By Myrtis Delano Charles

If I had the ability to write, I think that I could tell a very interesting story of the Life of a Metaphysician-a women Metaphysician.

My oldest son, a professor in International Relations and Economics told me many years ago that I couldn't write so being fairly well trained in modern Psychology, promptly accepted his sign to stop after my first simple little group of lessons on Color were published. No one knew better or surere than I did, that it was not a well written book, it was simply a group of lessons or notes that I had for classes in "Interpreting Life Through Color".

Father was a very progressive physician, way ahead of his time in psychological studies. I was an emotional child, a highly strung one. It was a busy family for we lived far up in the high Sierras in one of the richest gold mining places in the world where my father had gone for my mother's health. Nevada City was composed of every kind of resident, from the Cornish miner to the early investors who opened up those rich gold fields.

Gold, gold, gold was the watchword. As we children played out near the Deer Creek which ran at the edge of the town, it was not an unusual thing for us to pick up nuggets of gold as large as ones thumb nail.

Nevada City and Grass Valley were the twin towns of this rich gold field. Hydrollic mining with all of its accompanying ills was rife at that time. It was a dangerous business too. Entire hils and mountains would be washed away with those enormous forces of water. The Sacramento river, The Yuba and the San Juakin were filled with debris. Instead of the beautiful clear water flowing down the mountain side, there was nothing but yellow, heavy looking thick water running slowly down toward the valleys below. This, of couse, has since been stopped and other methods installed all over that region. A few years ago I visited the southern part of Oregon and there I was hydrollic mining in progress but I was informed that a state law had been passed prohibiting hydrollick mining for three months each year in order to protect the fish for fish cannot live in rivers where they are filled with silt. All of that particular region around and along the Rogue River was as ugly as man could make it. Barren of the usual wonderful trees and vegetation which is so gorgeous in most parts of Oregon. But the Rogue River farther north shows its beauty, its power as it proudly wands its way thru the magnificent forests of that state.

Nevada City was a picturesque little town at the end of a narrow guage railroad which tooted in from Colfax. Situated in the midst of lovely pine and the surrounding mountains towering above it. Our Deer Creek was quite a large river in the winter timewinding its way down to the Sacramento. Life was very simple in those days, Gold was everywhere, and money flowed freely. I never saw anything less than a twenty five cent piece until I was visiting friends in Stockton when I was about ten years of age. There they had the ten cent and the three cent silver piece but they had not found their way to the mountain country. Finally, when the ten cent piece of silver cam our way, unless change was handed out containing a ten cent piece, I would not wait for such small change even when I was a small child. I do not remember seeing one cent pieces in common use until about in California until about the time of World War I. Those large silver dollars weighted our purses down until about that time also.