182 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



settlers, and to the rapid population of this cap- 

 itania, particularly of the capital, is the great 

 abundance of gold which has been obtained for 

 above a century.* 



The gold is found in the country about Villa 

 Rica in the form of powder and fine dust, or in 

 larger or smaller folia, in crystals, particularly in 

 octahedrons and tetrahedrons, in dendritical form, 

 lastly, though more rarely, in whole lumps. There 

 is an instance of a massy piece which weighed six- 

 teen pounds ; in colour, it is yellow, black, or 

 whitish, according to the different proportions of 

 the chemical and mechanical admixture of platina, 

 iron, and other metals. Hitherto it has been 

 washed out of streams and rivers, from the clayey 

 surface of the soil, or out of stamped auriferous 

 quartz veins, or iron-stone flotz. It is related that 

 this metal has even been found in heaps, under the 

 roots of plants pulled out of the ground, whither 

 it had been accidentally washed by the rains. We 

 first of all saw here the gold-washing in the Ri- 

 beirao de Oiro Preto, in which, as the rivers are not 

 private property, some negroes were almost con- 

 stantly employed. No free men, except blacks, fol- 

 low this occupation, and they only when they hap- 

 pen to want money to supply their wants, and par- 

 ticularly brandy. The gold-washers (^faiscadores) 

 are dressed in a leathern jacket, with a round bowl 



* See Note 2. page 199. 



