The Diary of a Forty-Niner

Excerpt from The Diary of a Forty-NinerNow and again there comes out of the dim past something which Opens up an hitherto unknown or forgotten page in history. A copper implement from a lake midden, a chipped arrow head from a cave, a deciphered hieroglyphic from the face of a granite rock, a ruined temple in an overgrown jungle by means of which we rescue a chapter that tells of men's works and men's lives, former gen erations, who cumbered the earth for a brief time and passed away and of Whose existence even tra dition is silent. There are fascinating revealments that excite a momentary interest only, for, barring the scientist, we live in the present, and how our remote ancestors throve or what they did gives us but little concern. The long ago is vague, the cave dwellers and the temple builders existed in fable land, and, while we concede the importance of the discoveries, we leave the study to the specialists and magazine writers and do not burden our mind with ancient history. This indifference not only ob tains with reference to the tribes and peoples who have disappeared off of the earth; it is equally true of comparatively recent events.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.