To die among the free!
FOOTNOTES
[1] Wheat and flour are principally supplied from Jauja, and barley from Tarma; fruit from Huanuco, and sugar from Huanuco and Huaylas.
[2] Plata-piña, or simply piña, is the name given to silver not entirely purified from the mercury which adheres to it in the process of amalgamation. Amalgamation is effected by mixing the ore, after it has been ground, with salt and quicksilver; treading the whole together by men or cattle; then allowing it to repose in cerco, or in the enclosure in which it has been trodden, for a month or six weeks. At the expiration of this time the quicksilver is supposed to have combined with all the silver in the mass, and to have formed a perfect amalgam, called pella, which is separated by washing away the mud and refuse of the ore. The pella, thus procured, is white, and so liquid that, by putting it into a strong bag a considerable quantity of the mercury is made, by pressure, to escape, leaving the amalgam of a solid consistence. It is decomposed by a red heat; and the mercury being distilled, it may again be applied to the same purpose as before. In this process, however, there is usually a great waste of quicksilver on account of the bad apparatus employed; and the fixed metal or silver which remains is what is called piña. This piña is usually sold by the miner in round masses larger than cannon-balls; and these balls of silver are, by the trader who does not venture on smuggling, carried to the government smelter stationed at the mines, (an office for many years back honourably filled at Cerro Pasco by a learned and good man, Don Toribio de Oyorzabal,) by whom they are cast into the foundery, and, being there melted down and sufficiently purified, are now cast into bars, which are stamped as being of a proper ley or standard purity: after which they may be conveyed to the mint for coinage.
[3] At Huallianca, Hualliay, and several other parts of the rich department of Junin, smelting is used for the extraction of silver: but in Cerro Pasco smelting is little practised. In the district of Yauricocha, and especially in the great or King’s mine, the ores are found to contain a considerable portion of the sulphuret of lead; and, also, of the sulphurets of copper, of iron, and of silver.
Such is the quantity of sulphuric acid distributed among the mines of Cerro Pasco, which are placed among limestone hills, that the water which they contain is observed to corrode the iron machinery exposed to its continued action.
[4] “Cobos.”—This was a duty of one and a half per cent. on the metals extracted from the mines. Its origin, as we are informed, was a grant to this amount, made by the Spanish government in favour of an individual of the name of Cobo. This became a permanent tax which, like the tithes of the metals, afterwards fell into the hands of the government, until both were abolished a few years ago, as alluded to in the text.
[5] We have lately learned that during the years 1837 and early in 1838, quicksilver became so scarce in Peru, that it cost 200 or 220 dollars per quintal. The consequence has been that a private company, under the auspices of the Protector, Santa Cruz, was formed by the enterprising General Otero and others, to clear out the Socabon, or adit, and re-work the long neglected and abandoned mines of Huancavelica—which are distant from Cerro Pasco sixty-six leagues, by the route of Tarma, Jauja, and Iscuchaca. This company has made some progress in the works; but the quantity of quicksilver yet extracted by them cannot be said to have had any sensible influence on the price of this valuable metal, which, in consequence of the large shipments lately made of it, has fallen to about one-half the above enormous price. During the period referred to,—though the drainage and works at Cerro were considerably improved,—no mines of second or third rate could cover the expense of amalgamation; and, therefore, the metal extracted from them was allowed to accumulate in heaps, (constantly guarded by Indian watchmen, called “tapacos,”) to the estimated value of three millions of dollars.
[6] The product of a marc of silver of standard purity is eight dollars four reals, or 1l. 14s. sterling.