculation, and in this category must we also place most of our information respecting the population and towns of California. Population is of course constantly augmenting under these great temptations for the rapid accumulation of fortune; yet with society in such a transition state, the true ratios or numbers of actual increase cannot be accurately obtained.

According to Baron Humboldt the population of Upper California consisted in 1802, of 7,945 males and 7,617 females, or, 15,562 individuals attached to the eighteen missions. All other classes whether whites, mestizos, or mixed castes, either in the Presidios or in the service of the Monks, were estimated at 1,300. This calculation would make the whole population, at that time, exclusive of wild Indians, 16,862. In 1831, the number of missions had increased to twenty-one, and their Indian neophytes were 18,683; all other classes in the garrisons and among the free settlers