COMMERCE. 



■87 



animal. Nature has, however, compensated this ungrateful 

 sterility, by the abundance of those precious metals, which, 

 having been prodigiously augmented by the discovery of the 

 new world, and received as the token of every description of 

 produ£tions, have entirely changed the ancient system of the 

 commerce of the globe. 



In a greater or less degree, the arid mountains of Peru may 

 be considered as an inexhaustible elaboratory of gold and sil- 

 ver. With the exception of the mine of Huantajaya, situated 

 near the port of Iquique, at a distance of two leagues from the 

 sea, the richest mines are comprehended in the most rigid and 

 insalubrious parts of La Sierra, where the absence of plants and 

 shrubs, or, in other words, the infertility itself of the cold 

 soil they occupy, is in general a sure indication which leads to 

 their discovery. 



As the Indians were ignorant, not only of the invention of 

 money, but likewise of the astonishing powers of hydraulics 

 applied to machinery, and of the secrets of mineralogy, more 

 especially as they refer to chemistry and subterraneous geome- 

 try, the metals they extradted were not of a very considerable 

 amount. The last emperor of Peru could not muster for his 

 ransom*, the value of a million and a half of piastres in gold 

 and silver ; and the plunder of Cusco was not estimated at a 

 greater sum than ten millions. This was a small quantity for 

 so many years of research and accumulation, but immense for 

 the simple and unique process of collecting, among the sands 

 of the rivers, the minute particles of gold that had been swept 



* History of the Conquest of Peru, by Zarate. 



along 



