Its ancient Discovery—Its uses among the luxurious Romans—The Mines of Laurium—Silver Mines of Bohemia, Saxony, and Hungary—Colossal Nuggets—Silver Ores—Silver Production of Europe—Mexican Silver Mines—The Veta Madre of Guanaxuato—The Conde de la Valenciana—Zacatecas and Catorce—Adventures of a Steam-engine—La Bolsa de Dios Padre—The Conde de la Regla—Ill-fated English Companies—Indian Carriers—The Dressing of Silver Ores—Amalgamating Process—Enormous Production of Mexican Mines—Potosi—Cerro de Pasco—Gualgayoc—The Mine of Salcedo—Hostility of the Indians—The Monk’s Rosary—Chilian Mines—The Comstock Lode.

Like that of gold, the first discovery of silver precedes the historic times, and must no doubt be sought for in the remotest antiquity; for as it is not seldom found in a native state, its brilliancy could not fail to attract attention at a very early age. Veins of silver ore, moreover, not seldom crop out on the surface, a circumstance which likewise greatly facilitated the accidental discovery of the metal. Thus Diodorus relates that streams of melted silver flowed out of the calcined soil where some shepherds had set fire to a forest in the Pyrenees. The cunning Phoenician merchants, who were trading in the neighbourhood, bought the metal for a trifle from the natives, who, ignorant of its value, gladly exchanged it for some worthless trinkets.

Our earliest annals show us silver in common use among the more polished nations of antiquity, both for ornamental purposes and as a means of exchange. When we read in the Bible that Abraham weighed to Ephron the Hittite ‘four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant’ for the purchase of the field of Machpelah, where Sarah was buried, we cannot possibly doubt that, long before the patriarch’s time, great quantities of silver must have circulated among the traders of the East, and that even then it belonged to the discoveries of ancient days.

Homer describes the shields and helmets of his heroes as inlaid with silver, and in Northern Asia silver ornaments have been found in the tumuli of the Tschudi, a mysterious people who have left no vestiges of their existence save their tombs.

The Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian monarchs imposed large tributes of silver on the conquered nations of Asia, and at a later period the treasures thus amassed by a long line of despots came into the possession of Alexander the Great, and finally of the Romans, who absorbed all the riches of Carthage and the East. In the reign of Augustus, the tables of the wealthy senators groaned under silver dishes weighing from one hundred to five hundred pounds; silver statues of their ancestors decorated their apartments, and they not seldom performed their luxurious ablutions in baths of silver. Mirrors of this metal were in frequent use among a people to whom the art of applying a lustrous amalgam to the back of a plate of glass was unknown.

The skill of the artist not seldom added an inestimable value to the intrinsic worth of an embossed or chiselled silver vase, and Pliny mentions several works of this kind which enjoyed a world-wide celebrity.

The most ancient silver mines of which we have any historical account were situated in the mountainous parts of ChaldÆa and in Spain. With the development of the Grecian States, Eastern Europe also began to furnish its contingent. Silver mines were discovered and worked in the PangÆan Mountains, between Macedonia and Thrace, in the islands of Siphnos and Cyprus. Athens derived a considerable part of its revenue from the mines of Laurium in Attica. At first the profits derived from this source were distributed among the citizens, until Themistocles persuaded the general assembly of the people to devote them to the construction of ships of war. The battle of Salamis was won by the galleys built with the money thus obtained, so that the silver mines of Laurium have been the means of adding some of its brightest pages to the history of Ancient Greece.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the exhausted or neglected mines of the East, and of the Iberian peninsula, ceased to be the sources from which silver flowed over the world.

The riches amassed during ages of civilisation were now scattered among barbarous hordes, or buried in the ruins of cities destroyed by fire; and as no new influx replaced the losses caused by accident or the slow wear of time, the precious metals gradually became more rare and of increasing value, until Germany began to open a new era in mining history, and for a time to take the lead among the silver-producing countries of the globe. The first discovery of this metal in Bohemia dates back as far as the seventh century; and in the tenth the Rammelsberg in the Hartz Mountains began to yield its still unexhausted treasures. In the twelfth century the silver mines of Saxony and Hungary were discovered, and at a much later period those of Kongsberg in Norway.

