1834.] MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 189 



bounded. Amongst many other questions, he asked me, " Now that 

 George Rex is dead, how many more of the family of Kexes are yet 

 alive ? " This Rex certainly must be a relation of the great author 

 Finis, who wrote all books 1 



These mines are of copper, and the ore is all shipped to Swansea 

 to be smelted. Hence the mines have an aspect singularly quiet, as 

 compared to those in England : here no smoke, furnaces, or great 

 steam-engines, disturb the solitude of the surrounding mountains. 



The Chilian government, or rather the old Spanish law, encourages 

 by every method the searching for mines. The discoverer may work 

 a mine on any ground, by paying five shillings ; and before paying this 

 he may try, even in the garden of another man, for twenty days. 



It is now well known that the Chilian method of mining is the 

 cheapest. My host says that the two principal improvements intro- 

 duced by foreigners have been, first, reducing by previous roasting the 

 copper pyritejs which, being the common ore in Cornwall, the English 

 miners were astounded on their arrival to find thrown away as useless ; 

 secondly, stamping and washing the scoriae from the old furnaces 

 by which process particles of metal are recovered in abundance. 1 

 have actually seen mules carrying to the coast, for transportation to 

 England, a cargo of such cinders. But the first case is much the 

 most curious. The Chilian miners were so convinced that copper 

 pyrites contained not a particle of copper, that they laughed at the 

 Englishmen for their ignorance, who laughed in turn, and bought their 

 richest veins for a few dollars. It is very odd that, in a country where 

 mining had been extensively carried on for many years, so simple 

 a process as gently roasting the ore to expel the sulphur previous 

 to smelting it, had never been discovered. A few improvements have 

 likewise been introduced in some of the simple machinery ; but even 

 to the present day, water is removed from some mines_by men carrying 

 it up the shaft in leathern bags ! 



The labouring men work very hard. They have little time allowed 

 for their meals, and during summer and winter they begin when it 

 is light, and leave off at dark. They are paid one pound sterling 

 a month, and their food is given them : this for breakfast consists of 

 sixteen figs and two small loaves of bread ; for dinner, boiled beans ; 

 for supper, broken roasted wheat grain. They scarcely ever taste 

 meat ; as, with the twelve pounds per annum, they have to clothe 

 themselves, and support their families. The miners who work in the 

 mine itself have twenty-five shillings per month, and are allowed 

 a little charqui. But these men come down from their bleak habitations 

 only once in every fortnight or three weeks. 



During my stay here I thoroughly enjoyed scrambling about these 

 huge mountains. The geology, as might have been expected, was very 

 interesting. The shattered and baked rocks, traversed by innumerable 

 dykes of greenstone, showed what commotions had formerly taken 

 place. The scenery was much the same as that near the Bell of 

 Quillota dry barren mountains, dotted at intervals by bushes with a 

 scanty foliage. The cactuses, or rather opuntias, were here very 



