160 Copper Mines of Chili. (April, 
there are upon the same parallel, extending from the coast 
to the Cordillera, a series of important copper deposits—beds 
and lodes. It includes the mines on both sides the Melon 
Valley and the Catemo and San Felipe Mines. The metals 
from the hills bounding the Melon Valley are simple copper 
ores ; those from the Catemo and San Felipe mines yield a 
little silver. The San Felipe ores are a grey sulphide; 
but as a rule the lodes are narrow. An exception occurs in 
the Paral Mine on one of the Coimas group of lodes, where 
a lode of a yard wide yields on an average a 30 per cent 
ore; but as the mine is very badly worked, and the stopes 
are far below the foot of the shaft, twice as many men are 
employed in pumping as in breaking the ore. The mines 
throughout this whole district are languishing, and the total 
amount produced does not exceed 3000 tonsa year. In all 
probablity this yield will not be maintained. Most of the 
ore is made into regulus and bars at smelting establishments 
in the Melon and at Catemo. In the San Felipe Valley 
Urmeneta and Errasuriz have attempted to use the peat— 
which is here abundant—for smelting, but as yet without 
advantage. 
Travelling northward through the province of Aconcagua 
and the southern parts of the province of Coquimbo, one 
crosses chain after chain of hills, running E. and W., 
divided from one another by fertile, well-watered valleys. 
The hills are so saturated with copper that a desmontes or 
refuse heap enters as a conspicuous object into almost every 
bit of mountain scenery, and innumerable slag heaps in 
many a nook and corner mark the spots where furnaces 
smelted the ore from neighbouring mines till the hill sides, 
to the serious detriment of agriculture, had been denuded of 
timber, when mining and smelting together necessarily came 
to an end, on account of the heavy ‘cost of transporting on 
mules the poor metals to the coast. Were the Coquimbo 
Railroad extended through Combarbola to Illapel, this region 
would again grow into some importance; but this is an 
event little likely of accomplishment. 
When we reach the river Limari, near Ovalle, we come in 
sight of the Hill of Tomaya, the most southerly of the great 
Chili minerales. It is an isolated mountain, some 3 to 4 miles 
long, whose summit is 3000 feet above the plain, and 4200 
above the sea. Its steep sides, furrowed with deep ravines, 
rise toa rugged top; where, viewed from a distance, the rocks 
seemed heaped pile on pile, as if, a stronghold of the Titans, 
the hill had been overwhelmed and buried by the missiles of 
an opposing host of giants—a string of white dots, the 
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