Many of these deposits are remarkable for the richness of their ores, and for the large masses of native or crystallised silver which they have sometimes yielded. From the mine of HimmelsfÜrst, near Freiberg in Saxony, lumps or nuggets weighing above a hundred pounds have more than once been extracted. The largest single block ever known was discovered at Schneeberg, in the Saxon Erzgebirge, in the year 1477. It consisted of silver-glance and native silver, and measured no less than seven yards in length and three and a half in width. On hearing of this magnificent prize, Duke Albrecht of Saxony visited the mine, where he eat his dinner from the block. Agricola Bermannus relates that, during the repast, he exclaimed, ‘Frederick is a wealthy and powerful emperor, but he has never dined from a table such as this.’ The subsequent smelting of this wonderful mass produced 40,000 pounds of solid silver.

Large nuggets of solid silver have likewise been found at Kongsberg. A block weighing 560 pounds, which was discovered in 1666, is still preserved as a curiosity in the Copenhagen Museum; and as a convincing proof that the ancient riches of these northern mines are not yet exhausted, a still larger block, weighing 750 pounds, was disinterred as late as the year 1834.

Though native silver is found in many localities, our chief supply of the precious metal is derived from the ores in which it is found combined with other substances, such as silver-glance (sulphuret of silver); antimonial silver; red-silver (sulphuret of silver and antimony); horn silver (chloride of silver), &c. A considerable quantity is likewise obtained as an accessory product from the lead mines, by separating it from the galena or lead-glance, which usually contains a small percentage of silver.

At present the mines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which in the year 1851 produced 122,950 marks of silver, are the richest in Europe. In Bohemia the mines of Birkenberg, near Przibram, yield on an average 40,000 marks a year, considerably more than the celebrated mine of Schemnitz in Hungary, which in the year 1854 produced 26,064 marks.

Prussia obtains from her mines in the Hartz Mountains in Nassau and the county of Mansfeld about 100,000 marks; and the kingdom of Saxony, which, in proportion to its small extent, holds the first rank among the silver-producing countries of Europe, produces annually about 53,000 marks. In Great Britain, silver is accessorily obtained from the lead mines, to an amount of about 80,000 marks per annum. France produces 26,800 marks, Sweden and Norway 6,000 marks, and Italy 4,500; while Spain, which in ancient times enriched Tyre and Carthage with the rich produce of her silver mines, yields at present but an insignificant quantity.

On adding together the various sums above mentioned, we find that, exclusively of the Russian Empire, which obtains the greater part of its silver (about 65,000 marks a year) from the Altai Mountains in Siberia, the whole annual production of Europe may be estimated at about 400,000 marks.

This quantity, large as it is, sinks into comparative insignificance when compared with the enormous masses of silver with which, ever since their discovery and conquest by Cortez and Pizarro, Mexico and Peru have enriched the world.

The Mexican silver mines, which deserve a particular notice from the immensity of their produce and the interesting details with which their history abounds, are mostly situated on the back or on the western slopes of the Cordillera of Anahuac at elevations which sometimes approach the line of perpetual snow. But little is known of their first history. The lodes of Tasco and Pachuca appear to have been worked soon after the conquest, and in 1548, twenty-eight years after the death of Montezuma, the mines of Zacatecas were opened, though situated above 400 miles from the capital. Muleteers travelling from Mexico to Zacatecas are said to have discovered the silver mines of Guanaxuato.

Many of my readers will no doubt be surprised to hear that the Mexican silver ores are generally poor. On an average they contain only from three to four ounces of silver per cwt., much less than the ores of Annaberg, Marienberg, and other districts of Saxony. Their comparative poverty is, however, amply redeemed by their abundance and the facility with which they are worked.

After these preliminary remarks I will now briefly describe the chief Mexican silver mines. The Sierra de Santa Rosa, a group of porphyritic hills, rises in the centre of the province of Guanaxuato. Partly arid and partly covered with the evergreen oak, it attains an absolute height of from 8,000 to 9,000 feet; but, as the neighbouring plain is nearly 6,000 feet above the sea, it hardly attracts the notice of the traveller accustomed to the vast proportions of the Andes.

