The History of United States Coinage As Illustrated by the Garrett Collection
Q.David Bowers
With few facts to guide them and lacking dispatches or news of their own, other eastern newspapers took the Baltimore Sun and New York Journal of Commerce stories and whatever other information they could gather, embellished it, and contrived new and "original" stories of their own. In The New York Tribune Horace Greeley stated:
We are on the brink of the Age of Gold! We look for an addition, within the next four years, equal to at least $1,000 millions of dollars to the general aggregate of gold in circulation arid use throughout the world. This is almost inevitable.
Every bit of written information about California was eagerly purchased. Old almanacs and encyclopedias were consulted for additional facts. Newspapers and bulletins were scanned. Every rumor was listened to intently. Gold was the topic of the day. Gold, gold everywhere!
As time went on, publications were issued to aid the traveler. Such pamphlets as California and the Way To Get There, The Pocket Guide to California, and The California Gold Regions attracted eager readers. The Pocket Guide to California was described as:
... a sea and land route-book, containing a full description of the EI Dorado, its agricultural resources, commercial advantages; and mineral wealth, including a chapter on gold formations, with a Congressional map, the various routes and distances to the gold regions.
Another was said to contain:
... a full account of its mineral resources, how to get there and what to take, the expense, the time, and the various routes.
There were several ways to go to California.The longest was the sea route from New York, Boston, New Orleans, or another eastern port, around the tip of South America, and up the western coast of South America northward to San Francisco. Another route was from eastern ports to Central America on the Caribbean Sea, overland at Panama or Nicaragua, and then a continuation by ship northward along the Pacific coast to California. Overland via several different routes from Missouri was another way.
