PERU. 



my father witnessed the hanging of three men for killing two 

 of your father's men, named Judson and Watson." 



Mr. W. B. Stevenson says : l 



" The Mint was established in Lima, in 1565. The machinery 

 was formerly worked by mules, eighty being daily employed till 

 the year 1817, when Don Pedro Abadia, being the contractor 

 for the coinage, Mr. Trevithick directed the erection of a water- 

 wheel, which caused a great saying of expense. In the year 

 1817 two Englishmen, sent from Pasco by Mr. Trevithick (who 

 afterwards followed with the intention of working some of the 

 silver mines in Conchucos), were murdered by the guides at 

 a place called Puloseco. This horrid act was perpetrated by 

 crushing their heads with two large stones, as they lay asleep 

 on the ground. The murderers were men who had come with 

 them from Pasco. 



"I have heard Mr. Trevithick say, that on shaking hands 

 with the men who work in those quicksilver evaporating rooms, 

 drops of quicksilver show themselves at the fingers' ends, and 

 that the workmen wearing shoes take them off before leaving 

 the work, to pour out any quicksilver that had oozed through 

 the pores of the skin, which had been respired in the floating 

 state of vapour. The men so employed fell a sacrifice in twelve 

 or eighteen months." 



Trevithick's experience in applying the force of run- 

 ning streams was turned to good account in giving an 

 economical helpmate to the steam-engine then at work 

 in the Mint. Miers says : 2 



" Another instance occurs in the unfortunately ruinous result 

 and lamentable ill-treatment of the persons engaged in the 

 attempt to introduce European improvements and British 

 machinery into the great silver-mining district of Pasco (Chili), 

 in which was engaged one of our most celebrated engineers, a 

 most able mechanic, to whom the grand improvements in our 



1 See 'Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years' Residence in 

 South America,' by W. 1>. Stevenson, published 1842. 



'-' See iMi.-rs' 'Travels in Chili and La Plata,' pul.lislie.l 1826. 



. s 2 



