xviii, 9-507 pp. Edited with an Introduction by Frederick T. Wallace. With 30 full-page wood engravings, including three frontispieces. (8vo), original gilt-lettered dark brown cloth. First Edition.

Ferguson left Cleveland, Ohio, at the late date of September 2, 1849, but made it across the plains and into California via the Lassen Cutoff. Only seventeen at the time, he mined at Rich Bar and the Feather River area, and provides descriptions of Marysville, Grass Valley and Nevada City, and gives information on various mining techniques. Hearing of the strikes Down Under, Ferguson left for Australia, not returning to San Francisco until 1883, and then back to Cleveland. Although Wheat calls his reminiscences "somewhat disjointed," Kurutz quotes Gudde, stating: "a highly interesting account, mainly of 1850." Cowan p.206; Graff 1305; Kurutz 235a; Mattes 443; Mintz 148; Rocq 5986; Wheat Books 74.