Gold Seeker: Adventures of a Belgian Argonaut during the Gold Rush Years (Yale Western Americana S)

A splendid piece of Americana, for Perlot was a witty, gingery, intelligent man with a sharp eye for significant detail. . . . His book . . . has been translated and thoroughly annotated by the late Helen Harding Bretnor, who deserves the gratitude of all readers with a taste for the history of the Old West. Atlantic Monthly

A lively memoir. Evan S. Connell, New York Times Book Review

Provides a narrative as amusing as it is informative. Perlot is real gold, dug belatedly from the California mines. Gerald Weales, Smithsonian

A marvelous book. . . . Perlot s observations, both as a foreign miner and a settler in the pioneer West, give new meaning to a familiar historical experience. Mary McDougall Gordon, Pacific Historical Review

In 1850, Jean-Nicolas Perlot, a 26-year-old Belgian, joined a French mining company bound for the gold fields of California. This book is Perlot s witty and informative account of his life in California and his subsequent career in the newly rich town of Portland, Oregon.