476 On the Iron-pyrites Mines of Andalucia. | Oct., 
drive this adit level, and the mine is unwatered to a considerable 
depth by natural drainage, an immense gain in a country where 
scarcity of fuel makes pumping by steam-power an almost ruinous 
expense. The property has only lately come into the hands of 
the present company, who are energetically pushing forward their 
operations, and have laid down a railway to the port of Huelva. 
There are estimated to be 4,000,000 of tons of ore above the level 
of the present adit, and there is little doubt that the present adven- 
turers will reap as rich a harvest as has fallen to the lot of their 
predecessors at Santa Domingo. 
About four leagues to the north of the Buitron is the Govern- 
ment mine of Rio Tinto, to which I paid a hasty visit im company 
with Sefor Don Manuel Ortegosa, to whose guidance I owe much 
both on this and other occasions. The ground-plan in Plate II. 
is reduced from that given in the Spanish report above quoted, 
and the following account taken from Mr. Thomas’s pamphlet :— 
“ Within the sett there are three lodes which traverse it from east 
to west. The northern and central ones are divided for the greater 
part of their length by a wedge of porphyry, but meet at either 
extremity. The southern lode is of greater length than the northern 
and central ones, and is separated from them by a larger wedge of 
country than they are from one another. It is to this deposit that 
the workings of the Spaniards have been confined; it has been 
opened up by them for a length of 500 métres, its average width 
for that distance being 71 metres nearly. The thickness of the 
overburden over the part worked is about 25 metres.” Much 
cannot be said for the management of the mine: shortly before my 
visit a “crush” had taken place which had deranged the ventilation, 
and I believe a similar accident has happened since. The drawing- 
tackle consisted of one gin, of enormous size and ill-balanced, worked 
by a team of mules, at least one-half of which were required to start 
and keep going the dead weight of the cumbrous machine, whose 
creakings and groanings as it was dragged painfully round mixed 
with the shrill torrent of incessant abuse by which a Spanish driver 
urges on his animals. It must not be supposed that this blun- 
dermg, of which further examples might be quoted, is due to any 
want of skill on the part of the managing engineers, who are fully 
up to their work; but any suggestion of theirs must be submitted 
for the approval of officials at Madrid; and our experience of red- 
tape at home, when matters of science are concerned, will give us 
some notion of what must be the fate of any proposals for improve- 
ment in Spain. 
History and Uses of the Mineral—The vast heaps of slag 
found in the neighbourhood of most of the deposits, and the old 
shafts and adits, show that the mineral has been largely worked in 
bygone times. No certain traces of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians 
