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Six months in the gold mines changed all, and lifted the burden from their hearts. Another good effect was that it drew to the country a class, not agriculturists, nor mechanics, nor profes sional men, but projectors of various enterprises bene ficial to the public, and who in a short time built steamboats in place of sloops and flatboats, and estab lished inland transportation for passengers and goods, which gradually displaced the pack-train and the universal horseback travel. These new men enabled the United States government to carry out some of its proposed measures of relief in favor of the people of Oregon, in the matter of a mail service, to open trade with foreign ports, to establish telegraphic com munication with California, and eventually to introduce railroads. These were certainly no light benefits, and were in a measure the result of the gold discovery. Without it, though the country had continued to fill up with the same class of people who first settled it, several generations must have passed before so much could have been effected as was now quickly accomplished. prev next |