Vc- 



COPPER-MINES OF AROA. 



health of the inhabitants, from cape Codera as fara/j< 

 kke of Maracaybo. 



Among the rivers which descend north-east toward the 

 coast of Porto Cabello, and La Punta de Hicacos, the most 

 remarkable are those of Tocuyo, Aroa, and Yaracuy. Were 

 it not for the miasmata which infect the atmosphere, the val- 

 leys of Aroa and of Yaracuy would perhaps be more popu- 

 lous than those of Aragua. Navigable rivers would even 

 give the former the advantage of facilitating the exportation 

 of their own crops of sugar and cacao, and that of the pro- 

 ductions of the neighbouring lands ; as the wheat of Quibor, 

 the cattle of Monai, and the copper of Aroa. The mines 

 from which this copper is extracted, are in a lateral valley, 

 opening into that of Aroa ; and which is less hot, and less 

 unhealthy, than the ravines nearer the sea. In the latter 

 the Indians have their gold-washings, and the sou conceals 

 rich copper-ores, which no one has yet attempted to extract. 

 The ancient mines of Aroa, after having been long neglected, 

 have been wrought anew by the care of Don Antonio Hen- 

 riquez, whom we met at San Fernando on the borders of the, 

 Apure. The total produce of metallic copper is twelve or 

 fit teen hundred quintals a year. This copper, known at 

 Cadiz by the name of Caracas copper, is of excellent quality. 

 It is even preferred to that of Sweden, and of Coquimbo in 

 Chile. Part of the copper of Aroa is employed for making 

 bells, which are cast on the spot. Some ores of silver have 

 been recently discovered between Aroa and Nirgua, near 

 Guanita, in the mountain of San Pablo. Grains of gold 

 are found in all the mountainous lands between the Rio 

 Yaracuy, the town of San Felipe, Nirgua, and Barque- 

 simeto; particularly in the Rio de Santa Cruz, in which the 

 Indian gold-gatherers have sometimes found lumps of the 

 value of four or five piastres. Do the neighbouring rocks 

 of mica-slate and gneiss contain veins ? or is the gold dis- 

 seminated here, as in the granites of Guadarama in Spain, 

 and of the Fichtelberg in Franconia, throughout the whole 

 mass of the rock? Possibly the waters, in filtering through 

 it, bring together the disseminated grains of gold; in 

 which case every attempt to work the rock would be useless. 

 In the Savana de la Miel, near the town of Barquesimeto, a 

 ihaft has been sunk in a black shining slate resembling 



VOL. II. F 



