77 



years since an accident of this kind occurred to the 

 celebrated mine of Peldehues, in the neighbourhood 

 of St. Jago. That mine, which produced daily up- 

 wards of fifteen hundred pounds weight of gold, was 

 suddenly inundated, and the workmen were com- 

 pelled to abandon it, after having in vain made every 

 exertion to free it from the water. 



The matrix of the gold is very variable, and it 

 may be said that there is no kind of stone or earth 

 but what serves it for that purpose. It is to be seen 

 every v/here, either in small grains or brilliant span- 

 gles, under singular forms, or in irregular masses 

 that may be cut by the chissel. The most usual 

 matrirx is a very brittle red clay stone. The salbanday 

 or the exterior covering of the veins, called by miners 

 caxas, is as variable as the matrix ; it is sometimes 

 of spar or quartz, at others it consists chiefly of flint, 

 marble or hornbend. The principal veins are fre- 

 quently ramified into a number of smaller ones that 

 are generally very rich. They sometimes descend 

 almost vertically into the earth, and in those instan- 

 ces require great labour and expense to be pursued ; 

 at others they take a circular direction a few^ feet un- 

 der ground and meet, particularly at the foot of moun- 

 tains. The usual course of the veins, though sub- 

 ject to some variations, is from south to north. 



The mines are worked both with the pickaxe and 

 by explosion. The ore is reduced to powder in a 

 mill of a very simple construction, called trapiche ^ 

 of which two stones, the lower placed horizontally, 

 and the upper vertically, form the mechanism. The 



