COSTA RICA. 267 



have given a fall of about half an inch in a yard, four men in ten 

 days would make, I have no doubt, this ridge passable for 

 mules on a regular descent to where the Serapique Kiver is 

 navigable. I have no doubt if we could have spent one week 

 more on our journey we might have passed mules the whole 

 distance with us. To carry machinery from where the Sera- 

 pique is navigable to the mines is about one-third farther than 

 from the port of Arenas on the south, on which the carriage 

 is two dollars per mule load ; three dollars might therefore be 

 charged per mule from the Atlantic side, a much less cost than 

 by way of Matina, or by going around Cape Horn. It would 

 give a speedy communication and a great accommodation to the 

 province of Costa Kica, which I doubt not would gladly con- 

 tribute to its making. 



" The mining district occupies the mountain of Aquacate, 

 nearly equidistant from the port of Punta de Arenas, in the 

 Gulf of Nicoya, and from San Jose, the capital of the state, 

 about 14 leagues from the former and 12 from the latter. The 

 high road passes through the centre of the district. 



" The chief outlay after paying for the mines would be for 

 erecting stamping mills and making railroads." 



This broken information barely gives an idea of 

 the importance of the Costa Rica mines, or of what 

 Trevithick did between the time of his landing on 

 the Pacific shore, about 1822, and his leaving the 

 mines on his search for a new route over the Cordillera 

 to the Atlantic shore, about 1826 or 1827. Judging 

 from the rough map on which Trevithick has marked 

 his line of travel across the isthmus, the mines of 

 Machucha, Quebrada-honda, and Coralillo, were inland 

 from the Griilf of Nicoya, on the Pacific, some forty or 

 fifty miles, the latter mine having its water shed into 

 the Rio Grande, while the two other mines, not far off, 

 opened into the Quebrada-honda River. The central 

 high ridge of the Cordillera was between the mines and 



