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Collection: Books and Periodicals

Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)

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370 AMERICAN MINING COMPANIES. can miners were frequently composed of what seemed to be most incongruous materials—rough uneducated men, and men of refinement and education—yet they worked together as harmoniously in carrying out difficult mining and engineering operations, under the directions of their “captain,” as if they had been a gang of day-labourers who had no right to interfere as to the way in which the work should be conducted. The captain was one of their number, chosen for his supposed ability to carry out the work ; but if they were not satisfied with his performances, it was a very simple matter to call a meeting, at which the business of deposing, or accepting the resignation of the incompetent officer, and appointing a successor, was put through with all the order and formality which accompanies the election of a president of any public body. Those who would not submit to the decision of the majority might sell out, but the prosecution of a work undertaken was never abandoned or in any way retarded by the discordance of opinion on the part of the different members of the company. Individuals could not work alone to any advantage. All mining operations were carried on by parties of men, varying in number according to the nature of their diggings ; and the strange assortment of dissimilar characters occasionally to be found thus brought into close relationship was but a type of the general state of society, which was such as completely to realise the idea of perfect social equality.