Chap. VI. LAYCAYCOTA SILVER-MINE. 99 



Indians, which is not yet effaced ; and they still point out a 

 small lake or pond that is said to cover the once rich vein or 

 " Veta de la Candelaria." 



Salcedo's son, the Marquis of Villa Kica, attempted to 

 reach his father's source of wealth by cutting a horizontal 

 adit or socahon in the side of the hill looking on lake 

 Titicaca ; and he is said to have penetrated nearly 700 yards, 

 and within sixty yards of his father's perpendicular shaft ; 

 but his funds failed him, and he died mad. In spite, however, 

 of the filling up of the "Candelaria," great numbers of other 

 shafts were sunk, and much silver was extracted, both by the 

 Marquis, and by other speculators. A report, dated 1718, 

 mentions as many as forty-six shafts on the hills near Puno, 

 which were then being worked.^ In 1740 a native company 

 attempted to finish the socabon which had been commenced 

 by the Marquis, but their workmen were unable to cut 

 through the masses of porphyry, and, after vast expense, it 

 was abandoned a second time. 



From 1775 to 1824 the mines near Puno yielded ores 

 worth 1,786,000 marcs of silver, at seven to nine dollars the 

 marc; the richest year being 1802, when the yield was 

 52,000 marcs ; but since 1816 it has been steadily decreasing, 

 and in 1824, the year after the expulsion of the Spaniards, it 

 had sunk very low. In 1826 the manto mine, to which the 

 socabon leads, which was excavated by the Marquis of Villa 

 Kica, was gi-anted to General O'Brien, a gallant and enthu- 

 siastic old Irish hero of South American independence, who 

 resumed the work, but without any success. Mr. Begg, an 

 enterprising English merchant, undertook the completion of 



' Dedaracion de todo lo que contiene I aciones y vetas, desde la villa de Puno 

 la demonstracion herlut por los Vehe- en distancia a una legua a cuya fulda 

 dores Don Juan Eusehio Ximenes, y esta la gran litguna de Chucuito, 1718. 

 Don Valentin Calderon de la Barca,de IMS. luixnt at Puno, with a map, which 

 Orden Real, a Cancharani, Laycocota has uuiurtimatcly been lost. 

 la alia, y Laycocota la baja, sus situ- I 



H 2 



