88 



wetting this mixture from time to time, and beat- 

 ing and treading it well for the space of eight 

 days, in order to incorporate the silver and the 

 mercury^ it is put into a stone trough with water 

 sufficient to dilute it. In this situation, the silver 

 amalgamated with the mercury, from its weight 

 sinks to thcbottom,whilethe lighter heterogeneous 

 particles are drawn off with the water through a 

 hole in the trough into a vessel placed to receive 

 it. This amalgam, after having been repeatedly 

 washed to cleanse it from all foreign substances, 

 is put into a linen bag, i^nd the mercury, which 



those of gold and copper, which are very common. Co- 

 quimbo, Copiapo, and Guasco have gold mines, the ore of 

 which is called hy way of distinction, oro capote, as being the 

 most valuable of any that has hitherto been discovered.- 

 ATnerican Gazetteer; article Chili. 



These valleys co 'tain, besides mines of silver, those of lead, 

 (.'cppcr, and quioAsi'ver, and a very great nimiber of gold. 

 Cf this last there is so much found in the sands of the rivulets, 

 that a certain author has said that Ciiiii k a composition of f hi 

 [-rccioiis metal. The quantity obtained by Pedro de Valdivia, 

 who Ciitercd Chili after Almagro, was immense. That general 

 opened mines of gold which were so rich that each Indiaa 

 furnjihed from tiiiity to forty ducats daily, as, v/hen only 

 twelve or fifteen where employed, he obtained three or four 

 hinidrqJ ducats a day. This concurs with what Garcilasso 

 si'vs ill hi? history of Peru, that a part of Chili fell to the 

 lot of V;i;divia, w!io received from his vassals an annual 

 tiibute of more than one hundred iliousanrl pieces of gold.. 

 t>uuion's (f Abbeville) Geography j article CfiiLl. 



