In the evening we reached the mines of Jajuel, situated in a
ravine at the flank of the great chain. I stayed here five days. My
host, the superintendent of the mine, was a shrewd but rather
ignorant Cornish miner. He had married a Spanish woman, and did not
mean to return home; but his admiration for the mines of Cornwall
remained unbounded. Amongst many other questions, he asked me, "Now
that George Rex is dead, how many more of the family of Rexes are
yet alive?" This Rex certainly must be a relation of the great
author Finis, who wrote all books!
These mines are of copper, and the ore is all shipped to Swansea,
to be smelted. Hence the mines have an aspect singularly quiet, as
compared to those in England: here no smoke, furnaces, or great
steam-engines, disturb the solitude of the surrounding mountains.
The Chilian government, or rather the old Spanish law, encourages
by every method the searching for mines. The discoverer may work a
mine on any ground, by paying five shillings; and before paying
this he may try, even in the garden of another man, for twenty
days.
It is now well known that the Chilian method of mining is the
cheapest. My host says that the two principal improvements
introduced by foreigners have been, first, reducing by previous
roasting the copper pyrites--which, being the common ore in
Cornwall, the English miners were astounded on their arrival to
find thrown away as useless: secondly, stamping and washing the
scoriae from the old furnaces--by which process particles of metal
are recovered in abundance.
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