The southern slope of this porphyritic range is crossed by the famous Veta Madre of Guanaxuato, the richest silver lode as yet discovered in Mexico. This enormous vein, which traverses the country for upwards of eight miles, with an average width of from 120 to 135 feet, is, however, not productive throughout its whole extent, but the ore occurs in branches and bunches, leaving intermediate spaces of dead and unproductive ground. Among the numerous mines that have been opened along its course, the Valenciana exhibited, at the beginning of the present century, the almost unparalleled example of a mine which, during a period of more than forty years, never yielded its proprietors less than an annual income of from 80,000l. to 120,000l. The part of the Veta in which it is situated had remained unexplored till 1760, when Obregon, a young Spaniard, began to work it, with the assistance of some friends who advanced him the necessary capital. In the year 1766 the diggings had reached a depth of 240 feet, and the expenses were far greater than the proceeds. But Obregon clung with the passionate ardour of a gambler to the hazardous enterprise on which he had staked all his hopes of fortune. In 1767 he entered into partnership with a small shopkeeper, Otero, who was destined soon to share the fabulous riches that were about to reward his perseverance. Already in the following year the produce of the mine considerably increased, and in 1771 it began to yield enormous masses of sulphuret of silver. From that time till 1804, when Humboldt left Mexico, it never produced less than 560,000l. worth of silver annually, and the net profits of the partners amounted in some years to 240,000l.

Under the title of Conde de la Valenciana, Obregon maintained the simple habits and the urbanity of character which had distinguished him in poverty. When he began to work his mine, the goats were feeding on the spot where ten years later a thriving town of 8,000 souls had started into existence. Guanaxuato, the capital of the State of the same name, is indebted to the neighbourhood of the richest silver mines in the world for its origin and prosperity. Inclosed in a narrow valley, its houses rise in terraces one above the other; and the contrast of the magnificent abodes of the rich mining proprietors with the miserable huts of their dependants adds to the singular appearance of the place. The Mexican miner is, however, not so poor as his wretched dwelling might lead us to suppose. In some measure he shares the fortunes of the proprietors of the mines, as he is entitled to part of the ore; so that when the vein is more than usually productive his weekly profits may amount to as much as a hundred dollars. Yet he never thinks of purchasing a piece of land, or of repairing his hut, when favoured by fortune; but foolishly squanders his money in drinking and gambling, and seldom returns to his work before his last farthing has been spent.

The population of Guanaxuato naturally fluctuates with the prosperity of the mines. In 1806 and 1807, when they were in the highest state of activity, it amounted to 90,000 souls; during the wars of independence it sank to 20,000, but since then it has again risen to 60,000.

Next to the mines of Guanaxuato those of Zacatecas are distinguished by their richness. They are likewise situated on the great central plateau of the Cordillera in a wild mountain region whose forbidding aspect forms a strange contrast to the riches concealed under its surface. In 1826 the United Mexican and the BolaÑos Company undertook the working of these mines; and two years after, the latter had the good fortune to find an exceedingly rich vein, which up to the year 1834 produced no less than 1,680,316 marks of silver.

Before 1770 the populous district of Alamos de Catorce in the State of San Luis de Potosi, was still a complete desert. About this time a free negro, named Milagros, who made a scant livelihood as an itinerant musician, having lost his way, was obliged to pass the night in the forest. On the following morning he found a few drops of silver on the spot where he had made a fire, and, on a closer examination, discovered the rich cropping out of a bed of argentiferous ores. He lost no time in establishing the right of property which he derived from his discovery, and opened the shaft Milagros, which, in a few years, made him a wealthy man.

Soon after Don BarnabÉ de Zepeda discovered the chief vein of Catorce—the Veta Madre—which continued to be worked with great success until the revolution. This event having proved as destructive to the draining machines of Catorce as to those of Guanaxuato and Zacatecas, a contract was made with an English house for the furnishing of a steam-engine, the first ever seen in Mexico. It was landed at Tampico in May 1822, but arrived at Alamos six months later, as the carts which dragged the heavy piece of machinery broke down every moment on the wretched roads which lead to the central plateau on which the mines are situated. This, however, was but the prelude of new difficulties; for as the neighbouring forests could not furnish wood fit for the purpose, it was necessary to order iron pump-tubes in England, which did not arrive before 1826, so that the engine could not be set to work until four years had passed after its arrival in Mexico. The history of Catorce affords many remarkable examples of good fortune; but as most of the rich mineros (mine-proprietors) were men of low birth and without education, they squandered their treasures as fast as they acquired them. Medellin, the proprietor of the mine Dolores, once spent 36,000 dollars on a christening party; and at times, when the share of the hewers amounted to one-third of the extracted ores, a common miner would stake two or three thousand dollars on the issue of a cock-fight.

