280 PERU. 
uncertain; the attempts have generally been supposed to have 
resulted in a loss. Speculation is always rife in search of these 
valuable ores, and prospects of great gain are invariably held out 
to those who engage in them, but there is much difficulty in getting 
the business into successful operation. The great error committed 
by all the English companies established in 1825, for working mines 
in Spanish America, was in saddling themselves with great numbers 
of people engaged at high salaries, and workmen at extravagant 
wages ; the expenses attending them swallowed up much of the 
funds before any work was begun. These included not only inspec- 
tors and mining-captains, but artisans, all of whom were sent from 
England. From a total change of life and circumstances, the 
mining-captains and artisans almost invariably turned out in a short 
time drunkards, and good for nothing. In some cases workmen 
were brought out, and these turned out much more worthless than 
either of the two former classes. They, indeed, did more work than 
the Indians, but their wages were higher, and the expenses for their 
importation in addition, made them cost much more. 
According to the laws of Peru, the silver produced in this depart- 
ment must be sent to the government assay-office to be melted into 
bars, and thence to the mint at Lima to be coined. The usual price 
of silver as it comes from the mine, is from seven dollars six reals, to 
seven dollars seven reals per marc. If remitted to Lima on account 
of the miner, it yields him about eight dollars one real per marc. 
The duties it pays are six dollars per bar of two hundred and ten 
marcs to the assay-master, one real per marc for the public works of 
the Cerro, and one real per marc to government. 
The mint price is eight dollars two maravedis per marc of eleven 
pennyweights fine. 
Within three leagues of Pasco, on an extensive plain, there stands 
an isolated hill of porphyry, called Raco. From this hill are cut the 
stones used in grinding the ores, which are from two and a half to 
three varas in diameter, and from eighteen to twenty-four inches in 
thickness. The cost for delivering them at the foot of the hill is ten 
dollars for every quarter of a vara of their diameter, and the expense 
of drawing them to the mills, varies from seventy to two hundred 
dollars, according to the distance.* 
* Most of the above facts are derived from a person who had long resided on the spot, 
and been engaged in various mining operations. 
