There's a picture of Lienhard at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi915.htm OF POWER AND GOLD by John H. Lienhard Today, let's talk about power and the gold rush. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. In 1848, 72 years later, at Sutter's Fort in California, my great-grandfather Heinrich was putting in a vegetable garden for Sutter. Everything was still labor-intensive. Watt's power-producing engines had yet to reach this remote outback. Sutter had been acting strangely for two weeks. One evening he showed Heinrich and some other friends a small bag of yellow metal grains. Could it be gold? Heinrich described a malleability test and suggested they try it at the blacksmith's shop. They cleaned a spoon, heated it, and put a metal grain in it. When they hammered the hot metal, it spread out smoothly as gold does and its imitators do not. Sutter had indeed located gold. The story leaked out, and the rest is history. But great-grandpa Heinrich was bothered. Who had really found the gold, and where? Everyone was making claims -- Sutter included. I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work. The Engines of Our Ingenuity is Copyright © 1988-1997 by John H. Lienhard. © Phil Van Camp, pvc@vancamp.org ----- Original Message ----- From: <J66LISYJ@aol.com> To: <CA-GOLDRUSH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2000 8:40 PM Subject: [GOLDRUSH] "A Pioneer at Sutter's Fort, 1846-1850" > Hi folks, > > I'm looking for a copy of this out-of-date book. Does anyone have any > suggestion how I can obtain a copy? It's written by Heinrich Lienhard and > published by the Calafia Society. > And, does anyone know what that society is about? > > Thanks, jeni