DESEETED MINES. 
75 
commonly, in spite of their industry, they do not m a week 
find particles of gold of the value of two piastres. Here, 
however, as in every place where native gold and auriferous 
pyrites are disseminated in the rock, or by the destruction 
ol the rocks, are deposited in alluvial lands, the people con- 
ceive the most exaggerated ideas of the metallic riches of 
the soil. But the success of the workings, which depends 
less on the abundance of the ore in a vast space of land 
than on its accumulation hi one point, has not justified 
these favourable prepossessions. The mountain of Cliacao, 
bordered by the ravine of Tucutunemo, rises seven hundred 
leet above the village ot San J uan. It is formed of gneiss, 
which, especially in the superior strata, passes into mica- 
s a e. Y\ e saw the remains of an ancient mine, known by 
the name of Real do, Santa Barbara. The works were 
directed to a stratum of cellular quartz* full of polyhedric 
cavities, mixed witly iron-ore, containing auriferous writes 
and small grams of gold, sometimes, it is said, visible to 
the naked eye. It appears that the gneiss of the Cerro de 
-hacao also furnishes another metallic deposit, a mixture of 
copper and silver-ores. This deposit has been the object of 
viorks attempted with great ignorance by some Mexican 
miners under the superinten dance of M. Avalo. The gal- 
eiyt directed to the north-east, is only twenty-five toises 
long \\ e there found some fine specimens of‘ blue carbo- 
nated copper mingled with sulphate of barytes and quartz • 
but we could not ourselves jud|e whether the ore conSed 
any argentiferous fahlerz, and whether it occurred in a 
in fe7™ r ’ aS rmf- a P otll£ 'd£uy who was our guide asserted, 
worth! T - ThlS r Ch 18 1 cerfcail1 ’ that the attempt at 
working the mine cost more than twelve thousand piastres 
wo yeais. It would no doubt have been more prudent 
to have resumed the works on the auriferous stratum of the 
tieai de Santa Barbara. 
j lnr quartz, and the gneiss in which it is contained, lie 
hun’al he j eyberg com P ass > dip 70“ to the south-west. At a 
ftr( ]: nur °. 1 , f!es . stance from the auriferous quartz, the gneiss resumes its 
strata nf S1 a . atl0 ” , ^ 10r *. 3-4, with 60° dip to the north-west. A few 
an S nelss abound in si.very mica, and contain, instead of garnets, 
' quantity of small octohedrons of pyrites. This silvery gneisi 
hies that of the famous mine of HimmelsfUrsfc, in Saxony. 
4* La Cueva de los Mexicanos. 
