Gold Rush Days in the Mother Lode

California's Mother Lode was a magic rectangle on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It was only 60 miles long and 40 miles wide but yielded a bonanza far beyond the wildest dreams of the Spanish Conquistadores. The color of gold; the shine of it; the sudden moment when a stone just turned and revealed its speckled presence was a prospector’s fantasy, much the same as the sailor’s mythical mermaid. He set his nose toward the next bonanza and moved along with a shout ringing in hi