Cerro de Pasco and Yauli are the principal silver and copper mining districts of Peru. At Cerro de Pasco, nearly every kind of mineral is found within a radius of a mile. A North American syndicate purchased the mining properties of this district, the first engineers arriving to take charge of the property in 1901. The following year the syndicate bought the concession for the construction of a railway from Oroya to Cerro de Pasco, the line being completed and opened to traffic in 1904. This railway is eighty-two miles long, and has a branch twenty-five miles long to the coal mines, while the switches at the mines and smelter cover twenty miles more. The road is standard gauge and the locomotives and cars are of North American manufacture. The original cost of construction and equipment was about three million dollars. The work of putting up a smelter and furnaces was completed in 1906, and a reverberatory and roasting plant is now being installed, which will greatly increase the production of the establishment. In 1907 the annual capacity was thirty million pounds of pig-copper, and with the new improvements it is estimated that the quantity will be nearly doubled.
CAILLOMA MINES, ALTITUDE SEVENTEEN THOUSAND FEET, DEPARTMENT OF AREQUIPA.
The mines of Cerro de Pasco have been developed by shafts, the lowest level being at a depth of over four hundred feet. The present output supplies the smelter, besides which an ore reserve is accumulated. All the properties of the company were purchased from small owners, and include over six hundred claims in the Cerro de Pasco district, besides about three hundred claims in Goillarisquisga, a few miles to the north, where valuable coal mines are located, furnishing eight hundred tons of this fuel daily. New properties have been recently purchased in the Morococha district, which is rich in copper and silver. In addition to these mines, the company owns the Paria estate at Cerro de Pasco, covering seventy thousand acres, which is used for pasturage and dairy purposes. A considerable population is supported by the various enterprises of the company, five hundred men being employed on the railway, sixteen hundred in the smelter, a thousand in the silver and copper mines and fifteen hundred in the coal mines. The syndicate has spent about eighteen million dollars on all these properties, including the cost of improvements and development, and is now in possession of one of the most valuable mining districts of the world.
CARMEN SHAFT, CERRO DE PASCO MINES.
The “Opulent City of Cerro de Pasco,” as it was entitled by a supreme decree of 1840, is a typical town of the Peruvian sierras. It was founded by the Viceroy Amat in 1771, and became one of the most important towns of the Intendencia of Tarma, which, under the colonial government, embraced the present Departments of Junín, Huánuco, and Ancash. Cerro de Pasco was made the capital of the Department of Junín in 1851; the cities of Jauja, Tarma, and Huancayo shared with it the prestige of political centres, being provincial capitals. Jauja, unsurpassed as a sanatorium, and destined to become a famous health resort, is one of the oldest towns of Spanish-America, having been founded by the conquerors before the site of Lima was selected for the capital of Peru. Tarma, founded about the same time as Jauja, is rich in minerals and claims additional importance from its situation on the highway of travel between Lima and Iquitos.
In the districts of Yauli and Huarochiri, which rank next in importance to Cerro de Pasco, silver and copper are also the principal metals extracted, though lead is an important product. Smelters and other establishments for the elaboration of gold, silver, and copper, have been installed at these places, the works at Casapalca, in the Yauli district, being especially notable. For some classes and grades of minerals, the process of smelting is followed, while in the treatment of others concentration is adopted. Yauli is located on the line of the Oroya railway, in the province of Tarma, Department of Junín, and Huarochiri lies a few leagues to the south, in the Department of Lima. Both these mining districts are worked at an altitude of twelve thousand feet or more. In the same region of the sierra are situated the silver-mining centres of Castrovireina, Huallanca, and Cajatambo, in the Departments of Huancavelica, Huánuco, and Ancash; and farther north, in La Libertad and Cajamarca, are the mines of Salpo and Hualgayoc, which are rich in silver ores.
Everywhere in the Andean region silver is found, though it is usually mixed with copper or lead. Most of the silver ore in the Cerro de Pasco district is of a reddish color, due to the oxide of iron it contains; the Peruvian miners give it the name of cascajo, or gravel. The copper ores, like the silver, appear in combination with other metals, veins of copper containing usually some silver and gold. In Ancash, Ica, and Arequipa, in the coast zone, these copper deposits are also found, and new smelting establishments have been installed in these departments which are contributing to increase the output of copper ore. New copper mines have been explored in the provinces of Jauja, Pasco, and elsewhere, and prove to be rich in ores. The industry is in a more promising condition than it has ever been. Petitions for concessions of mining property are constantly reaching the government, a favorable augury for the future development of this valuable resource. Lead exists in large quantities in Yauli, Huarochiri, and several districts of Ancash and Cuzco.
