The country was so thinly inhabited,
and the track so obscure, that we often had difficulty in finding
our way. On the 12th I stayed at some mines. The ore in this case
was not considered particularly good, but from being abundant it
was supposed the mine would sell for about thirty or forty thousand
dollars (that is, 6000 or 8000 pounds sterling); yet it had been
bought by one of the English Associations for an ounce of gold
(three pounds eight shillings). The ore is yellow pyrites, which,
as I have already remarked, before the arrival of the English was
not supposed to contain a particle of copper. On a scale of profits
nearly as great as in the above instance, piles of cinders,
abounding with minute globules of metallic copper, were purchased;
yet with these advantages, the mining associations, as is well
known, contrived to lose immense sums of money. The folly of the
greater number of the commissioners and shareholders amounted to
infatuation;--a thousand pounds per annum given in some cases to
entertain the Chilian authorities; libraries of well-bound
geological books; miners brought out for particular metals, as tin,
which are not found in Chile; contracts to supply the miners with
milk, in parts where there are no cows; machinery, where it could
not possibly be used; and a hundred similar arrangements, bore
witness to our absurdity, and to this day afford amusement to the
natives.
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