NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



409 



and it must be allowed that twenty-five per cent, upon such an article 

 as Gold-Dust, so easily concealed, and so capable of being conveyed away, 

 even without suspicion, is a very handsome profit. Governments which 

 lay such an impolitic tax upon labour must expect to be deceived. The 

 quality of the samples produced here, was stated to be twenty-three 

 carats fine, some of them were very black, and the scaly appearance of 

 others led me to suspect that they contained a considerable quantity of 

 worthless mica. Searching for Gold upon the lower Parahybuna is inter- 

 dicted by the Government, under the ridiculous pretence that the quan- 

 tity which the river contains is so great, that, if extracted ad hbitum, 

 the value of the metal, in the market, would be greatly reduced. 

 Yet I have reason to believe that a very considerable quantity is procured 

 from it, for, as an old Searcher shrewdly remarked to me, you know, Sir, 

 " the night has no eyes." The greatest quantities must undoubtedly exist 

 in the Caldeiraos, i, e. those hollows which the stream has worn in the 

 rocky bottom ; and in such situations must be nearly free from mixture, 

 for there, the water, dashing with violence into the basin, washes the 

 sand, which it brings down, out again, leaving the heavier and grosser 

 particles at the bottom. For the same reason, the upper stratum of the 

 sand, in the stiller parts of the river, must contain comparatively little of 

 the precious metal ; while the low^er ones are probably increasing in rich^ 

 ness, by every circumstance which disturbs the stream. Yet these people 

 are so ignorant of the general laws of nature, and the effects produced 

 by the motion of fluids upon substances, which differ in their respective 

 specific gravities, lying in their beds, as to skim the surface of sands, and 

 the refuse of caldeiraos in the most superficial way. 



From inquiries made upon the spot, at different times, and from 

 various persons unconnected with each other, it seems that a cone of wet 

 sand three feet high, which requires, from one man, a day's labour to raise, 

 and two days more to wash it, is expected, in this part of the country, 

 to produce as much gold as is worth fiom twenty to twenty-five shillings. 

 Having heard of the time spent in procuring the sand, while a boat lay 

 upon the river close to us, I exclaimed, a whole day ! — I could fill 



3 F 



