John
Galler settled in Los Angeles and established a wagon shop in which he
did a successful business. He was an honest, industrious man and the
people had great confidence in him. He often told them about what his
partner had said about finding the gold in the desert, and the people
gave him an outfit on two or three occasions to go back and re-locate
the find, but he did not seem to have much idea of location, and when he
got back into the desert again things looked so different to him that he
was not able to identify the place, or to be really certain they were on
the same trail where his companion found the gold.
The Author saw him in 1862 and heard what he had to say about it, and is
convinced that it was not gold at all which they saw. I told him that I
more than suspected that what he saw was mica instead of gold and that
both he and his partner had been deceived, for more than one man not
used to gold had been deceived before now. "No sir!" said he, "I saw
lots of gold in Germany, and when I saw that I knew what it was." The
Author went back over that trail in 1862 and sought out the German on
purpose to get information about the gold. He could not give the name of
a single man who was in the party at that time, but insisted that it was
gold he saw and that he knew the trail.
The Author was able to identify with reasonable certainty the trails
followed by the different parties, but found no signs of gold formation
except some barren quartz, and this after an experience of several years
in both placer and quartz mines.
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