HIST 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: California Gold Rush, Hydraulic Mining, Gold Rush
22 Mar 2016
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The california gold rush and the mormon hegira. Was not originally very populated and there was not much that could be found in california. January 1848-james marshall, a carpenter, discovered gold while building a sawmill near sacramento, california: ater this discovery, the non-indian populaion of california rose from 14,000 (1848) to 100,000 (1849) to 223,000 (1852) San francisco: 1848: 1,000 inhabitants, 1856: 50,000 inhabitants. 1850-los angeles was the largest city (12,000) Was not originally a providence of mexico that produced much wealth. Hydraulic mining: a technique used to wash about one or even two tons of rocks to get one ounce of gold. 1880: the california state engineer esimated that 53 million cubic yards of debris were washed into the state"s river in that year alone. Environmental consequences of the gold rush: by the end of the 1860"s approximately one-third of the state"s imber had been cut.
