In January 1848, James Marshall was overseeing the building of a saw mill for his boss, when he saw an odd rock glinting in the upturned earth.

He was not sure whether it was gold or not and did not want to get people’s aspirations up. So Marshall attempted to break the yellow rock with a hammer. It did not crack, but it did dent. just like gold would. The woman who was cooking meals for the saw mill construction crew, tried another test by boiling the rock in lye.

They boiled it all day, but it did not change colour. So, they passed the rock over to the mill’s owner, Mr. John Sutter, who also carried out a few tests. Eventually, everyone agreed that this rock was indeed gold.

It seems that the Sierra Nevada Mountains hid huge hordes of gold, but that over tens of thousands of years, erosion had loosened up gold nuggets and the mountain streams flushed them down to the bottom of the mountains. Sutter’s property was situated between two rivers and so was likely to generate great wealth.

Sutter had ideas to build an agricultural empire on his 39,000 acres of land, so he asked his employees to keep quiet about the strike. However, as is to be anticipated, word got out. Eventually news of the gold find reached the small town of San Francisco.

There, a newspaper publisher shouted down the streets: “Gold from the American River!” and within three days of the news arriving, 400 of the 600 settlers had set out for Sutter’s land. It was a groundswell and by the end of the year, gold prospectors had traveled to California from as far away as Mexico and Chile.

When word of the gold strike reached the east coast, President Polk confirmed the finding. It was December 1848 and ‘The Gold Rush’ became a national and even a worldwide phenomenon. The gold prospectors of 1849 and later years became known as forty-niners.

What has to be borne in mind is though, that most people, who came from Canada, Mexico and the eastern United States came by wagon train, as there were not locomotive! This meant a arduous trek of between six and nine months

Nevertheless, at least 32,000 people actually walked to California in 1849, and about 44,000 more got there in 1850. Others, such as South Americans, faced an arduous journey by sea. They suffered storms, shipwrecks, hunger and thirst, disease, and overcrowding and after all that, some still had to face mule rides through jungles and deserts! Still, in under a year, about 40,000 people arrived in San Francisco from abroad.

The new arrivals caused a dramatic change in California’s population, because in 1848, California had had about 100,000 residents, most of whom were Native Americans, but within two years, the state population more than doubled but the variety of backgrounds increased tens of fold.

Some prospectors found gold and made a fortune in the Californian riverbeds, but most people did not become rich in the Gold Rush. When gold was found, the cache was usually cleared quickly. James Marshall had little achievement as a miner, and he died impoverished. John Sutter, who had once owned 39,000 acres, left California in serious debt after miners flattened his land.

In fact, it was easier to make money selling shovels and other supplies to the prospectors. Most people lost everything they had, so they stayed to work the vast expanse called California or to set up businesses. By 1856, San Francisco had a very cosmopolitan population of over 50,000 people and California had become the most exhilarating state in the nation.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with Celtic knot rings. If you have an interest in gold rings, please go to our website now at White Gold Claddagh Ring

There is a very large number of wedding rings available in the shops these days. In fact, you have the world of wedding rings to choose from. The high street shops in a large town have a very good selection, but the Internet lays the best jewellers and the best styles out for your inspection.

So, it is essential that you take your time when choosing one. Maybe the enormous range of wedding rings makes that more difficult not easier. Diamond wedding rings have been the most popular since ordinary working people could afford them, before that a plain band of gold had to be enough, for people who could afford that much.

Nowadays, Western people have become more adventurous and they are selecting other stones like the strikingly beautiful blue sapphire. Some even deciding not to have a stone at all, going back to tradition, so to speak. However, there are plenty of examples of not so simple bands of gold too.

There is the Irish Claddagh ring with its characteristic two hands holding a crowned heart symbolizing love, friendship and loyalty; and there is the Celtic Knot with its intricately interwoven strands twisting and turning without end, standing for eternity and eternal love despite the twists and turns and difficulties of daily life.

So, selecting a wedding ring is not just a question of picking a beautiful wedding ring, you should be choosing one that says what you want it to say. You could look up on the Internet what the different metals and various stones indicate traditionally. If you cannot find a ring that says what you want, consider having one made. It is not as expensive as you might think.

Tradition is a good thing when it comes to wedding rings. After all, you want your ring to express your eternal love and devotion for the person you are giving it to and your marriage could last fifty or sixty years, especially with people living longer these days. Hopefully, you will wear this ring for the rest of your life, so select a style that seems timeless to you.

Selecting a wedding ring is not as easy as it looks, because you are going to be wearing your ring every day for the rest of your life, so it should be something that you will not get tired of in a couple years. You should look at and try on many rings in order to get one that feels good. You will want a ring that does not look out of date in ten years time. The simplest way of doing that is to go for a traditional style, because those styles have already stood the test of time.

One last piece of advice is to ask the jeweller to verify the total carat weight of the stones in the ring and the weight of each individual stone and the quality and weight of the metal (although it should be hallmarked) on paper, then if it gets lost or stolen you have something to show the insurance company.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with the Celtic knot wedding ring. If you have an interest in gold rings, please go to our website now at White Gold Claddagh Ring