By the last accounts there was no less than a million sterling exported from California in six days. This amount of gold, great as it is, however, is by no means the whole of the supply which has been obtained. It is the regular measured amount only – what entered the custom-house books, and was exported in the entered traders. But who can estimate the amount which in those vast and desolate regions has been amassed by individuals, and made its way out of the country in their private possession, or secretly in shipments of which no account was kept? It is incalculable: like the plunder amassed during the sack of a capital or province, it may be guessed at, but cannot be ascertained with anything approaching to accuracy. Probably the amount thus acquired, but not entering any public records, may equal all that is ascertained from the custom-house books. But call it only a half, or fifty per cent, it will follow that last year the amount raised was upwards of £15,000,000, and this year (1851) may be expected to reach £17,000,000 or £18,000,000! If so, it will nearly double the annual supply of the precious metals for the use of the globe, which at present, from all sources, is between £16,000,000 and £17,000,000. It may with confidence be anticipated, that how secretly soever great part of this treasure may be smuggled or conveyed out of California, none, or at least very little of it, will be lost. It will all be carefully preserved, and sooner or later find its way into the circulation of the world, or be manufactured into the gold ornaments and vessels which minister to its luxury or magnificence. Nothing more is required to show the prodigious influence of this great change; beyond all question it will, in its ultimate effects, alter the face of the globe.
Mr M'Culloch observes in his Commercial Dictionary– "Should eight or ten millions yearly, in addition to the present supply, be obtained from any other source, it will produce a gradual alteration of prices, similar to that which took place three centuries ago on the discovery of the mines of Mexico and Peru." No one can doubt that this observation is well founded; but if the effect of eight or ten millions annually added to the treasures of the world would be so considerable, what must the effect of the addition of sixteen or eighteen millions? Yet this addition is just now going on. In the month of August last, the gold shipped at San Francisco alone was 2,984,000 dollars, or about £800,000; and supposing a half more was raised, of which no account is kept, this is £1,200,000 in a single month! In five weeks from September 1, the quantity shipped was 5,000,000 dollars, or above £1,200,000; which implies at least £1,800,000 altogether obtained. This is from the labour of 40,000 or 50,000 persons only, who are at present engaged in the diggings; but it is known that from 80,000 to 90,000 will be engaged in them next year, so that the supply raised may be expected to be nearly doubled. There is great inequality in the amount obtained by individual persons employed in that laborious occupation; but taking the average, it is about four and a half dollars a day. Call it four only, and suppose they work 250 days in the year, each person at this rate will raise 1000 dollars' worth of gold, or nearly £250. At that rate, 50,000 persons would raise £12,500,000 in a year; and 75,000, £18,750,000; – which coincides very nearly with the result derived as above from other sources of information.
The bullionists, struck with terror at so prodigious an addition annually to their darling gold, and consequent diminution in its exchangeable value, are beginning to exert themselves to decry it. They say that there is a "Currency Restriction Act of Nature;" that the supply of gold from the alluvial washings will soon be exhausted; and that when the excavation comes to be made from the rocks and mountains in which the veins are embedded, it will cease to be profitable, from the hardness of the strata of rock in which the veins are found.4 The plea in abatement of the supply of gold thus likely to be obtained is very remarkable. The fact of its appearing in the highly respectable journal where it first was ushered to the world, and from the pen of the eminent geologist from whom it is said to have proceeded, are alike ominous. It shows at once how marvellously strong has been the hold which the mania for raising the value of gold and cheapening that of everything else prevailing during the last thirty years, from the influence of the holders of realised wealth, has got of the most influential classes in this country; and how deep is their alarm at the prospect of all their measures being at once blown into the air by the augmented supply of this very gold from the shores of California! A "Currency Restriction Act of Nature!" What a commentary on the measures of Sir R. Peel, so vehemently lauded and strenuously supported by all the capitalists whose fortunes, from the Currency Restriction Act of the right hon. baronet, were every day increasing in value! They would fain enlist Nature in the same crusade against labour and in favour of riches; but they may save themselves the trouble. There is no Currency Restriction Act of Nature: her beneficence, unlike that of man, is equally distributed over all her children. The Currency Extension Act of Nature will only stand forth in brighter relief from having been immediately preceded by the Currency Restriction Act of Man.
To show how chimerical are the hopes of a Currency Restriction Act of Nature, which is to limit and interrupt the blessings with which an increased supply of the precious metals for the general service of the world cannot fail to be attended, it is sufficient to observe that the auriferous region where the gold is found in alluvial deposit, is said to be a tract of country between three and four hundred miles long and from thirty to forty miles broad. It is therefore as long as from London to Berwick, and as broad as the average breadth of the plains of Yorkshire. What is the scraping or excavations of sixty or eighty thousand men on so immense a surface? Conceive every one of these persons daily digging his own grave in this auriferous region: how long will it take them to go over the whole surface and exhaust its treasures? Only apply to it the test of the rudest calculation. A square mile contains above 3,000,000 square yards. Supposing each digging occupies two square yards, there will be 1,500,000 diggings in a square mile; and if each person excavates a digging a-day, which is probably as much as can be calculated upon at an average, as the operation is so much impeded by water, 100,000 persons will take fifteen days to turn up and exhaust one square mile. In the gold region, however, there are at least 9000 square miles. Supposing that the 100,000 persons work 300 days in the year, which is more than can be calculated upon, they will only turn over and thoroughly search twenty square miles in a year. At this rate, it would take above four hundred years for even that large army of labourers to exhaust the alluvial gold region. We are aware the diggings do not go on regularly as is now supposed; that one man tries his fortune here, and another there; and that the earth is perforated at the same time in a great variety of places, many of them at a considerable distance from each other. We know, too, that the real extent of the gold region is hitherto the object of speculation and hope, rather than actual survey or knowledge. It is quite probable, too, that our calculation, which is a mere rough guess, may be above the mark in some particulars, and below it in others. Still, enough, making allowance for all such errors, remains to show that, in the alluvial gold region alone, if the accounts of its extent and riches are at all to be relied on, there is ample room for a vast annual addition to the treasures of the earth for a great many generations to come. The circumstance which makes it all but certain that the gold region must be very extensive, is its being found in the alluvial deposits of the mountain rivers, such as the Sacramento, along their whole course. If you find granite or mica slate particles in the beds of rivers and the level fields they overflow near the sea, you are sure of finding the same deposits up to the mountain regions from which they are brought down.
But what is the alluvial gold region to the mountain region from which the precious metals with which it abounds have been torn down by the