had previously dashed on ahead on horseback. 

 Thus they proceeded, encouraging each other by 

 wild cries : altogether, the scene foimed a most 

 strange funeral. 



We continued travelling northward, in a zigzag 

 line, sometimes stopping a day to geologize. The 

 country was so thinly inhabited, and the track so 

 obscure, that we often had dithculty in finding our 

 way. On the 12th I stayed at some mines. The 

 ore in this case was not considered particularly 

 good, but, from being abundant, it was supposed 

 the mine would sell for about thirty or forty thou- 

 sand dollars (that is, 6000 or SOOO pounds sterling) ; 

 yet it had been bought by one of the English asso- 

 ciations for an ounce of gold (c£3 S*.). The ore is 

 yellow pyrites, which, as I have already remarked, 

 before the arrival of the English was not supposed 

 to contain a particle of copper. On a scale of 

 profits nearly as great as in the above instance, 

 piles of cinders, abounding with minute globules 

 of metallic copper, were purchased ; yet with these 

 advantages, the mining associations, as is well 

 known, contrived, to lose immense sums of money. 

 The folly of the greater number of the commission- 

 ers and shareholders amounted to infatuation : a 

 thousand pounds per annum given in some cases 

 to entertain the Chilian authorities ; libraries of 

 well-bound geological books; miners brought out 

 for particular metals, as tin, which are not found 

 in Chile ; contracts to supply the miners with milk, 

 in parts where there are no cows ; machinery where 

 it could not possibly be used ; and a hundred sim- 

 ilar arrangements, bore witness to our absurditv, 

 and to this day afford amusement to the natives. 

 Yet there can be no doubt that the same capital, 

 well employed in these mines, would have yielded 

 an immense return: a confidential man of business, 



