NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



463 



one before the other can be freed. It was in vain to observe against this 

 hypothesis that the surface of the water in the pit is at least fifty feet 

 above that of the river, that this circumstance clearly proves that no 

 subterranean communication exists between them, and that, if there 

 were one, the mine would naturally drain itself. Equally vain was it to 

 speak of easier and completer methods of exhausting the water, either 

 by cutting down the front of the pit facing the river, by perforating 

 the hill near the bottom, where the drain would not be more than a 

 hundred yards long ; by the use of syphons, for which the form of the 

 hill is admirably adapted ; or by placing a platform over the water, and 

 using dumb rakes in the form of spoons, for collecting the gold-dust, or 

 fitted with nets for raising the cascalho. This, indeed, appeared the 

 most feasible mode, but the people were satisfied with remarking, that 

 the English always had extraordinary methods of doing things, which 

 Brazilians did not understand. I am inclined, however, to hope, that 

 the grand reason why the Mine is so much neglected, while all 

 speak with enthusiasm of the treasures concealed in it, is that the 

 people find human labour may be more profitably employed upon other 

 objects. 



I am not aware that a professed Mineralogist, even in the period 

 when the Mine was most productive, ever examined the Serro of Len- 

 heiro with a view of ascertaining the first sources whence the gold is 

 obtained, or the mode of its formation ; and even now it must be done, 

 if done at all, only by a lover of science. The people immediately 

 interested are too ignorant for such an undertaking, and those remotely 

 concerned can procure the wealth without the labour of investigation : 

 my own remarks must necessarily be imperfect and unsatisfactory. To 

 discuss this interesting subject as it merits, we ought closely to investi- 

 gate the structure and composition of the granitic and gneisseous moun- 

 tains, and particularly those veins of quartz which run through them in 

 planes more or less inclined to the horizon. This substance appears to 

 me to have been formed, in a period long since passed away, from the 

 component parts of water and the matter which it has held in solution ; 



