Which valuable commodity was discovered at a place called Sutter's Mill by a carpenter named James Marshall?

In late January 1848, a carpenter named James Wilson Marshall was building a sawmill on the American River near the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains when something glittering in the water caught his eye. Marshall and mill owner John Sutter tried to keep the news under wraps, but word got out... fast. At the time of Marshall's discovery in January, the total white (non-Native, non-Spanish/Mexican) population of the entire state of California was around 700 people. A month later, it was up to 800. In June, there were 4,000 amateur miners in the region of Sutter's Mill. By the end of the year, the state population was 20,000; the following December, it was 100,000.

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