1872.] Copper Mines of Chilt. 167 
men superintend the native barretero, indicating the spots 
where holes are to be made. 
The picked ore is heap roasted at the mine, but very 
rapidly and imperfectly, as the smelting works are constantly 
ahead of the mine. 
The smelting establishment was formerly at the mine’s 
mouth, but has now been transferred to the railroad terminus 
in the valley, which bounds the hill to the south. The ore 
descends to it by an inclined tramway: for a certain distance 
the descent is steep enough to enable the full waggon to 
haul up the empty one; over the rest the hauling is done 
by horses. The cost of the ore delivered at the smelting 
works varies from 2°50 dols. to 3°00 dols. per ton. 
There are now sent daily from the mine to the works 
100 tons; formerly the daily yield was double that quantity. 
There has happily been more than a corresponding diminution 
in the number of hands employed, there being now at the 
mine and establishment 500 to 1300 formerly. 
The smelting establishment consists of ten large rever- 
beratories, and four blast furnaces, erected last year by 
Charles Lambert, jun. Only three of the reverberatories 
are running, and these exclusively on the finer ore unsuitable 
to the blast furnace. Each reverberatory smelts three 
charges daily of go cwts. each, and produces a 45 per cent 
matt, with the consumption of 1 ton of coal to 3°5 of ore. 
The 8-tuyere blast-furnaces smelt each on an average 50 
tons daily, with the consumption of 1 of coke to 7°5 of ore. 
So fusible is the ore that the slags do not contain over 
I-roth of Ir per cent of copper. The Panulcillo ore is 
mixed with about an equal part of richer carbonate before 
being smelted, a necessity that might be partly avoided by 
a more careful preparatory calcination. 
The management in every department of the establish- 
ment is admirable; and had the same economy and prudence 
reigned in days gone by when the price of copper was better 
and the yield of the ore higher, immense profits, instead of 
heavy losses, would have been made. As it is, even in the 
past depressed state of the market, under Mr. Weir’s 
superintendence, the mine has held its own, and now should 
make most profitable returns. It is the only property in 
Chili worked by an English Joint Stock Company with an 
office in England, and though it has suffered from the 
absence of that close scrutiny which is generally exercised 
only when a property is under the eye of its owners, now 
with Mr. Heatley in Valparaiso, and Mr. Weir at the mine, 
and a good price for copper, the enterprise ought to take a 
new lease of life. 
