Down the Mother Lode - Pioneer Tales of California



By Vivia Hemphill




Foreword


So many inquiries have been made as to exactly where, and what is the
"Mother Lode"!

The geologist and the historian agree as to its location and
composition, but the old miners and "sojourners" of the vanished golden
era give strangely different versions of it. Some of these are here set
down, if not all for your enlightenment at least, I hope, for your
entertainment.

That is, after all, the principal aim of these tales of the old days in
California, that are gone "for good." Mark Twain says in his preface to
"Roughing It" that there is a great deal of information in his work
which he regrets very much but which really could not be helped, as
"information seems to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar
of roses out of the otter"!

These stories make no such particular claim! They are merely historical
fragments of their everyday life, gathered from a passing generation