€72 ■ TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



the plan of a society of shareholders, produces 

 annually about a thousand arrobas of forged iron, 

 the greater part of which is manufactured on the 

 spot. The ore is a rich ironglance, but particu- 

 larly magnetic iron-stone, the very thick beds of 

 which stand out near the foundry. 



The director of the manufactory accompanied 

 us on the following day to the mine of Senhor 

 Romualdo Joze Monteiro de Barros, which was si- 

 tuated a league and a half to the south-south-east, 

 and was the object of our journey. Here we were 

 received by tiie proprietor, a colonel of the militia, 

 with a liberal hospitality peculiar to the Mineiros. 

 After dinner, he conducted us to his mine, the 

 formation of which is not that of the mica-slate 

 containing ironglance, or that of the tapanho- 

 acanga, but a cream-coloured clay-slate, traversed 

 by auriferous veins of quartz. The principal vein 

 extends from north to south, and is from one to 

 twelve inches thick. The metal is disseminated 

 in the friable quartz, which is covered on its rifts 

 with an earthy coat containing manganese, in 

 such small particles that they frequently cannot be 

 distinguished by the naked eye. The vein is in 

 some places uncommonly rich in this metal. From 

 a piece of quartz of the size of a fist, which was 

 broken off with the hammer, a negro obtained by 

 washing, in our presence, a visible quantity of very 

 fine gold dust, worth a hundred rees. ' The clay- 

 .slate too, which is frequently coated on the rifts 



