Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/474

396 quantities from placeres in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. It is very likely that the rulers of the Mexican Republic were not anxious to add to the allurements which were already enticing our people to her distant province, and silence was therefore preserved in relation to its mineral wealth.

California has, at least, illustrated one great moral truth which the avaricious world required to be taught. When men were starving though weighed down with gold,—when all the necessaries of life rose to twice, thrice, tenfold, and even fifty or a hundred times their value in the Atlantic States,—that distant province demonstrated the intrinsic worthlessness of the coveted ore, and the permanent value of every thing produced by genuine industry and labor. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the new State will not degenerate into a mere mining country, or be forever a prey to that feverish excitement in the pursuit of sudden wealth which is fed or frustrated by the contemptible accidents of luck.

The rapid development of the country is almost unparalleled in national history; and now that a substantial government and union with our confederacy are secured, it remains to be seen how the social problem of California will be solved, and whether it possesses any other elements than those of gold and men for the creation of a great maritime State on the shores of the Pacific. Wonderful order has been preserved in spite of the anomalous condition of the immigrants; yet refined woman must be content to cast her lot in that remote but romantic region, and, by her benign influence, soften, enlighten, and regulate a society which is formed almost exclusively of men. In the course of time steam will open rapid communications with the east, and travellers will not be compelled to pass either the desert or those more southern regions where the mouldering ruins of Casas Grandes denote the ancient seat of Indian civilization. The iron bands of railways, the metallic wires of the telegraph, and the gold of California will then bind the whole grand empire of the west in a union, which social sympathies, commercial interests, national policy, and a glorious history will make everlasting.