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16 pp. 5 full page wood engravings. (8vo) 23x16 cm (9x6"), original blue illustrated wrappers, with vignette of miner engaged in his trade on the front wrapper, and illustration of 'Early California Quartz Mill' on rear. First Edition.

Bookplate of J. Barton Hassler on blank verso of front wrapper. Inscription at head of title page in pencil: "Fred K M. Stocking/ Compliments of the Author." Fred Stocking, according to the online site of the Oakland Museum of California, was a gold miner who came to California in 1853. "Crammed with gold discovery data." - Wheat. De Groot provides an eye-witness account of the early California Gold Rush. DeGroot was a journalist with the New York Tribune who went to California in 1849. He took up gold mining rather quickly and continued to write about it as a newspaperman. His pamphlet explains Fremont's failure to discover gold, discusses General Sutter's discovery and the principal actors in that drama, the spreading of the news, General Sutter's account of the gold find, and much else. The illustrations are of Sutter's Mill, "where gold was first discovered"; several scenes of gold-mining; "street in a mining town"; and a mining camp in the mountains. Streeter Sale 2985; Wheat, Gold Rush 56; Cowan p.162; Howes D220 note.