Gary Kinder

“of the men were miners who had left farms, where the work was hard, to seek fortunes in the Sierra Nevada, where the work proved harder still. Many of those who went west had not survived, but these men had, and the experience had hardened not only their bodies but also their spirit. They felt themselves a special breed: unafraid to face hardship and to endure. One passenger remembered, “The voices of the workers rose merrily and powerful above the din of the storm and the lashing of the steamer’s sides by the waves.” Song added a sense of camaraderie and dispelled”
― Gary Kinder, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck