[ ,8 3 ] 
APPENDIX. 
Tranjlation of Don Michael Rubin de Celis’s Letter to the 
Royal Society , relative to a Mafs of native Iron , found in 
South-America. See p. 37. 
A BOUT thirty years ago, the various barbarous nations wh» 
inhabited the provinces of the great Chaco Gualamba, 
expelled the Spaniards from thence ; and fince that time, the 
countries on the fouthern part of the river Vermejo, and weftern 
of the great river Parana have been almoft totally deferted. 
The only employment of the few Indians who dwell within 
the jurifdidtion of Santiago del Eftero is to gather the honey 
and wax, with which the woods abound. Thefe Indians dis- 
covered, in the midit of a wide-extended plain, a large mafs. 
of metal, which they called pure iron ; part of which pro- 
jected above the ground about a foot, and almoft the whole of its 
upper furface was vilible. Intelligence of this difcovery was 
immediately communicated to the Viceroys of Peru. That 
fuch a. mafs of iron Ihould be found in a country where 
there are no mountains, nor even the fmalleft hone within 
a circumference of one hundred leagues, could not fail to 
appear extraordinary, notwithstanding we know there are mines 
of pure iron in Europe. Some private periods, at the great 
rilk of their lives, both from the uncertainty of procuring food 
or- 
