Cattle. The cattle industry is one of large importance, pasturage beginning in the foot-hills of the coast, and going up to 13,000 feet or more. The large ranches are in the sierra, some having 20,000 cattle and 500,000 sheep. Cattle are raised in Cajamarca, Junín, Ayacucho, Cuzco, and Puno. The beef is apt to be tough, badly cut, and is better boiled than roasted. Cross breeding with Argentine or other stock would improve it greatly, and attention is being paid to the matter. The pasture lands are called excellent. Hides are quite largely exported and cattle are imported from Argentina and Chile, chiefly for slaughter, a few for stock. Mutton is largely eaten in the sierra.
Wool is an important export, likely to increase, for the plateau affords ample space, with good wild grasses. The native sheep have rather long legs and a rough scanty fleece; crossed with merinos they give more wool. Good stock was brought from Punta Arenas some years ago with an experienced manager, and near Lake Junín a big ranch has been developing on 130 square miles. There is no finer country for sheep raising than the high valleys of the plateau. Alpacas, vicuñas and llamas also afford wool, the first two of much greater value. The vicuña wool is the finest, but there are so few of the animals that the export is small. That of alpaca, however, is greater than that of wool, at least in value. The larger part of the world’s supply of the genuine article comes from the Peruvian and Bolivian plateau. The llama, the great burden bearer, has a heavy but coarse fleece, yet some of it is exported. There are more of these three animals in Bolivia. The Indians are expert in their care. The guanaco is a larger animal, somewhat similar, which has never been domesticated, and is hunted by the Indians for food. The chinchilla, and the viscacha, the Peruvian hare, are hunted for their skins. Many pigs are raised and lard is exported.
Horses. The horses are rather small, but are very fine saddle animals. Some have five distinct gaits. I found them more sure-footed than mules, going up and down veritable rock stairways with ease. They are to some extent originally of Arabian stock.
Fish of the finest quality of 40 or more varieties and in great abundance are found off the coast; large lobsters, scallops, the corbina, cod, sole, smelt, mackerel, and many others are caught.
Guano. There are seals on the islands and an enormous number of sea-birds, which have made the great deposits of guano on the islands. As there was no rain the deposits have been preserved for centuries without loss of the nitrogen of which there is 14 per cent. The islands occur singly or in groups along the coast, some far out beyond the track of the steamers. All are barren and uninhabited. The Chincha Islands had enormous deposits now exhausted. There has been much waste, and deposits have been removed so ruthlessly as to disturb the birds; but now there are careful regulations. Agreement was made some years ago with the Peruvian Corporation (British) by which they were allotted 2,000,000 tons of the guano; of this they have had more than half; operations have recently been restricted and few shipments made.
Mining
The mine fields of Peru, once famous for their production of gold and silver, never wholly neglected, were for a time less vigorously worked. In the days of the Spanish colonists gold and silver were the chief objects of acquisition, but lately these metals have seemed less fashionable than copper. The variety in Peru’s wealth in minerals is shown to some extent by a list of her production in 1917 in millions of pounds in round numbers: copper, 84; copper matte, 4.4; copper ore, 16.5; vanadium, 7; lead ore, 7.5; antimony ore, 3.75; silver ore, 1.76; tungsten, 1. Smaller quantities of other ores were produced: gold, 2000 pounds; sulphur, 120,000; metallic silver, 8000; silver concentrates, 700,000; precipitated silver, 10,000; lead bullion, 250,000; lead concentrates, 650,000; zinc ores, 640,000; lead slag, 177,000; copper cement, 145,000; molybdenum, 12,000; gold ores, 30,500. Many other minerals exist, not exported in large enough quantities to have been given in this list.
Copper. Americans were slow to become interested in mining investments in South America as in commercial trade, but when assured of the success of the pioneer enterprise inaugurated at Cerro de Pasco by New York capitalists about 1900, others followed, and large sums have now been invested in several Republics. Silver was discovered at Cerro de Pasco in 1630 and $200,000,000 were produced in one century. Four hundred and fifty million ounces were obtained by hand labor, the ore being carried by llamas to primitive smelters. Little interest was taken in copper; only ore with 25-50 per cent of the metal was formerly exported. Here at Cerro, where is located, some say, the richest copper deposit in the world, the titanic forces of nature cast upward a wonderful mass of material, gold, silver, copper, etc. Here are great open pits several hundred feet deep, worked for centuries for silver.
The Cerro de Pasco Company has spent about $30,000,000 in acquiring properties here and at Morococha, in constructing smelters, railways, buildings for employees, and in developing the properties, from which handsome returns are now obtained. The property of the Cerro de Pasco Mining Company consists of 730 mining claims and 108 coal mining claims. The reserves exceed 3,000,000 tons of copper ore, one estimate is 75,000,000. Nearly every claim carries ore with gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, and cobalt. High silver values exist to 100 feet deep, sometimes running to thousands of ounces a ton, deeper are silver copper ores, and lower still little silver and more copper. The old open mines are 100-300 feet deep. The mines are very wet, especially below 400 feet. A drainage canal begun by Meiggs in 1877 was completed in 1907. The new workings include five shafts and two tunnels of two miles each. The shafts have openings at four levels, the bottom 410 feet. Waste is used for filling, as timber is dear. The smelter has five blast furnaces, each running 300 tons daily. A converter is in another building. A hydro-electric plant completed in 1913 cost $1,000,000. There is a 10 mile ditch and pipe line with one 750 foot fall and a second of 200 feet. The transmission line, 70 miles, serves Morococha and Pasco. There is a coke plant near the smelter and a brick plant of great value. The coal mines are at Goyllarisquisga and Quishuarcancha, 21 and 11 miles respectively. The coal is not very good, averaging 35 per cent carbon, but answers the purpose.
The Corporation owns 12 mines at Morococha and rents others. The deepest shaft is 750 feet. Several drainage tunnels are required. The production, 12,000 tons a month, was expected to be increased to 16,000. The ore of the several mines runs 5, 14, 15, and in one mine 20 per cent copper continuously, the 14 per cent with 14-70 ounces of silver per ton. The ore averages 7 per cent copper and 10 ounces silver. The mines have produced 20,000,000 pounds of copper a year, one third of the de Pasco Company’s output. Morococha is ten miles from Ticlio, the highest point on the main line of the Central Railway; the ore is sent to a smelter at Casapalca, altitude 13,600 feet, ten miles farther down.