OF ATACAMA AND COQL'IMBO. 



These are not the only mineral productions of this favored land. Cinnabar ami other ores of 

 quicksilver, tin, lmd, graphite, manxam--e, magnetic and >th<-r iron, cobult, antimony, 

 arsenic, /inc. bismuth, sulphur, rock-salt, alum, gypsum, chalcedony, agates, jasper, asbestos, 

 all exist iii .such .piant it ic.s us will some day cause them to become articles of commerce. 



About thirty \.-ais ago, the ancient lame of the South American mines presented to the 

 Mi imp. -a ii public a new field for tin- employment of a large amount of capital then idle, and more 

 than one company was formed in England for the purpose of working them. Without reflecting 

 that < \en the first-formed association had not yet had time for its agent to perfect a purchase, 

 the announcement that bars of gold and silver from one of them had reached the London 

 custom-house created such excitement, that all the mining stocks rose to prices almost rivalling 

 those of Law's Bank, in France, a century before. Surveyors, agents, and miners were 

 despatched in all haste to the scene of operation; some companies shipped machinery and 

 implements without waiting to learn from their subordinates whether they had obtained a 

 single vein ; others gave most responsible and confidential appointments to fellow-countrymen 

 who had resided some time in Chile, inferentially believing their knowledge of the country 

 paramount, and forgetting that traders on the South American coast have sometimes considered 

 it remunerative to leave their consciences at home. In most cases the latter saw opportunity 

 to enrich themselves in a rapid manner, and in a brief time hesitated at nothing to procure 

 the recall of those more recently from the fatherland, and whose integrity would interfere with 

 their operations. Mr. Miers had previously gone out with every preparation for refining, 

 rolling, and manufacturing copper, taking with him above 200 tons of machinery. Capt. Head, 

 R. A., and Capt. Andrews, R. N., who had previously passed several years in South America, 

 followed as agents of different companies, and all of them have given the public the results of 

 their judgments. Mines were purchased in Buenos Ayres, Peru, and Chile ; and had a moderate 

 prudence been observed by the directors at home, and had the share-holders exercised a little 

 more patience, it is more than probable that tlie results would have been widely different. As 

 it was, almost the whole capitals, amounting to nearly 2,000,000, were sunk within a few 

 years, there remaining little more than immovable masses of machinery cumbering the beach 

 in several parts of Chile. There was neither vehicle nor road by which it could have been 

 moved, even had the engineers reported necessity for it. 



The explanations which these gentlemen have given of the causes of failure are widely 

 variant. Climate, rarity of the air, modes of working, scarcity of necessaries, difficulties of 

 transportation, and lastly the poverty of the mines, have all been brought forward, one of them 

 having published all these as obstacles to the public, after having literally made but a galloping 

 tour to some of the districts proposed to be worked. The endurance and enormous strength of 

 the Chilean miners, the simple food on which they subsist, their low rates of wages, and the 

 economical modes of reducing ores, strangely enough, are all admitted ; but they, as well as 

 the directors, seem to have taken for granted the superiority of Cornish miners ; and the pro- 

 priety of having only foreign administration appears never to have been thought of, except by 

 Capt. Andrews. It is not surprising, then, that the panic created on the publication of Capt. 

 Head's narrative, added to the premature and injudicious outlays of directors, created a crash ; 

 but time has shown, as has been exhibited in preceding statistics of this chapter, that there is 

 almost unlimited wealth in silver and copper from Atacama to Santiago. 