Among the first settlers at Catorce was an ecclesiastic named Flores, who bought for 700 dollars a newly-opened mine, which received the significant name of ‘La Bolsa de Dios Padre,’ or ‘God the Father’s Money-Bag.’

Never was a small capital more profitably invested, for, at a depth of about twenty yards, a deposit of such enormous richness was discovered that in less than three years the profits of Padre Flores amounted to three millions and a half of dollars.

The mines of Pachuca, Real del Monte, and Moran began to be worked soon after the conquest. The Veta de la Biscayna, the chief vein of the district, yielded immense profits from the sixteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century, when, in consequence of insufficient drainage, the mines were drowned. An enterprising hidalgo, Don JosÉ Bustamente, then began to drive a draining gallery, 7,000 feet long, which, however, was only finished after his death by his partner, Don Pedro Terreros, a merchant of Queretaro. Its immense cost was amply repaid, for Terreros extracted no less than fifteen millions of dollars from the mine, and was ennobled under the title of Conde de la Regla. His liberality was worthy of his wealth, for besides a gift of two ships of the line—one of them of 112 guns—to King Charles III. of Spain, he lent the court of Madrid a million of dollars, which, it is almost superfluous to remark, were never repaid. He built the enormous factories of La Regla at a cost of more than 400,000l., and left his children a property rivalling that of the Conde de la Valenciana. Since 1774, however, the profits of the Biscayna, which was now worked 300 feet below the adit, began to diminish; for though it still continued to yield enormous quantities of ore, the water flowed in so abundantly that twenty-eight baritels,^[44] each requiring forty horses, and worked at an expense of 2,000l. per week, was incapable of mastering it. At the death of the old Conde the works were abandoned, until 1791, when his heirs once more set all the baritels in motion; but the proceeds not covering the expenses, the works were again abandoned.

In the year 1824, when the frenzy of mining speculations was at its height, a company was formed in London, with a capital of 400,000l., for the purpose of working the mine of Tlalpujahua, in the State of Mejoacan, which had long since been abandoned. Without any accurate information, a number of supervisors and workmen were sent to the spot in 1825, when they found all the mines under water. Yet, in spite of this rather unpromising state of affairs, the company, not satisfied with its first acquisitions, entered into new engagements, so that at the end of 1825 it had contracted for no less than eighty mines, for which it bound itself to pay the proprietors annuities amounting to more than 50,000 dollars during the first three years. Operations were now begun in many places at once, but every one of them ended in disappointment; and in 1828 the company, after spending every farthing of its capital, vanished into ‘airy nothing,’ abandoning the mines to their original proprietors, and leaving the ill-fated shareholders to mourn over their credulity and folly.

Subsequently another English company undertook the working of the mines of Real del Monte, and after spending no less than 15,381,633 dollars, against a produce of 10,481,475 dollars, was dissolved in 1848. Mr. Buchan now undertook the management for a Mexican company, and almost immediately struck the great Rosario vein, which opened a long career of prosperity, and yielded a profit of a million of dollars in 1867. Every fortnight a conducta, or escort, of one hundred and fifty armed men^[45] conveys the silver, in bars of seventy pounds, inclosed in an iron safe, to the capital.

It would be vain to seek in the Mexican mines for the scientific arrangement which is to be found in most of the English or German subterranean workings. One of their chief faults consists in a want of communication between their various parts, so that they resemble those ill-arranged houses where, to go from one room to another, one is obliged to traverse long and crooked passages. Hence the impossibility of introducing in most of the mines an economical transport by means of tramroads and waggons, and hence also the necessity of conveying the ore to the surface by human labour. The native Indians, however, are admirable carriers, for they will climb steep ladders, with 240 to 380 pounds, and perform this hard work for six hours consecutively. Their muscular strength seemed truly astonishing to Humboldt, who, though having no weight to carry but his own, felt himself utterly exhausted after ascending from a deep mine.

Most of the Mexican silver is extracted from the ores by the process of amalgamation. For this purpose the ore is first crushed either by rollers, or, more generally, by stamps, called in Mexico molinos, which in principle resemble those used in the tin mines of Cornwall, but are not so powerful, and are worked either by water-power or by mules.

