26o MINING IN CHILE. [chap. xii. 



during the two succeeding days up the valley, and passed 

 through Quillota, which is more like a collection of nursery- 

 gardens than a town. The orchards were beautiful, pre- 

 senting one mass of peach-blossoms. I saw also, in one or 

 two places, the date-palm ; it is a most stately tree ; and I 

 should think a group of them in their native Asiatic or 

 African deserts must be superb. We passed likewise 

 San Felipe, a pretty straggling town like Quillota. The 

 valley in this part expands into one of those great bays 

 or plains, reaching to the foot of the Cordillera, which 

 have been mentioned as forming so curious a part of the 

 scenery of Chile. In the evening we reached the mines 

 of Jajuel, situated in a ravine at the flank of the great 

 chain. I stayed here five days. My host, the super- 

 intendent of the mine, was a shrewd but rather ignorant 

 Cornish miner. He had married a Spanish woman, and 

 did not mean to return home ; but his admiration for the 

 mines of Cornwall remained unbounded. Amongst many 

 other questions, he asked me, "Now that George Rex is 

 dead, how many more of the family of Rexes are yet 

 alive ? " This Rex certainly must be a relation of the great 

 author Finis, who wrote all books ! 



These mines are of copper, and the ore is all shipped to 

 Swansea to be smelted. Hence the mines have an aspect 

 singularly quiet, as compared to those in England : here no 

 smoke, furnaces, or great steam-engines, disturb the solitude 

 of the surrounding mountains. 



The Chilian Government, or rather the old Spanish law, 

 encourages by every method the searching for mines. The 

 discoverer may work a mine on any ground, by paying five 

 shillings ; and before paying this he may try, even in the 

 garden of another man, for twenty days. 



It is now well known that the Chilian method of mining 

 is the cheapest. My host says that the two principal 

 improvements introduced by foreigners have been, first, 

 reducing by previous roasting the copper pyrites — which, 

 being the common ore in Cornwall, the English miners were 

 astounded on their arrival to find thrown away as useless ; 

 secondly, stamping and washing the scoriae from the old 

 furnaces — by which process particles of metal are recovered 

 in abundance. I have actually seen mules carrying to the 

 coast for transportation to England, a cargo of such cinders. 

 But the first case is much the most curious. The Chilian 

 miners were so convinced that copper pyrites contained not 



