10 



DETAILS OF MINING OPERATIONS. 





tirely saved. The practical advantage, both public 

 and private, produced by this change from re- 

 strictions, protections and monopolies, has been 

 immediate and obvious ; and the instance is the 

 more worthy of remark, as it is seldom that a 

 commercial question in political economy is suffi- 

 ciently disentangled from collateral difficulties, to 

 admit the distinct exhibition of the theoretical 

 principles by which the operation is regulated. 



There are two principal persons concerned in 

 almost every mine, the actual proprietor and the 

 Habilitador. The first, who is also the miner, lives 

 at his hacienda, or farm, generally in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and attends to the details of working 

 and smelting the ore. The habilitador resides at 

 a distance, generally at one of the three principal 

 sea-port towns, Coquirnbo, Guasco, or Copiapd : he 

 is the mining capitalist, and he has the character 

 of a diligent, saving man of business, very dif- 

 ferent in all his habits from the miner, who is 

 commonly an extravagant and improvident person. 

 The word habilitador might, if there was such a 

 word, be translated enabler, as it is by means of 

 his capital that the miner Is enabled to proceed 

 with the work. 



The proprietor of a mine usually tills his own 

 ground, on the banks of one of the few streams 

 which traverse this desolate country. His farm 

 supplies vegetables, and sometimes stock, for the 

 subsistence of the miners. The smelting-house is 

 also built on his farm, and the ore is brought to 

 his door on mules. These farmers rarely under- 

 take to work a mine with their own unassisted 

 capital, — they are seldom, indeed, sufficiently 

 wealthy ; and when they are so, it is not found, 

 in the long-run, so advantageous a method as 

 sharing the transaction with an habilitador, who 

 takes charge of the commercial part of the busi- 

 ness. Sometimes, however, the owner makes the 

 attempt to work his mine single-handed, in which 

 he usually fails. But to elucidate the subject fully, 

 I shall give the details of a case, which involves 

 most of the varieties, and upon which I happen to 

 possess exact information. 



A farmer, resident in the Asiento of Guasco, 

 with whom I conversed on the subject, told me 

 that he had opened a copper mine about eighteen 

 months previous to our visit. He then possessed 

 some capital, and a small farm near the river, and, 

 upon the whole, was doing very well ; but he had 

 set his heart upon a larger and more fertile pro- 

 perty, lying about a league higher up the stream. 

 Deluded by the hope of soon realising a sufficient 

 sum of money to purchase this piece of ground, he 

 rashly undertook to work the mine himself ; but 

 he miscalculated his means, and expended all his 

 capital, before any adequate returns had come in. 

 His 11 line, however, was rich and promising, and 

 he had raised a considerable mass of ore to the 

 surface ; but he had no money to build furnaces, 

 or to purchase fuel, and his workmen became cla- 

 morous for their wage*. In short, the working of 

 the mine was brought to a stand, and utter ruin 

 stared him in the face. When tilings had reached 

 tliis stage, one of these cunning and wealthy habi- 

 Utadors, who bad been all the while watching these 



proceedings with inward Satisfaction, stepped for- 

 ward and offered to habilitate the mine, as it is 

 called. The bargain Ik; proposed, and which the 

 wretched miner had no alternative but to accept, 



was, that the habilitador should pay the workmen 

 their wages, feed and clothe them, and provide 

 tools, and all other articles necessary for working 

 the ore ; he undertook, besides, to build smelting- 

 furnaces, and purchase fuel, and occasionally to 

 supply the miner with money for his subsistence. 

 In repayment for the sums advanced on these dif- 

 ferent accounts, he required that the whole of the 

 copper from the mine should be delivered to him 

 at a fixed price, namely, eight dollars per quintal, 

 until the entire debt incurred by the outlays should 

 be discharged. The miner endeavoured to stipu- 

 late for his copper being taken off his hands at a 

 higher rate than eight dollars, foreseeing that at 

 such a low price his debt would never be liquidated. 

 He was also well aware that, in consequence of 

 the increased trade of the country, the price of 

 copper had of late years been nearly doubled, and 

 he naturally felt entitled to share more equally in 

 this advantage. But the habilitador, who was not 

 in want of money, was in no haste to close the 

 bargain, and was deaf to this reasoning : at length, 

 the poor miner, rather than sell his little farm and 

 become a beggar, agreed to the hard terms offered 

 him. 



The enterprise being now quickened by the 

 habilitador's money, and the mine again in action, 

 copper was produced in abundance, all of which 

 was delivered to the capitalist, who lost no time 

 in sending it to Guasco, where he sold it for twelve 

 or thirteen dollars per quintal, clearing thereby, 

 at once, four or five dollars upon every eight of 

 expenditure. But his gains did not stop here ; for, 

 as he had to provide the miners with food, cloth- 

 ing, and tools, he made his own charges for these, 

 which, being a capitalist, he could afford to pur- 

 chase in wholesale, while he took care to distri- 

 bute them at very advanced retail prices at the 

 mine. In the payment of the workmen's wages, 

 he also contrived to gain materially. By estab- 

 lished regulations, it is settled, that for every pair 

 of workmen, or what is called a Bareta, the habi- 

 litador is entitled to charge a specific sum of forty- 

 five dollars per month, that is, sixteen for wages, 

 and twenty-nine for clothing and food. The habi- 

 litador paid the bareta honestly enough their six- 

 teen dollars ; ten to the upper workman, who is 

 called the Baretero, and six to the other, the Apire, 

 who is a mere carrier : but he charged twenty- 

 nine dollars more in his account, as he was entitled 

 to do, against the miner for clothing and other 

 supplies, to each bareta, although it was notorious 

 that the real cost for these articles always came to 

 much less than that sum. 



Thus the poor miner went on, producing copper, 

 solely for the benefit of the habilitador, without 

 the least diminution in his debt, and without any 

 prospect of ever realising money enough to make 

 his wished-for purchase of the large farm. The 

 other, indeed, was willing to advance him small 

 sums of money, to prevent his sinking into utter 

 despair, and abandoning the mine ; but he had 

 the mortification of feeling, that, for every eight 

 dollars he borrowed, he was bound to pay back 

 copper, which the habilitador sold for eleven or 

 twelve, while the current expenses of the mine 

 were everyday involving him deeper and deeper ; 

 and, finally, reducing him to mere dependence on 

 the will of the capitalist. 



This, and similar transactions, where the habi- 