The crushed ores are then conveyed to the arrastres, or grinding-mills, which are usually arranged in rows in a large gallery or shed. The ore, having been brought into a finely divided state, is next allowed to run out of the arrastre into shallow tanks or reservoirs, where it remains exposed to the sun until it has the appearance of thick mud, and in this state the process is proceeded with. The lama, as it is called, or slime, is now laid out on the patio, or amalgamation floor (which is in some places boarded, and in others paved with flat stones), in large masses called tortas, from forty to fifty feet in diameter, and about a foot thick; and so extensive are the floors that a large number of these tortas are seen in progress at the same time. When the ore has been laid out in masses on the patio, the operations necessary to produce the chemical changes commence. The first ingredient introduced is salt, in the proportion of fifty pounds to every ton of ore, and a number of mules are made to tread it, so that it may be dissolved in the water and intimately blended with the mass. On the following day another ingredient is introduced, called in Mexico magistral. It is common copper-pyrites, or sulphide of copper and iron, pulverised and calcined, which converts it into a sulphate. About twenty-five pounds of this magistral are added for every ton of ore in the torta, and the mules are again put in, and tread the mass for several hours. Chemical action now commences, and new combinations between the decomposed mineral substances are in progress. Quicksilver is then introduced, being spread over the torta in very small particles, which is effected by passing it through a coarse cloth. The quantity required is six times the estimated weight of the silver contained in the ore.

The quicksilver being spread over the surface, the mules are once more put in, and tread the whole until it is well mixed. Great skill is now required to watch the progress of the amalgamation, and to decide whether any one of the ingredients that have been added to the ore is in deficiency or excess.

The amalgamating process being at length ended, the mass is washed in large vats, through which streams of water are made to pass, so as to drive away the lighter particles of the mud and to leave the heavy amalgam at the bottom of the tub. After being strained through the strong canvas bottom of a leathern bag, in order to separate the superfluous mercury, the amalgam is finally heated in large retorts, when the quicksilver is volatilised and the pure silver remains behind. As a considerable quantity of mercury is thus lost, this metal has always had a great influence on the working of the Mexican mines. When, in times of war, the importation of quicksilver from Europe was stopped, thus causing a considerable increase in its price, the ores accumulated in the magazines, as their poverty made it impossible to meet the additional expense; and then it not unfrequently happened that proprietors, possessing ores to the amount of several millions of dollars, were unable to pay their current expenses. In the last century, the Mexican mines annually required sixteen thousand hundredweight of mercury, which was furnished chiefly by the mines of Almaden, Huancavelica, and Idria. The sale of mercury to the various mining proprietors was a Government monopoly.

The quantity of silver produced by the Mexican mines in 110 years, ending with the first year of the present century, amounted to about ninety-eight millions of pounds troy, and the total value of the gold and silver produced from 1689 to 1803 to about 285 millions of pounds sterling.

The production was most abundant in the years 1805, 1806, and 1809, when it reached the sum of twenty-six and twenty-seven millions of dollars. It then fell enormously during the revolutionary wars; but the English mining mania of 1824 having furnished the necessary capital for the re-opening of a large number of mines, it again gradually rose, and even reached during some years the rate of its most flourishing period. But it never amounted to one-third of the value which is now annually extracted from our coal mines; and while the latter open new and unbounded sources of wealth by the activity they communicate to numberless branches of industry, Mexico—a prey to bigotry, ignorance, anarchy, and sloth—remains, in spite of her silver mines, as poor and as barbarous as ever.

In South America, the mines of Potosi, Cerro di Pasco, and Gualgayoc, are the most renowned for their richness. In 1545, an Indian, while pursuing some deer along the declivity of a steep mountain, took hold of a shrub, the roots of which, giving way, brought to view a mass of silver, the first discovery of the riches which have rendered Potosi the proverbial symbol of wealth. The Indian, wisely concealing his good fortune, repeatedly visited the mine, but his improved circumstances having been remarked by one of his countrymen, he was obliged to take him into the secret. Unfortunately a quarrel ensued, and the faithless confidant betrayed it to his master, Don JosÉ Villaroel, a Spaniard, whose extraordinary success in working the mines soon drew the attention of all America to the wild Cerro di Potosi. A town of 100,000 inhabitants soon rose in the desert, in spite of the wintry inclemency of the climate (12,842 feet above the level of the sea) and of the fabulous prices of provisions, as all the necessaries of life had to be conveyed from a vast distance over the pathless mountains.

