37 Industrial Cuba 



THE MINERAL WEALTH OF CUBA 



The Spanish conquerors of the i6th century, 

 who forced their way into the wilderness of the 

 Western Hemisphere, devoted Httle thought or 

 efforts to the agricultural opportunities offered in 

 the new world. Mineral wealth, that which 

 lay beneath the rich surface soil alone appealed 

 to them. To find great heaps of gold seemed to 

 be the main object of their ambitions. 



The aborigines of Cuba, the Siboneys, wore 

 gold ornaments in profusion and exhibited small 

 nuggets, but the source of these was never re- 

 vealed to the Spaniards. The mountains of 

 Cuba are covered by forests of hardwoods, below 

 which lies a comparatively deep carpet of Humus 

 and rich soil. The early prospectors for gold and 

 other mineral wealth found the discovery of 

 minerals most difficult on this account. 



Opportunities for the raising of live stock 

 seemed more profitable than the prospecting for 

 minerals. 



Copper was found in a few isolated places, 

 principally west of Santiago de Cuba, and many 

 years later stray outcroppings of the same ore 

 were encountered in the mountains of Santa Clara 

 and Pinar del Rio, but it was difficult to locate the 

 main lodes, and since the Siboneys preferred 

 death to laboring in the mines, they lent prac- 

 tically no aid in the discovery of these metals. 

 It was the middle of the i6th century before the 

 aborigines succumbed to their conquerors and 

 not until the early part of the 19th century was 

 the presence of immense deposits of iron ore 

 found throughout the mountain districts of 

 Oriente. 



