THE MINES. 263 



fifty miles of Ouro Preto. The first diamonds were found at 

 Diamantina, in 1729, and the famous Portugal crown diamond 

 came from this locality in Minas Geraes.* 



Mining to-day has not the importance it had a hundred years 

 ago. Dr. Chrispiniano Scares says, ./'Gold is done for to the 

 black population and to the old proprietors of works, who, 

 ignorant of the great progress of science and the art of working 

 mines, find themselves incapable of extracting the riches that 

 exist. The proof is that, in 1879, four mining companies, regu- 

 larly equipped, but without all the appliances that might be, 

 extracted 483,606 oitavas of gold; whereas in 1814, seventy-nine 

 proprietors of works in the very rich municipality of Ouro Preto 

 obtained only 30,815 oitavas." He concludes, "The province of 

 Minas is a vast and superb territory, which, yet in its youth, 

 presents itself for the great industry of the extraction of gold. . . . 

 The not far distant future will produce enterprising spirits, new 

 companies will be organized, and I piously believe that this 

 beautiful province will astonish the world by verifying what I 

 anticipate in reference to its long-delayed prosperity." f 



Captain Burton lays the whole onus of the want of success of 

 mining companies to their being mere bogus concerns, started for 

 no other reason than swindling, and says, " The most lamentable 

 result is the false conviction in Europe that the seed of capital 

 cannot be sown profitably in Brazil, when there is no country 

 where, properly husbanded, it would bear a better crop." \ 



M. Emmanuel Liais, at the close of a very elaborate description 

 of the geological and mineralogical features of the country, re- 

 marks, "At present the working of mines in Brazil is almost 

 entirely limited to gold and diamonds, and to some of those stones 

 which accompany the latter and are found in the same beds, 

 such as yellow topazes, chrysoberyls, beryls or aqua-marines, and 

 certain green tourmalines called also Brazilian emeralds. The 

 high prices of these substances make their search possible in the 

 interior of the empire, but the absence of roads permitting cheap 



* " Brazil, its Provinces and Chief Cities," etc., Wm. Scully. Trubner, 

 1872. 



t "Revista da Engenharia," February 28, 1883. 

 X "The Highlands of Brazil," vol. i. p. 218. 



