SITE OF SUTTER'S SAWMILL

In Coloma, at a spot on the American River that the Indians

called Culloomah, is a monument of stones, near where

James W. Marshall happened to notice flakes of gold while

shutting off water to the mill on Jan. 24, 1848. Marshall's

discovery was not the first in California but it was the

one that spread the lust for gold around the world. Mar-

shall's discovery won him little but hard luck. Marshall

died in abject poverty on Aug. 10, 1885, and was buried

on a hilltop within sight of the spot where he made his

find. Nothing is left of the sawmill today. . M.P.

Photo-color by Merle Porter

PANNING GOLD

Gold is usually found in two forms, in veins or lodes;

and in river beds or near them where the metal is called

alluvial gold. Gold is also found with other elements

such as copper, iron but usually with silver. The simplest

form of gold mining is panning, which applies to allu-

vial gold. The miner shovels sand and gravel that have

gold in them into a pan which he tilts slightly and works

with a rotation motion. The particles of gold, being the

heaviest, sink to the bottom of the pan while the lighter

materials are washed away. It was this method, while

being wasteful, which was practiced almost entirely during

the opening of the great gold fields... M. P.

Photo-color by Merle Porter

Ships in plastic between cardboard in a stamped envelope