406 
INCREASE AND DECREASE 
kilogrammes, and in our days, from 1817 to 1820, 600 kilo- 
grammes less. In the province of San Paulo the extraction 
of gold has entirely ceased ; in the province of Goyaz, it was 
803 kilogrammes in 1793, and in 1819 scarcely 75. Iii the 
province of Mato Grosso it is almost nothing ; and M. 
Eschwege is of opinion that the whole produce of gold 
iu Brazil does not amount at present to more than 600,000 
cruzados (scarcely 440 kilogrammes). I dwell on these par- 
ticulars, because, in confounding the difterent periods of the 
riches and poverty of the gold-washings of Brazil, it is still 
affirmed in works treating of the commerce of the precious 
metals, that a quantity of gold equivalent to four millions 
of piastres (5800 kilogrammes of gold*) flows into Europe 
annually, from Portuguese America. If, in commercial 
value, gold in grains prevails, in the republic of Columbia, 
over the value of other metals, the latter are not on 
that account less worthy to fix the attention of government 
and of individuals. The argentiferous mines of Santa Anna, 
Manta, Santo Christo de las Laxas, Pamplona, Sapo, and La 
• This error is twofold: it is probable that Brazilian gold, paying the 
quint, has not, during the la.st forty years, risen to 5500 kilogrammes. I 
heretofore shared this error iu common with writers on political economy, 
in admitting that the quint in 1810, was still (instead of 26 arrobas or 
379 kilograramc.s), 51,200 Portuguese ounces, or 1433 kilogrammes; 
which supposed a product of 7165 kilogrammes. The very cori eet infor- 
mation afforded by two Portuguese manuscripts on the gold-washings of 
Minas Gcraes, Minas Novas, and Goyaz, in the Bullion Report for the 
House of Commons, 1810, acc. p. 29, goes as far only as 1794, when 
the quinio do ouro of Brazil was 53 arrobas, which indicates a produce 
of more than 3900 kilogrammes paying the quint. In Mr. Tooke’s 
important work, “On High and Low Prices,” part II. p. 2,), this produce 
is still estimated (mean year 1810 — 1821), at 1 ,736,000 piastres ; while, 
according to official documents in my possession, the average of the quint 
of those ten years amounted only to 15 arrobas, or a product quint of 
of 1093 kilogrammes, or 755,000 piastres. Mr. John Allen reminded 
the Committee of the Bullion Report, in his Critical Notes on the table of 
M. Brongniart, that the decrease of the produce of the gold-washings of 
Brazil had been extremely rapid since 1794 ; and the notions given by M. 
Auguste de Saint Hilaire indicate the same desertion of the gold-mines of 
Brazil. Those who were minei-s have become cultivators. The value 
of an arroba of gold is 15,000 Brazilian cruzados (each cruzado being 
50 sous). According to M. Franzini, the Portuguese on^a is equal to ’028 
of a kilogramme, and 8 ongas make 1 mark ; 2 marks make 1 arratel, and 
32 arratels 1 arroba. 
