TAYLOR'S GEOLOGICAL RECONNOISSANCE. 85 



To the circumstances already adverted to, respecting the advantageous mining of 

 the auriferous veins which are enclosed in soft clay, might be mentioned, as the 

 result of direct personal observation, the fact that in every case where the metallife- 

 rous vein is enclosed by decomposed porphyry, the gold which it contains is so far 

 already liberated, that it can be collected with slight labor and expense. 



The present Indian operations at the Mitias del Rey are very rude and simple. A 

 wooden bowl, about two feet in diameter, is filled with twenty pounds weight of the 

 ore, taken indiscriminately from the vein. The only implement used for this 

 extraction is a curved piece of iron hoop. The ore is then carried to another native 

 operator, who, seated upon a fragment of rock, with a flat stone before him, and a 

 rounded or oblong pebble in his hand, proceeds to pound and roll it. After the 

 requisite crushing by this homely process, it is carried down to the washing place, 

 on the border of the rivulet, and a portion of it is amalgamated in a small tub, worked 

 by hand between two flat stones, taken out of the adjacent stream. 



Thus, the iron hoop, the wooden bowl, and the suitably formed pebble from the 

 brook, constitute the sole machinery which are employed in this primitive process. 

 The usual earnings of these four Indian operatives are not less than ten dollars ($10) 

 per day. It is very obvious that this rough process does not realise more than one- 

 half of the gold which the ore actually contains ; and yet the result so obtained 

 under this rude system, would be deemed a handsome one in almost any mining 

 region. 



The native miners are remarkably quick and expert in the use of the wooden 

 bowl, but they waste and lose the greater part of the fine gold ; chiefly because their 

 method is too rough and hasty to enable them to secure it. 



In my recent examination, I collected, without discrimination, about four hundred 

 pounds weight of the ore, from various veins. The average yield of this quantity 

 was ascertained to be one grain of pure gold to each pound weight of the ore ; or 

 nearly $90 value per ton of ore. This, I think, is a perfectly fair average 

 representation of a majority of gold veins, all of similar richness, which traverse this 

 region. I have since received far richer specimens ; but I place little reliance upon 

 select or assorted specimens, as representations of large areas. It would be very 

 difficult, I think, to discover a locality within the United States gold belt, where an 

 equal number of auriferous veins, all of corresponding richness, exists within a like 

 area. 



After repeated washings, in most of the gold veins and their debris, upon this 

 part of the Isthmus, and after attending to the results which they afforded, I 

 was led to the conclusion that they were all singularly of a common proportionate 

 value ; much more so than is observable in the gold veins of the United States. 

 Under the imperfect operations of the native Indian miners, I ascertained that these 



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