Final answer:
Wealth in the California Gold Rush initially came from gold panning by individual miners, but soon companies with resources to invest in technology and labor dominated. Hydraulic mining and large strikes like the Comstock Lode led to substantial wealth creation, overshadowing the success of individual prospectors.
Step-by-step explanation:
Those who had the better chance of getting rich in the goldfields during the California Gold Rush were typically not the individual miners, but rather the companies that entered the scene with the capital to invest in sophisticated mining technology and labor.
At first, gold panning and sluicing allowed some independent prospectors to find wealth, but the easily accessible placer gold was quickly exhausted. As a result, mining operations shifted from individuals to companies who could afford to purchase hydraulic mining equipment and hire workers to extract the more deeply buried gold.
Large-scale mining operations, subsequent strikes of silver and copper like the Comstock Lode, and ranchers benefitting from the cattle industry contributed to creating wealth in the West more than individual prospecting did.