248 CENTRAL CIIILK, ['MAP. xn, 



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 superintendent 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 

 Eex is dead, how many more of the family of Hexes are yet alive ? " 

 This Eex 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 Swan- 

 sea, 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, en- 

 courages 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 

 arc recovered in abundance. I have actually seen mules carrying 

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

 Bat the first case is much the most curious. The Chilian miners 

 were so convinced that copper pyrites contained not a particle of 

 copper, that they laughed at the Englishmen for their ignorance, 

 who laughed in turn, and bought their richest reins for a few 

 dollars. It is very odd that, in a country where mining had been 

 extensively carried on for many years, so simple a process as gently 

 roasting the ore to expel the sulphur previous to smelting it, had 



