DRAINAGE OF THE MINES. 



105 



year 1780, when the socabon (or drain) of San Judas was commenced. 

 This is a great ditch of five and a half feet in breadth and six feet ten 

 inches in height, which drains the mines into the lake of San Judas- 

 Its length is about thirty-five hundred feet, and it cost one hundred 

 thousand dollars. It was finished in 1800. This would drain, by 

 percolation, all the mines above it. For those below it, it was necessary 

 to pump the water up by hand. This was found so inefficient a means, 

 (the socabon also not being sufficiently large,) that in 1806 the gremio 

 commenced the construction of the socabon of Quiulacocha, eighty- 

 eight feet below that of San Judas, six feet ten inches broad, and eight 

 feet three inches high. The work is continued upon it to this day. 

 The part that I saw is arched, well walled with solid masonry, and the 

 water rushes through it like a small river. Many lumbreras, or light 

 holes, are sunk down upon it in various directions to give light and air, 

 and to carry into the socabon the drainage of the neighboring mines. 



In 1816, the gremio contracted with two Spaniards, Abadia and 

 Arismendi, for the drainage of the mines by steam machinery. These 

 persons put up three steam machines for working pumps, and the results 

 were very happy, the ores being found much richer the farther down the 

 mines reached. The war of independence broke them up ; their miners 

 being taken away for soldiers, and their machines used up for horse-shoes. 



In 1825, an English company, styling itself the "Pasco Peruvian" 

 undertook the drainage. This company contracted to be paid in ores, 

 which they were to beneficiate themselves. They were never fairly paid. 

 They employed English officials and operatives at high salaries; and 

 after having dug one hundred and ten feet, at a cost of forty thousand 

 dollars, between September, 1825, and January, 1827, they failed. The 

 government then took it up, and gave two thousand dollars monthly 

 towards the work, tiie miners also taxing themselves twelve and a half 

 cents on the mark of silver obtained. Rivero took charge of the work, 

 and from the first of June, 1827, to the first of January, 1828, he per- 

 forated one hundred and twenty-two feet in the socabon, the workmen 

 finding powder and candles, and he supplying tools. In an official state- 

 ment, afterwards made by Rivero, he shows that to excavate a vara cost 

 him eighty-six dollars, while it cost the Pasco Peruvian Company one 

 thousand dollars ; though he says that in the lumbrera of Sta. Rosa the 

 Pasco Peruvian Company found the rock so hard that twelve men could 

 not perforate more than half a vara a month. The socabon at present 

 is eight thousand two hundred and fifty feet long, and three hundred 

 feet below the surface. About a million of dollars have been spent upon 

 it, though it is said it has not really cost so much. 



