284 A VISIT TO THE PROVINCES 



rich in silver. A little lower, it passed into grey copper and galena; and in less than six hun- 

 dred feet from the surface, pyritous copper and ordinary pyrites had driven the miners in 

 despair from their labors. But as these ores yielded from twenty-five to thirty per cent, of 

 copper, they were valuable to one in less haste to he rich ; and for a trifle an English gentle- 

 man became their proprietor prior to 1850, erecting furnaces on the spot, and sending the pro- 

 duce through Huasco. On the purchase money for all such sales the national treasury levies a 

 duty of two per cent. ; and the number of mines and shares that change owners annually is not 

 a small one. Cateadores are usually without means to prosecute their labors of discovery, or 

 work the mines they find ; their necessities are urgent, and in many cases speculation in shares 

 has all the excitement of gambling. Indeed it becomes a mania like that which excites the 

 lottery gambler, to whom the stimulant is not less fascinating, notwithstanding the utter ruin 

 in which it often involves so many around him. Limited knowledge of scientific mining renders 

 success so doubtful, that shares are frequently sold in new mines for a few hundred dollars which 

 as many thousands would not repurchase a year later. Two such examples occurred with one of 

 my friends. During the year 1850 he sold a share in the Buena Esperanto,, at Tres Puntas, for 

 $13,000; and in December following gave $500 for a vara of the Salvadora, in the same district. 

 In July, 1852, stock of the Buena Esperanza could not be bought at $50,000, and he wrote me 

 that his net monthly profits from the Salvadora exceeded $2,000 ! He had been offered $4*7,000 

 for his share. 



South of the valley of Huasco, and nearest to the coast, the mines of most consequence are those 

 of San Juan and Higuera. These yield oxides and pyrites of copper to the amount of 4,500 

 tons annually. There are others not so valuable in the vicinity of Freirina, five leagues from 

 the port of Huasco, and one or two unimportant gold veins on nearly the same meridian. For 

 smelting or shipment, the ores are transported to the port in their crude state. But here, as to 

 the north of the valley, the most interesting district to the geological miner lies nearer to the 

 Andes. At fifteen leagues from the coast is Vallenar, the capital of the department of the same 

 name, in the midst of an oval valley some 600 yards broad, and whose principal extent is from 

 east to west. The valley lies 150 feet below the general level of the sandy plains on either side, 

 limiting the usefulness of the Huasco, a limpid rivulet flowing through its midst, and confining 

 cultivation to a small number of orchards and pasture-fields on its banks. Such is the climate, 

 that fruits, and more especially the raisins, have great fame throughout the republic. The 

 town contains about 3,500 inhabitants, who are almost entirely dependent on the product of 

 the mines for support; and as those of Agua Amarga and Tunas, to which its prosperity was 

 mainly due thirty years ago, have been nearly exhausted, Vallenar is on the decline. Huasco 

 thus is likely to become the important town of this portion of the province. Freirina, at five 

 leagues from the port, having been injured by attempts to irrigate the esplanade at the back of it, 

 the greater portion of the houses have necessarily been abandoned, and the citizens have peti- 

 tioned government to establish a new city adjoining the present site. As a new custom-house 

 and a convenient wharf for landing goods and passengers have recently been completed, if 

 water can be obtained, Huasco will thrive. 



The silver mines of Carriso, remarkable for the great variety of minerals they contain, are 

 six or eight leagues east of Vallenar. Ruby-blende of a bright red, and sometimes crystallized, 

 is the most abundant. Native antirnoniacal silver ; sulphuret of silver ; native arsenio-sulphuret 

 of iron, often with cobalt, and rich in silver ; pure native antimony ; arsenic ; pure arsenite of 

 iron ; grey argentiferous copper ; blende ; galena ; purple copper and iron pyrites, are also found. 

 The native arsenic is sometimes compact, heavy, and testaceous, in which case it scarcely con- 

 tains any silver ; and is sometimes black, scoriaceous, and light, and then we find in its pores 

 metastatic dodecahedrons of ruby-blende, or rather of pure filiform silver. The gangue is car- 

 bonate of lime and argil, and in 1846 the mine had been worked to a depth of 1,000 feet, in an 

 average direction of S. 20 E. A vein containing native gold has also been found in a part of 

 the same hill. 



