Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889

A sensible suggestion is made in regard to the finish in necks of dresses for morning wear. Plain colors have rather a stiff appearance, tulle or crepe lisse frilling are expensive and frail, so it is a good idea to purchase a few yards of really good washing lace, about an inch and a half in depth; quill or plait and cut into suitable lengths to tack around the necks of dresses. This can be easily removed and cleaned when soiled. A piece of soft black Spanish lace, folded loosely around the throat close to the frillings, but below it, looks very pretty; or you may get three yards of scarf lace, trim the ends with frillings, place it around the neck, leaving nearly all the length in the right hand, the end lying upon the left shoulder being about half a yard long. Wind the larger piece twice around the throat, in loose, soft folds, and festoon the other yard and a half, and fasten with brooch or flower at the side.--Philadelphia Times.

DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.

It was on the 19th day of January, 1848, that James W. Marshall, while engaged in digging a race for a saw-mill at Coloma, about thirty-five miles eastward from Sutter's Fort, found some pieces of yellow metal, which he and the half-dozen men working with him at the mill supposed to be gold. He felt confident that he had made a discovery of great importance, but he knew nothing of either chemistry or gold-mining, so he could not prove the nature of the metal nor tell how to obtain it in paying quantities. Every morning he went down to the race to look for the bits of metal; but the other men at the mill thought Marshall was very wild in his ideas, and they continued their labors in building the mill, and in sowing wheat and planting vegetables. The swift current of the mill-race washed away a considerable body of earthy matter, leaving the coarse particles of gold behind; so Marshall's collection of specimens continued to accumulate, and his associates began to think there might be something in his gold mines after all. About the middle of February, a Mr. Bennett, one of the party employed at the mill, went to San Francisco for the purpose of learning whether this metal was precious, and there he was introduced to Isaac Humphrey, who had washed for gold in Georgia. The experienced miner saw at a glance that he had the true stuff before him, and, after a few inquiries, he was satisfied that the diggings must be rich. He made immediate preparation to visit the mill, and tried to persuade some of his friends to go with him; but they thought it would be only a waste of time and money, so he went with Bennett for his sole companion.

He arrived at Coloma on the 7th of March, and found the work at the mill going on as if no gold existed in the neighborhood. The next day he took a pan and spade, and washed some of the dirt in the bottom of the mill-race in places where Marshall had found his specimens, and, in a few hours, Humphrey declared that these mines were far richer than any in Georgia. He now made a rocker and went to work washing gold industriously, and every day yielded to him an ounce or two of metal. The men at the mill made rockers for themselves, and all were soon busy in search of the yellow metal. Everything else was abandoned; the rumor of the discovery spread slowly. In the middle of March Pearson B. Reading, the owner of a large ranch at the head of the Sacramento valley, happened to visit Sutter's Fort, and hearing of the mining at Coloma, he went thither to see it. He said that if similarity of formation could be taken as a proof, there must be gold mines near his ranch; so, after observing the method of washing, he posted off, and in a few weeks he was at work on the bars of Clear Creek, nearly two hundred miles northwestward from Coloma. A few days after Reading had left, John Bidwell, now representative of the northern district of the State in the lower House of Congress, came to Coloma, and the result of his visit was that, in less than a month, he had a party of Indians from his ranch washing gold on the bars of Feather River, twenty-five miles northwestward from Coloma. Thus the mines were opened at far distant points.