TEXT:it becomes the nation's greatest prize. Volcanic magma. Over millions of years, in a fault zone beneath the Sierra Nevada, cooling and pressure create quartz. And within the quartz, gold. The seam is one of the densest on the planet. Rocks erode and the riches are released.

1848. Carpenter James Marshall finds a 3 -ounce nugget in the California river. Two months' pay in his hand, but billions of dollars be neath his feet. News of Marshall's discovery spreads to every corner of the world. In California, you can taste the American dream: get rich quick. Within a year, 100,000 desperate amateur prospectors flood the Sierra foothills.

It was the American dream distilled to its essence. Take yourself and go out and try and make a success of it. A Chinese prospector's 100 -ounce strike in the Yuba River. $26,000 made by a single Irishman in just four days. A $200,000 super seam mined by 12 Mexicans at Bear Valley. In the port of San Francisco, a plot of land worth $16 before the gold strike now changes hands for $45,000.

In two years, the population of California explodes from 15,000 to 100,000. Now, hand -panning is replaced by lines of sluice boxes desperately combing for anything the first prospectors missed. And the price of living rocket. Picks, pans, shovels go from a few cents to $10 a piece. Breakfast costs ten times what it does back East. But still the people come.

譯文:加利福尼亞并入美國當月就成為美國的最大寶藏。火山下巖漿翻滾，數百萬年后在內華達山脈之下的斷層地帶，巖漿冷卻后受壓形成石英，石英深處是黃金。此處黃金的富集度堪稱世界之最，巖石被侵蝕之后財富終現于世。

1848年，一名叫詹姆斯·馬歇爾的木匠在加利福尼亞河里發現一枚3盎司的金塊，他手中拿著相當于兩月薪水的金粒，腳下踩著的卻是價值連城的金山。馬歇爾發現黃金的消息迅速傳遍世界每個角落，在加利福尼亞，美國夢是那么觸手可及，一夜暴富。不出一年，十萬名狂熱的業余淘金者涌至內華達山麓。

H.W.布蘭茨[德克薩斯大學著名美國歷史學家]：“美國夢的精髓就在于努力探索，勇于嘗試，走向成功。”一名華人淘金者在尤巴河岸淘到重達100盎司的金塊。一名愛爾蘭人四天之內就淘出價值26000美元的黃金。12個墨西哥人在熊之谷發掘出價值20萬的大金礦。在舊金山港，淘金熱之前一片售價16美元的土地，如今轉手價卻飆升至4萬5千美元。

兩年之內加利福尼亞的人口爆炸式增長，從1萬5千增長至10萬，手工淘金被一條條閘盒組成的流水槽替代，人們拼命想篩出先驅者們遺漏的寶藏，物價飛漲。鎬，淘金盒和鐵锨等工具的單價，從區區幾美分漲到10美元早餐的花費比東部貴上10倍，但淘金者仍紛至沓來。