OF ATACAMA AND COQUIMBO. 291 



and daughters, the pilluv of their Inunhlo homesteads, the enslavement of themselves and 

 brethren \\t I upon \\ith execration; and from the moment thai the Spaniards were 



driven (mm their territory, every effort was made to destroy all traces of mines and mining. 

 In a region where vegetation grows rankly and rapidly this was no difficult task; and now hut 

 fe\\ .if tin- auriferous deposits could he discovered from former evidences, even did the jealous 

 native permit his ancient f..e within the territory. If any gold mines are worked, the product 

 must either timl its way to the mint at Santiago hy land, or be smuggled out of the country ; 

 as there is nothing in the custom-house returns of the last few years to show it, and the Val- 

 divia mint has long since been disused. Talcahuano exports annually about $100,000 in bar 

 copper doubtless the products of the mines of Payen and other veins in that vicinity. 



Within a few years some of the vaqueros near Chilian brought pepitas of considerable value 

 from a pretty locality five or six leagues to the eastward of that town. Its fame attracted the 

 indolent, always ready to embrace any occupation by which a subsistence may be obtained 

 with the least amount of labor, and at the last accounts some three thousand people had 

 collected there. Not that so many find constant or lucrative employment in gold mining; but 

 that the soil of the district is fertile, and a portion of the population occupy themselves in 

 agriculture, which is probably more profitable than gold mining or washing. 



The first grains were found at the confluence of two small streams, one of which descends 

 from the immediate hills to the eastward, and the other flows parallel with the Andes. Here 

 the settlement was made, and has gradually extended eastwardly for about a league, excavation 

 and sifting going on simultaneously, though the majority continue washing the sands. Unlike 

 any other auriferous region now worked in Chile, the granite in which the gold is embedded is 

 buried under a thick stratum of vegetable mould on which a dense forest is growing, and there 

 are few willing to risk outlay for its removal in the uncertainty of recovering expenses. 

 The grains of gold obtained are exchanged on the spot for the necessaries of life, and conse- 

 quently fall into the hands of a few dealers ; but in three years there was not sufficient 

 collected at Pueblo de las Minos, as the place is called, to be worthy of a newspaper para- 

 graph. 



But there are other deposits of mineral in these provinces, which may one day become of far 

 more consequence than the precious metals ever were in the seventeenth century. In the 

 vicinity of Concepcion several mines of coal, or rather of lignite, have been found ; and as every 

 deposit of combustible material on the west coast of America is of the highest interest to com- 

 mercial men in every part of the world, any facts relating to them may be useful. 



The mine called "Talcahuano," which is the nearest to the city of the same name, crops 

 out on the northwest side of a hill or promontory between the shore of the bay and the modern 

 alluvial formation. The promontory is about fifty yards long, and as many in height. It 

 contains two veins dipping to the west, irregular in their direction, and presenting, in some 

 places, contortions and faults. Each vein is three feet thick, and they are separated by a 

 stratum of sandstone five yards wide. "The combustible material which they yield has exter- 

 nal characters of a coal of mediocre quality : one sees neither traces of ligneous structure nor 

 impressions of vegetables, leaves, or spots. It is very bituminous, and burns with the odor 

 characteristic of lignites. It does not agglomerate or change form by carbonization. The sand- 

 stone of the superior part of the hill is yellowish, with brown spots, and encloses very ochreous 

 lumps and fragments of modern shells. It passes to sands of the same color, and in some 

 places is found covered with broken shells of the same species and varieties as are daily thrown 

 on the beach by the waves. The sandstone on which the inferior stratum of lignite rests, and 

 which constitutes all the lower part of the formation, is micaceous, presenting in the fresh frac- 

 tures small carbonized spots, and sometimes impressions of leaves and fragments of turrilites, 

 which seem to belong to the species so common in all the tertiary formation of the coast of 

 Chile."* 



* Aiiuales dee Mines, Tome XIV. 1843. 



