54 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



together with observations made personally, shows that there is consider- 

 able range of minerals and ores. It appears also that considerable atten- 

 tion has been given in a few cases to local development. There is large 

 variety shown in a collection of this material and in some cases the speci- 

 mens exhibited look very promising indeed. But there is almost no 

 reliable information touching the quantity or the exact relations or esti- 

 mates of possible profitable development. It can be said;, without danger 

 of contradiction, that none of the developments so far undertaken looking 

 toward the systematic mining have proven i^rofitable. 



Gold 



Only one enterprise of this kind seems to furnish any production, and 

 this is the placer mining for gold. Gold washing has been practiced 

 from the early Spanish occupancy to the present time, and it is not at 

 all a rare thing to see several men digging in the stream gravels for the 

 "pay dirt" and panning out the gold. This is done in all cases on a very 

 small scale and with the aid of the simplest equipment, and the returns 

 appear to be very moderate. It is claimed that in former times a much 

 more elaborate system of working such deposits was in operation under 

 the Spanish regime, and, according to historical statements, they were 

 considered profitable. ^lore recently, there has been at least one attempt 

 near Corozal to develop this kind of ground by the use of modern ap^ 

 pliances, but the plant has been allowed to go to entire ruin. The only 

 places where actual placer washing was seen in progress was three miles 

 south of Corozal and on the Sabana river near Luquillo. ^ear Corozal, 

 also, some work has been done in an attempt to discover the veins or lode 

 which may have furnished the placer gold. There are several pits, 

 trenches and shafts, in some of which quartzose stringers were seen which 

 appear to fulfill the requirements of a source of supply. Som^e free gold 

 was found in panning a little of the weathered material at one of these 

 spots. There is little doubt but that these veinlets or stringers, which 

 were numerous at one of the cuts, are in part the sources of the placer 

 gold of this locality. But at no place examined was there to be seen any 

 "vein'' of apparent consequence or any structure suggesting the course 

 or extent of the mineralization. Of course the rather mixed state repre- 

 sented by the residuary matter, seen almost everyr^^here at the surface, 

 does not lend itself readily to the tracing of veins, and it may therefore 

 happen that conditions would prove, after thorough exploration, to be 

 better than the first brief examination indicated. There are said to be 

 some old abandoned Avorkings dating back to Spanish conquest times at 



