This Google Image Search will bring up some interesting pictures. The page I liked best was http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp1.htm.
There are a number of sunken ships in the waters off Old Sacramento, but the water is murky and the Sacramento River current is treacherous, and the wrecks are buried in mud - so it isn't a good site for divers to explore.

Here on the American River in the foothills, there were gold dredgers that sifted the river bottom and banks, leaving endless piles of lifeless rock along the river and silt and dangerous heavy metals downstream.

A couple of weeks ago, Debby McClatchy took me hiking in the diggins that surround her home town of Dutch Flat, California. High-pressure water blasted mountains away, to get down to the bottom of an ancient river, the Blue Lead that was believed to be full of gold.

All this was an interesting history, but it caused an unbelievable amount of ecological damage that still hasn't healed after over a hundred years. Still, this is a wonderful place to live. If you fly over my house, all you'll see is trees - as long as they don't catch fire, this is wonderful.


-Joe-