326 NORTHERN CHILE. [CHAI-. xvi. 



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 difficulty 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 

 thousand dollars (that is, 6000 or 8000 pounds sterling) ; yet it had 

 been bought by one of the English Associations for an ounce of 

 gold (31. 8s.). 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 commissioners 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 similar arrangements, bore 

 witness to our absurdity, 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, a practical miner and assayer, 

 would have been all that was required. 



Captain Head has described the wonderful load which the 

 " Apires," truly beasts of burden, carry up from the deepest 

 mines. I confess I thought the account exaggerated; so that I 

 was glad to take an opportunity of weighing one of the loads, 

 which I picked out by hazard. It required considerable exertion 

 on my part, when standing directly over it, to lift it from the 

 ground. The load was considered under weight when found to 

 be 197 pounds. The apire had carried this up eighty perpen- 

 dicular yards, part of the way by a steep passage, but the greater 

 part up notched poles, placed in a zigzag line up the shaft. Ac- 

 cording to the general regulation, the apire is not allowed to halt 

 for breath, except the mine is six hundred feet deep. The average 

 load is considered as rather more than 200 pounds, and I have been 



