prohibitory. Men sometimes made large daily sums in the placers; but
necessary expenses reduced their net income to small wages. Ryan gives
this account of an interview with a returning miner: "He readily entered
into conversation and informed us that he had passed the summer at the
mines where the excessive heat during the day, and the dampness of the
ground where the gold washing is performed, together with privation and
fatigue, had brought on fever and ague which nearly proved fatal to him.
He had frequently given an ounce of gold for the visit of a medical man,
and on several occasions had paid two and even three ounces for a single
dose of medicine. He showed us a pair of shoes, nearly worn out, for
which he had paid twenty-four dollars." Later Ryan says: "Only such men
as can endure the hardship and privation incidental to life in the mines
are likely to make fortunes by digging for the ore. I am unequal to the
task ... I think I could within an hour assemble in this very place from
twenty to thirty individuals of my own acquaintance who had all told the
same story. They were thoroughly dissatisfied and disgusted with their
experiment in the gold country. The truth of the matter is that only
traders, speculators, and gamblers make large fortunes." Only rarely did
men of cool enough heads and far enough sight eschew from the very
beginning all notion of getting rich quickly in the placers, and
deliberately settle down to make their fortunes in other ways.

This conclusion of Ryan's throws, of course, rather too dark a tone over
the picture. The "hardy miner" was a reality, and the life in the
placers was, to such as he, profitable and pleasant. However, this point
of view had its influence in turning back from the mines a very large
proportion of those who first went in. Many of them drifted into
mercantile pursuits. Harlan tells us: "During my sojourn in Stockton I
mixed freely with the returning and disgusted miners from whom I learned
that they were selling their mining implements at ruinously low prices.