But if living in Potosi was extravagantly dear, Mammon took care to provide his votaries with the necessary means; for the treasures which were here extracted from the bosom of the earth seem rather to belong to the world of Oriental romance than to that of sober reality. According to Humboldt, the mountain of Potosi, whose topmost mine is situated 15,384 feet above the level of the sea—considerably higher than the eternal snows of the summit of Mont Blanc—produced from 1545 to 1803 no less than 230,000,000l., besides the silver which was not registered, or had been carried off by fraud, and which may probably have amounted to as much again. During the period of their greatest prosperity—from 1585 to 1606—when they annually yielded 882,000 marks of silver, 15,000 Indians were occupied in the mines of Potosi. At present, however, their produce, though still considerable, has diminished to one-eighth, and the population of the town has shrunk in the same proportion.

The ores were at first reduced in a very imperfect manner, according to the old Indian method. On the mountains surrounding the town of Potosi, wherever the wind blew with sufficient force, portable smelting ovens of clay, in which numerous holes kept up a strong current of air, received alternate layers of ore and charcoal, and the lively blast soon separated the metal from the dross. The first travellers in the Cordillera describe with enthusiasm the magnificent aspect of more than 6,000 fires, which every evening blazed on the mountain crests of Potosi. Amalgamation was first introduced about the year 1571.

On the bleak Puna, or high table-land between the parallel chains of the Cordillera and the Andes, is situated the famous mining town of Pasco. Surrounded by a crescent of steep and naked rocks, its straggling buildings extend over an uneven ground, bordered by small marshes and lagunes. The shivering traveller, descending from the windy heights, is at first agreeably surprised by the sight of a large town in the midst of these dreary solitudes; but a nearer inspection of its narrow crooked streets, and of its miserable huts, with here and there a stately mansion, soon dissipates the fancies he may have formed at a distance.

The wild, forbidding aspect of the neighbourhood, and the rigorous climate, only a short day’s journey from the loveliest valleys, prove the greatness of the subterranean treasures which could induce so large a population to settle in so harsh a region.

The mines of Pasco, like those of Potosi, were discovered, it is said, by an Indian shepherd, who, accidentally lighting a fire where the ores cropped out, found silver among the ashes. There are two chief lodes, with numerous branches, so that the whole neighbourhood may be considered as resting on a subterranean network of silver. The entrances to most of the mines are situated in the town itself; and, as every proprietor thinks only of his present profits, they are worked in so slovenly a manner that they frequently fall in. Tschudi, who visited some of the deepest of them, always thought himself extremely fortunate when, after descending on half-rotten steps or by mouldering ropes and rusty chains, he returned again to daylight without accident, and mentions an instance where three hundred workmen were buried in the ruins of a mine, in which the necessary props had been shamefully neglected.

When a mine is very productive, it is said to be in ‘boya;’ and when such periods of affluence take place in several of the mines at once, the population of Pasco sometimes increases to double or treble the usual number. The Peruvian miners are no less dishonest than their fellow-workmen in Mexico, and equally cunning in robbing their employers. On the other hand their patience and perseverance are unrivalled. Satisfied with the coarsest food, and with a still more miserable hut, they undergo an amount of bodily toil which no European could endure. Their only solace is the chewing of Coca, the mysterious plant to which they ascribe such wonderfully stimulating powers, and which has at length begun to awaken the curiosity of European chemists and naturalists.^[46] When a ‘boya’ raises their earnings to a considerable sum, they spend it in drunkenness, and never think of returning to their work until their last farthing or their last credit is exhausted. The mineros, or proprietors of the mines, are almost equally uncivilised. Passionately devoted to gambling and mining speculations, they are commonly deeply in debt to the capitalists of Lima, who advance them money at the rate of 100 and 120 per cent.; and when a ‘boya’ favours them, this sudden increase of wealth is merely the prelude of new embarrassment.

According to law, all the produce of the silver mines should be sent to the Callana or Government smelting-house; but in order to avoid the heavy duties levied by the State, vast quantities are smuggled to the coast. The annual produce registered at the Callana amounts to about 300,000 marks, but perhaps as much again is exported in a clandestine manner. Besides the mines of Pasco, Peru possesses many others of considerable value, situated chiefly in the provinces of Pataz, Huamanchuco, Caxamarca, and Gualgayoc.

