THE VOYAGE.
News of the discovery of gold in 1848 was first brought to Oregon by an Oregonian by the name of Barnard. Marshall was building a mill, as is well known, for Sutter, on the American River, and after allowing the water to run through the tail ditch to sluice it out, examined the bed, as the water was again shut off, and found at the bottom of the ditch many little yellow rocks, which were highly polished and very heavy. Not being acquainted with gold, which he had an idea occurred in native form only as dust, not as nuggets, he tried pounding out one of the little yellow rocks which instead of crumbling under the hammer, was flattened finally to the size of a saucer, and of course was made very thin. Even then, however, the true nature of the rock was not suspected; and it was not known that it was gold until Marshall had word from the United States' Assay Office at San Francisco to which he had sent a small collection of nuggets to the value, however, of $1,000.
By this news, Barnard, the Oregonian, was incited to return home and tell his neighbors. But at San Francisco he was detained two months, being positively refused passage on the ships for the Columbia. He believed that he was purposely hindered by parties who wished to go to Oregon and buy up all the provisions, tools, etc., to be had here, at low prices, and to sell them at San Francisco at a great advance. Finally he got a ship, and reaching Oregon late in August, the news was published, and the Oregonians, many of them just returning from the Cayuse war, formed a company, and that season broke and completed the first wagon road to California, taking the high table-land route by way of Klamath Lake, Lost Lake, the lava beds, and across the Pitt River Valley far to the eastward of Mount Shasta—or Shasta Butte, as called by the old pioneers. Mr. Case was not ready to
