102 



MINES OF PUNO. 



Chap. VI. 



water terminates, the gallery continues for a hundred yards, 

 where there is an u-on tramway laid down. The metal was 

 dragged do^vii to the head of navigation in cars, by two old 

 mules, one of which had not seen daylight for fifteen years 

 when they ceased to work the mine. At the point where 

 the tramway comes to an end, the gallery still continues for 

 1200 yards ; but this part is very narrow and tortuous, and 

 the metal was carried down to the cars on the backs of 

 Indians. The rock at the extreme end of the excavation is a 

 very hard green porphyry, with qaartz and veins of silver ore. 



The Cachi Vieja works are high uj) on the Laycaycota 

 hill, and not far from the famous "Veta de la Cande- 

 laria." The mouth of the shaft is in a building opening on 

 a courtyard, where women were sorting the ores in small 

 heaps. The most abundant ore is called hrom^ containing 

 forty marcs of silver in the cajon of fifty quintals (cwts.) ; 

 other ores are called rosicler, pavonado, and polvarilla. The 

 rosicler, or ruby silver, is a most beautiful rose-coloured 

 mineral, containing a considerable quantity of silver.* 



Besides Cachi Vieja in the immediate vicinity of Puno, 

 there are some very productive silver-mines at San Antonio 

 de Esquilache, twenty miles south-west of that town, which 

 have been worked since 1847 by Don Manuel Costas, one of 

 the most influential citizens of Puno, and my host during my 

 stay in that city. 



Wool and silver are the great staple products of the 

 department of Pimo ; the whole value of exported articles 

 being about 1,200,000 dollars.^ The population is rather 

 under 300,000 souls; that of the town of Puno 9000.^ 

 Upwards of 1,500,000 dollars come into the department 

 yearly, either in payments for wool, or in salaries for ofii- 



■• It yields about 30 per cent, of 

 silver. 

 ° In 1845 Bustamante placed the 



value of the exports at 2,500,000 dol. ! 

 •^ From the Geografia del Peru. 

 Lima, 1859. 



