[6]. Betagh, writing of conditions in 1720, says that there were gold mines at Copiapó, “just beyond the town and all about the country likewise, which have brought many purchasers and workmen thither, to the great damage of the Indians; for the Spanish magistrates take away not only their lands but their horses, which they sell to the new proprietors, under pretence of serving the king and improving the settlements.” He also noted the saltpetre, lying “an inch thick on the ground” in the north, and says that the country is full of all sorts of mines. About the year 1709 two lumps of gold found near the Chilean frontier, one of which weighed 32 pounds, was brought by the Viceroy of Peru, Count Monclove, and given to the King of Spain. In another washing place near Valparaiso belonging to priests gold nuggets are found, he says, ranging from a few ounces to one and a half pounds in weight.
The present production of silver is also a shadow of its former record. Once upon a time rich silver mines were worked at Uspallata, near the Pass; these were already abandoned in 1820, when Peter Schmidtmeyer made his journey. Chile never rivalled Potosí, where travellers of the early sixteenth century (before the amalgam process was introduced in 1571) might see 6000 furnaces shining together at night upon the famous hill; but her mines recorded a splendid total in one quarter-century, 1876 to 1900, when 432,000,000 pesos’ worth of silver was produced. Lowered international prices and the exhaustion of rich veins so reduced the industry that in 1915 only 1,000,000 pesos’ worth was produced, and although later years have reached values of over 3,000,000 pesos, future great production depends upon new discoveries and scientific operation. The mining engineer still has much work to do in the deep folds of the Chilean Andes, while the sands of the islands south of the Strait of Magellan have yielded, and are likely to yield again under good management, rich harvests of gold.
Coal
The coal industry of South Chile owes its greatest impetus to the energy of Matias Cousiño, who organised development dating from 1852; but mining for commercial purposes began as far back as 1840, when a field near Talcahuano began to supply the needs of Chile’s first steamship line, forerunner of the present Pacific Steam Navigation Company.
The entire region of Chile from Concepción southwards to the Territory of Magellanes is dowered with coal deposits, but the richest region is a series of mines strewn for one hundred miles along the coasts of the provinces of Concepción and Arauco. Wealth in coal has brought a large number of factories and mills to the prosperous city of Concepción, was a factor in the establishment of the chief naval station of Chile in the fine bay of Talcahuano—the best-sheltered port of Chile—and developed smelting and metal-refining works at Tomé, to the north of Talcahuano, and in Coronel and Lota, farther south.
Many coal beds known to exist in the Chilean south are unworked as yet owing to lack of transport in undeveloped regions, but in addition to the big mines in operation in the rich regions of Arauco and Concepción, a deposit is being worked near Valdivia (the Sociedad Carbonifera de Máfil) while the Loreto beds are also under exploitation in Magellanes Territory, near Punta Arenas. The product of some of the Chilean mines is of excellent quality, but the product was, before the war, insufficient in quantity and not of a grade rendering it suitable for all railway and steamship uses. It was therefore supplemented by hard steam coal imported from foreign countries; before the outbreak of war in 1914 British mines were shipping about 1,000,000 tons per year to Chile, Australia sent about 450,000 tons, and the United States sent small quantities that varied between 3000 and 100,000 tons. The supply from Welsh and Australian mines was, during the war, diminished almost to vanishing point, and at the same time imports from North America rose to three or four hundred thousand tons, and the Chilean home production was immensely stimulated.
Chile’s producing mines are fourteen in number, twelve of these lying in the Arauco region; in 1909 production amounted to less than 900,000 tons, but had risen to over 1,500,000 in 1918 and 1919. Eleven to twelve thousand men were then employed, as against 9000 in 1911. The most important operators are the Compañia de Lota, Coronel y Arauco, a combination owning four mines and tributary railways, employing 3670 workers, and producing more than half a million tons of coal yearly. Next comes the Cia. Carbonifera y de Fundición Schwager, also situated at Coronel, employing 2800 men and producing over 400,000 tons; the only other company with an output of over 200,000 tons annually is that of Cia. Carbonifera Los Rios de Curanilahue, employing 1500 men. Both here and in the Lota mines the plant is operated by hydro-electric power, and throughout the Chilean fields the standard of machinery and equipment is high. The general width of coal seams operated in Chile is from fifty to sixty inches.
The wages paid are about the same as for other mining and industrial work in Chile, ranging from five to seven pesos (paper) per day. The Coronel mines, many of which are deep-seated and run under the sea, pay at a higher rate, averaging eight and a half pesos, but the Loreto mine in Punta Arenas, where workers are scarce, pays its employés nearly twelve pesos a day.
Chilean coal miners work only 280 days in the year, but conditions are not always acceptable and there have been from time to time serious strikes; the last, occurring at the beginning of 1922, was said to be mainly fomented by the considerable foreign element.
Among the remaining coal companies of importance are the Cia. Carbonifera de Lirquen (Penco); the Cia. El Rosal (Concepción); and the Cia. Carbonifera de Lebu, owning three mines and a railway.