Answer: True
Explanation:
At first, many of the "49ers"--as the prospectors were called--made thousands of dollars in a few months, and others averaged about 20 dollars a day. Once the easy diggings were gone, however, many worked for months and found nothing. By the mid- 1850s most of California's surface gold was gone, and large mining companies were replacing the independent miner. A few men had grown rich, most left as poor as they came, but all had experienced one of the great moments in American history.
