Popular Culture Review Vol. 1, December 1989 | Page 67

changed as quickly as their fortunes. Dry Diggings becamePlacerville and later was known as Hangtown! Men’s names changed in
the same way. One example was:
Pat Quinn
C. Patrick Quinn
Colonel Patrick Quinn
Col. C.P. Quinn
Patrick Quinn
Pat Quinn
Old Quinn(5)
Early in the California Gold Rush, most gold taken was known
as placer gold taken from the river beds by the time-honored
technique o f panning. Nineteen times heavier than water and four
times heavy as sand, gold rested on a stream bar or sank to the
lowest point in a river. Accessible to all, no bulky technology other
than pick, shovel and pan was needed to get it. But one had to be
willing to work in bone-chilling water. As the saying has it, “Gold
is where you find it” and it was just as well for the Americans who,
though experts in many skills, did not count mining among them.
Besides gold being found in grains, flakes, and veins, occa
sionally a gold nugget of varying size would be found, often in
isolated spots apart from other diggings. One such huge nugget,
weighing 195 troy ounces, was found in Calaveras County in
California. (The world’s l