206 MINES OF POTOSI. 



LIB. iv. iik e doth Spaine D0 w with the Indies, for there remaining 

 many mines of mettall yet in Spaine, they will not seeke 

 them, nor suffer any to worke in them, by reason of the in- 

 conveniencies which happen daily, but they bring them 

 from the Indies, where they digge it with much labour 

 and perill. This rocke of Potosi containes, as I have 

 said, foure principall veines j that is, La Rica, that of 

 Centeno, that of Estano, and that of Mendieta. All these 

 veines are of the East part of the mouiitame, as looking to 

 the Sunne rising, for on the West part there is not any. 

 The foresaid veines runne from North to South, which is 

 from Pole to Pole. In the largest place they have six 

 foote, and in the narrowest a spanne bredth. There are 

 others of divers fashions, that runne out of the said veines, 

 like as out of the great armes of trees there commonly 

 sprowt foorth lesse. Everie veinc hath divers mines which 

 are partes and portions of the same, distinct and divided 

 betwixt divers masters by whose names they are commonly 

 r called. The great mine containes foure-score yardes, 

 neither may it be more by the law, and the least containes 

 foure. All these mines are at this day very deepe. In 

 La Rica they reckon 78 mines which are 80 yards deep, 

 or a hundred stades or height of a man, and in some places 

 two hundred. In the veiiio of Centeno are 24 mines, 

 whereof some arc 70 or 80 stades deepe, and so of the other 

 veines of this mountaine. For a remedie to this great 

 profunditie they have invented mines which they call soca- 

 loncs, 1 which are caves or ventes made at the foote of the 

 mountaine, the which go crossing til they incounter with 

 the veines ; for wee must vnderstand that although the 

 veines runne North to South as hath been said, yet is it in 

 declining from the toppe to the foote of the mountaine, 

 which may be as they beleeve by conjecture above twelve 

 hundred stades. And by this account, although the mines 

 1 Adite, or horizontal cuttings. 



