Gold Gold Gold This seductive mantra, shouted throughout the Americas in 1848-49, convinced thousands of people that California's gold could be had simply by picking it up off the ground. Ramon Gil Navarro, an Argentinean political exile living in Chile, heard these rumors of a new El Dorado, but he was not so naive as to believe that the gold merely had to be gathered. He understood that mining required extensive capital investment and labor, and along with three other investors he arranged to have 120 workers and a shipload of supplies sent to California. Navarro accompanied the workers...