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which took up four days in melting, produced as 

 they fay two drams of fiiver ; but fome have fuf- 

 pecled him of putting in this quantity himfelf. A 

 few months afterwards he returned thither, and 

 without thinking any more of the fiiver, he extracted 

 from two or three thoufand weight of ore, fourteen 

 pounds of very bad lead, which flood him in 

 fourteen hundred franks. Difgufted with a la- 

 bour which was fo unprofitable, he returned to 

 France. 



The company, perfuaded of the truth of the in- 

 dications which had been given them, and that 

 the incapacity of the founder had been the fole caufe 

 of their bad fuccefs, fent in his room a Spaniard 

 calhd Antonio, who had been taken at the fiege of 

 Penfacola, had afterwards been a galley -flave, and 

 boafted much of his having wrought in a mine at 

 Mexico. They gave him very confiderable ap- 

 pointments, but he fucceeded no better than had 

 done the Sieur de Lochon. He was not difcou- 

 raged himfelf, and others inclined to believe he 

 had failed from his not being verfed in the con- 

 duction of furnaces. He gave over the fearch 

 after lead, and undertook to make fiiver ; he dug 

 down to the rock which was found to be eight or 

 ten feet in thicknefs ; feveral pieces of it were 

 blown up and put into a crucible, from whence 

 it was given out, that he extracted three or four 

 drams of fiiver ; but many are ftill doubtful of the 

 truth of this fad. 



About this time arrived a company of the king's 

 , miners, under |the direction of one La Renaudiere y 

 who refolving to begin with the lead mine, was 

 able to do nothing ; becaufe neither he himfelf nor 

 any of his company were in the leaft acquainted 



with 



