This book is about exploring old gold and silver mines in Part One. Part Two is about actual experiences using various recovery equipment to find gold. Part Three is a look at some of the million dollar gold mines from present to the 1800's. Part Four is about new equipment to recover gold from rivers and streams.

Chauncey de Leon Canfield (1843-1909) first published "The diary of a forty-niner" in 1906, and 1,200 of the 2,000 copies in that edition were burned. Joseph Gaer's Bibliography of California literature describes this book as written in the form of a diary, but fictional. The diary of a forty-niner (1920) reprints Canfield's 1906 publication. It purports to be the diary of Alfred T. Jackson, of Litchfield County, Connecticut, during his days as a gold prospector, 1850-1852. Jackson offers first-hand accounts of Nevada City and neighboring Rock Creek; descriptions of Grass Valley, North and South Yuba Valleys, and the Sierra Mountains; details of gold mining with accounts of pioneer overland crossings, and foreign mineworkers (including Chinese). Entries concerning Jackson's personal life include details of his courtship of a French woman in the camps.

Did you know that an estimated 5,000 blacks were an early and integral part of the California Gold Rush? Did you know that black history in California precedes Gold Rush history by some 300 years? Did you know that in California during the Gold Rush, blacks created one of the wealthiest, most culturally advanced, most politically active communities in the nation? Few people are aware of the intriguing, dynamic often wholly inspirational stories of African American argonauts, from backgrounds as diverse as those of their less sturdy- complexioned peers. Defying strict California fugitive slave laws and an unforgiving court testimony ban in a state that declared itself free, black men and women combined skill, ambition and courage and rose to meet that daunting challenge with dignity, determination and even a certain elan, leaving behind a legacy that has gone starkly under-reported. Mainstream history tends to contribute to the illusion that African Americans were all but absent from the California Gold Rush experience. This remarkable book, illustrated with dozens of photos, offers definitive contradiction to that illusion and opens a door that leads the reader into a forgotten world long shrouded behind the shadowy curtains of time."

Edward Washington McIlhany (b. 1828) left West Virginia for the California gold fields in 1849. Recollections of a 49er (1908) describes his overland journey west, gold prospecting on Feather River and Grass Valley, hunting and trapping, proprietorship of a general store and hotel in Onion Valley, the Colorado gold rush, and Missouri railroading after the Civil War.

GOLD, did you ever wish you could find gold without using a pile full of heavy and expensive equipment? Can a person jump into the water and pick up lots of gold? Well some people do just that, and what they do is called SNIPING. This style of mining is one of the best-kept secrets along many gold-bearing rivers. The equipment is simple and inexpensive, but the rewards can be great, in both the doing and finding. Jump in knowing you have a head start on the learning curve that Sam Radding, Jim Garlock and many of their friends spent years chasing. The gold is still there, and sniping is the most enjoyable way we know to get it. Once you see that first piece of underwater gold, you'll be hooked!

When The World Rushed In was first published in 1981, the Washington Post predicted, “It seems unlikely that anyone will write a more comprehensive book about the Gold Rush.” Twenty years later, no one has emerged to contradict that judgment, and the book has gained recognition as a classic. As the San Francisco Examiner noted, “It is not often that a work of history can be said to supplant every book on the same subject that has gone before it.” Through the diary and letters of William Swain--augmented by interpolations from more than five hundred other gold seekers and by letters sent to Swain from his wife and brother back home--the complete cycle of the gold rush is recreated: the overland migration of over thirty thousand men, the struggle to “strike it rich” in the mining camps of the Sierra Nevadas, and the return home through the jungles of the Isthmus of Panama. In a new preface, the author reappraises our continuing fascination with the “gold rush experience” as a defining epoch in western--indeed, American--history.

“A California classic . . . California, it should be remembered, was very much the wild west, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way into statehood. so what tamed it? Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects.”—The Economist From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, the Golden State’s premier historian distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. Kevin Starr covers it all: Spain’s conquest of the native peoples of California in the early sixteenth century and the chain of missions that helped that country exert control over the upper part of the territory; the discovery of gold in January 1848; the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons; the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace. In a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph, Starr gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state. Praise for California “[A] fast-paced and wide-ranging history . . . [Starr] accomplishes the feat with skill, grace and verve.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Kevin Starr is one of california’s greatest historians, and California is an invaluable contribution to our state’s record and lore.”—MarIa ShrIver, journalist and former First Lady of California “A breeze to read.”—San Francisco

Broken-hearted 20-year-old Edward Washington McIlhany (Mac) decided a way to heal his disappointment in love was to strike out west to the fabled 1849 gold rush in California. Leaving family and friends behind, with no assurance he'd ever see them again, he paid $300.00 to join a company formed for prospecting.In his autobiography, written sixty years later, he tells of losing friends on the perilous trip across the plains, meeting Indians, gun fights, getting scurvy, and the wild frontier of a mining town.McIlhany's book is a valuable resource on the prices of goods and services at the time, as well as a rip-roaring true tale of a time before the West was settled. He even sailed on the ill-fated Central America the year before it sank with over 550 souls on board.