"I lived in the house that used to be Mr. Trevithick's office and store-room; it was in the suburbs of the town of Cerro de Pasco. The shafts are some of them in the middle of the town; several pieces of Captain Trevithick's engines lay about the shafts, and some on the way up, as though they had stuck fast, and some we saw at Lima. Mr. Jump, a director on the mine, pointed out a balance-beam that Mr. Trevithick had put up thirty years before. Only one Englishman then remained there who had worked for Mr. Trevithick; he was called Sycombe, and said Trevithick's men were an unmanageable lot.
"The natives worked in the mines underground. The atmosphere was only about 10 lbs. on the inch. We found a coal mine not far off; the quality was not very good. The smiths had difficulty in welding with it. Our heaviest pieces of machinery did not exceed 280 lbs. The worst parts of the road have been a little improved since that time."
Just one month before Trevithick sailed from Penzance for Lima, the first pumping engine taken out by Uville had been satisfactorily put to work in the mountain mine of Santa Rosa, with its steam-cylinder weighing double the limit fixed on by modern engineers.
The following information respecting the progress of the steam-engine fixed on the Santa Rosa Mines, one of the mineral ridges of Pasco, in the Viceroyalty of Peru, is extracted from the Government-Gazettes of Lima, dated the 10th of August and 25th of September, 1816:—
"PROGRESS OF THE STEAM-ENGINE, &c.
"His Excellency the Viceroy of Peru to the Editor.
"In order to satisfy the eager expectations of the inhabitants of this Viceroyalty, those of the greater part of these Americas, and even of the Peninsula itself, I hereby order the printing, at full length, in the next Government Gazette, or at same time in a separate sheet, the enclosed despatch from the Intendant Governor of Tarma, giving the details of the admirable results of the steam-engine fixed in the mineral territory of Pasco, for the most important purpose of draining its mines, and for the extraction of its rich ores. This authentic communication must produce the most lively and grateful sensations in those true Spaniards, who with grief contemplated as irreparably lost the only spring from which flowed the prosperity of this continent, excite their just acknowledgments to the meritorious co-operators in such an expensive and difficult as well as eminently-advantageous enterprise, and encourage to similar undertakings in other parts those who, with personal aptitudes and patriotic sentiments, have been waiting the final success of the first.
"Joaquin de la Pezuela.
"Lima, 4th August, 1816."
"Certificate of the Deputation.