Several years ago I had the good fortune to find, in the lumber and rubbish of a storeroom, this little journal. A small leather-backed notebook, it had lain unnoticed and forgotten for more than half a century in the author's old homestead. The original manuscript is written in a 4 by 6-inch notebook, bound in boards. It contains 180 pages of text, with pressed western flowers and plants pasted on the five fly-leaves at the end. Mr. William Smith, our author's father, came from Gloucestershire,

April 10, 1853. Dear Mother: I have concluded to send you my journal, not because I think it contains anything of great interest, but because I know you will take it as an evidence that I have not forgotten my Mother. Nancy and I have been married two years today, and through that time have walked peacefully along the path of life together, a path on which little Alice now presses her tiny feet and, holding a little hand in each of ours, will make our union more complete. It is now nearly six ye

In the Spring of 1850 the startling reports from California in relation to the discoveries of gold had been generally confirmed and sustained by such a vast number of letters that most men were satisfied of their truth. Strongly impressed with the general correctness of reports from the modern El Dorado, I at length determined to wend my way in that direction, and having made the necessary arrangements, I left Centreville, Ind., on the second of April, 1850. On the same day a company of about tw