160 AMERICAN MINES. 



CHAP. XXII. 



of the gold was procured by washing. In the 

 latter part of the century Humboldt states the 

 coinage at Santiago, the capital, where the tax 

 was collected, amounted to seven hundred and 

 twenty-one thousand piastres in gold, and one 

 hundred and forty-six thousand in silver. Ar- 

 giielles makes the amount in the first years of 

 the present century about thirty thousand more 

 of silver and forty thousand more of gold. As, 

 however, some of the earlier years may have been 

 deficient, it will be assumed that in the period of 

 one hundred and ten years from 1700 to 1809, 

 the annual amount was eight hundred and fifty 

 thousand dollars, being in the whole term ninety- 

 three million five hundred thousand dollars, or 

 nineteen million five hundred and thirty-two 

 thousand one hundred and sixty-six pounds 

 sterling. 



Buenos The viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, which in 



the view we now take of it included Potosi, La 

 Paz, and the other western parts called the pro- 

 vincias de la Sierra, produced chiefly silver. 

 The mountain of Potosi had declined in produce 

 from an annual delivery of upwards of a million 

 dollars to less than a third of that amount ; but 

 as that source had failed others had become more 

 copious, especially La Paz, Carangas, and Oruro. 

 Humboldt states the annual produce at four mil- 

 lion two hundred thousand dollars. Agreeing 

 to this estimate, the amount afforded in the one 



