232 PERU. 



Mr. Howe, who went to these mines in 1850, says, 



" The Cerro de Pasco mines are about 170 miles from Lima ; 

 we crossed a ridge 25,000 feet high. The mines were about 

 13,400 feet high above the sea. There was but one road ; no 

 wheel vehicle could be used ; everything was carried on mules. 

 Sometimes the road was only 2^ feet wide, cut in precipices 

 three or four hundred feet perpendicular : some of the men 

 were afraid to walk, and dared not ride. 



".I lived in the house that used to be Mr. Trevithick's 

 office and store-room ; it was in the suburbs of the town of 

 Cerro de Pasco. The shafts are some of them in the middle of 

 the town ; several pieces of Captain Trevithick's engines lay 

 about the shafts, and some on the way up, as though they had 

 stuck fast, and some we saw at Lima. Mr. Jump, a director 

 on the mine, pointed out a balance-beam that Mr. Trevithick 

 had put up thirty years before. Only one Englishman then 

 remained there who }iad worked for Mr. Trevithick; he was 

 called Sy combe, and said Trevithick's men were an unmanage- 

 able lot. . 



" The natives worked in the mines underground. The 

 atmosphere was only about 10 Ibs. on the inch. We found a 

 coal mine not far off; the quality was not very good. The 

 smiths had difficulty in welding with it. Our heaviest pieces of 

 machinery did not exceed 280 Ibs. The worst parts of the 

 road have been a little improved since that time." 



Just one month before Trevithick sailed from Peri- 

 zance for Lima, the first pumping engine taken out by 

 Uville had been satisfactorily put to work in the moun- 

 tain mine of Santa Kosa, with its steam-cylinder weigh- 

 ing double the limit fixed on by modern engineers. 



The following information respecting the progress 

 of the steam-engine fixed on the Santa Rosa Mines, 

 one of the mineral ridges of Pasco, in the Viceroyalty 

 of Peru, is extracted from the Government Gazettes of 