The famous Cerro de San Fernando de Gualgayoc, fourteen leagues from the town of Caxamarca, is an isolated mountain traversed by numberless veins of silver. Its summit is sharply serrated by a multitude of tower-like or pyramidal pinnacles, and its steep sides are not only pierced by several hundred galleries for the extraction of the ores, but also by many natural openings or caverns, through which the dark blue sky is visible to the spectator standing at the foot of the mountain. The singularity of aspect is increased by the numberless huts, sticking like nests to the slopes of the fortress-like mountain wherever a ledge allowed them to be constructed. During the first thirty years after the discovery of the mines from 1771 to 1802, they yielded considerably more than thirty-two millions of dollars, and are still very productive.

One of the most celebrated silver mines of Peru was that of Salcedo, renowned alike for its richness and for the tragical end of its possessor. Don JosÉ Salcedo, a poor Spaniard who had settled in Puno, fell in love with an Indian girl, whose mother, on condition of his marrying her daughter, revealed to him the existence of a rich silver lode. The fame of Salcedo’s wealth spread far and wide, and excited the envy of Count Lemos, the viceroy, who sought to obtain possession of the mine. As the good-natured and liberal Salcedo had become very popular among the Indians, this circumstance was made use of by the rapacious viceroy to accuse him of fomenting among the natives a spirit of rebellion against the Spanish yoke. He was cast into a dungeon, and the obsequious judges condemned him to death.

While in prison Salcedo begged the viceroy to submit the case to the high court of justice at Madrid, and to allow him to appeal to the mercy of the king. At the same time he offered, as an acknowledgment for this favour, to give the viceroy daily a bar of silver, from the day the ship left the port of Callao to its return from Europe. If we consider that in those times a journey from Peru to Spain and back required at least from twelve to sixteen months, we may form some idea of Salcedo’s wealth. The viceroy, however, would not listen to the proposal, the very brilliancy of which probably inflamed still more his cupidity, and he ordered Salcedo to be hung. But his cruelty met with the disappointment it deserved; for when it became known that nothing could save Salcedo, his Indian friends destroyed the works of the mine, and so carefully concealed the entrance that it has remained undiscovered to the present day. After performing this work of retribution, the Indians dispersed, and neither promises nor tortures could wring the secret from those that were caught.

Though the mines of Peru have yielded and still yield vast quantities of silver, yet probably only a few of the richest lodes are worked; for the Indians, to whom other lodes are well known, will never reveal their existence to the white men. They know by experience how small a benefit they derive from the mines, which are to them but a source of severe labour. Thus they prefer leaving the treasures of the earth undisturbed, or use them only in cases of extreme necessity. In many provinces undoubted proofs exist that the richest silver mines are secretly worked by the Indians, but all efforts to discover them have proved fruitless.

A Franciscan monk at Huancayo, a desperate gambler and almost always in want of money, had by his friendly manners gained the goodwill of the Indians. One day, after a severe loss, he bitterly complained of his distress to one of his Indian friends. After some hesitation the man promised to assist him, and brought him on the following evening a bag full of rich silver ores. This gift he repeated several times. But the monk, greedy after more, begged the Indian to show him the mine—a request which, after repeated refusals, was at length reluctantly granted. On the appointed night, the Indian, with two of his comrades, came to the Franciscan’s dwelling, took him on his shoulders, after first carefully blindfolding him, and carried him, alternately with his friends, a distance of several leagues into the mountains. Here they halted, and the Franciscan’s bandage having been removed, he found himself in a subterranean gallery, where the richest silver ores sparkled from the walls. After feasting on the grateful sight and filling his pockets, he was carried back again in the same way. On his return he secretly loosened the string of his rosary, and let a bead drop from time to time, hoping by this means to be able to find the mine. But, on the following morning, as he was about to reconnoitre, his Indian friend knocked at the door, and saying, ‘Father, thou hast lost thy rosary!’ brought him a whole handful of the loose beads.

In 1850 the mines in the province of Copiapo in Chili yielded 335,000 marks of silver, nearly as much as the entire production of Europe, and the State of Nevada in North America bids fair to rival the riches of Peru. The ores are found on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, in the region of the Carson River, and have since 1859 attracted a stream of emigrants to the Washoe Mine. At the present time they annually produce about 16,000,000 dollars of silver, chiefly from the Comstock Lode, which may be ranked among the richest mineral deposits ever encountered in the history of mining enterprise.

Thus we find veins and deposits of silver ore scattered throughout almost the entire length of America; and no doubt many an unknown Potosi still lies concealed in the lonely ravines or on the bleak sides of the Andes, awaiting but some fortunate discoverer to astonish the world with its treasures.