On p. 348, he says that he saw many utensils of gold in the house of the Raja or King of Butuan.
On p. 349, we find the following remarks:—
“What most abounds is gold. Valleys were pointed out to me in which by signs they made me comprehend there were more lumps of gold than we had hair on our heads, but that, for the want of iron, the mines exact greater labour to work them than they feel inclined to bestow.”
Coming down to later days, Thomas de Comyn, 1810, writes:—
“Gold abounds in Luzon and in many of these islands; but as the mountains which contain it are in the power of pagan Indians, the veins are not worked, nor even the mines known. These savages collect it from placers or streams, and bring it as dust to the Christians who inhabit the plains, in exchange for coarse cloth or fire-arms, and at times they have brought it in grains of one or two ounces’ weight.
“It is the general opinion that this class of mines abound in the province of Caraga, situated on the east of the great island of Mindanao, and that there, as well as at various other points, gold is found of 22 carat fine.”
He states that the Royal Fifth, or rather Tenth (for it was found the mines could not pay a fifth, and it was reduced by half), in the year 1809 amounted to $1144. This would represent an extraction of gold equal to only $11,440; but this was probably but a small part of the whole, as from the circumstances of the case the gold dust from the washings would be surreptitiously disposed of, and only the few mines that were worked, paid the tax. I had occasion, about twelve years ago, to make inquiry how much gold was raised in Camarines Norte, and a person well-informed on the subject estimated it at a value of $30,000 gold dollars.
Gold is certainly very widely distributed in the islands. I have seen women washing the sands of the River San José del Puray in the province of Manila, and noted what small specks they collected. I was informed that their average earnings were about 25 cents per day. Whether these sands could be dredged and washed mechanically on a large scale with profit I cannot say.
In 1890, I ascended the Puray River and went up the Arroyo Macaburabod to where it bifurcates. There, close to the boundary of the province of Manila and district of Moron, I found a face of disintegrated quartz glittering with large crystals of iron pyrites.
This was near a geological frontier where the igneous and sedimentary rocks joined, and the neighbourhood was highly mineralized, there being iron, coal, and gold within a short distance. I took a large number of samples, and the analyst Anacleto del Rosario declared that one of them gave an assay of 17 dwts. of gold to the ton. But of course such assays prove nothing, for the accidental presence of a grain of gold in the sample would make all the difference in the results.