John Ross Browne (1817-1875) of Kentucky, the official reporter for the California State Constitutional Convention of 1849, came to California in 1849 as an employee of the government revenue service. He traveled widely in the next two decades, including a stay in China as U.S. minister, before settling down in Oakland in 1870. Crusoe's island (1864) contains four short works: (1) Crusoe's island, an account of his visits to Juan Fernandez, the island off the Chilean coast where Alexander Selkirk's experiences are supposed to have been the basis of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe; (2) A dangerous journey, an account of Browne's 1849 journey by horseback from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo; (3) Observations in office, which summarizes his experiences as a functionary of the Treasury Department sent to the Pacific Coast in 1858 to examine customs houses, with chapters on a controversy in Port Townsend, Washington, concerning the sale of liquor to Native Americans and on the exploitation of Native Americans in California; and (4) A peep at Washoe, inspired by the latest "rush," that for gold in the Washoe region of the Sierra Nevada, including Browne's reflections on mining fevers and his recollections of his own travels through Nevada and California mining districts.