ginning of last century,
two Englishmen made vain efforts to work these mines. They erected
expensive machinery (which has since disappeared piece by piece),
and engaged all the headmen around, at fixed salaries, to perform
the simple duty of guaranteeing a certain number of men each to work
there daily. The headmen were very smart at receiving their pay,
some of them having the audacity to ask for it in advance; yet the
number of miners diminished, little by little, and no reasonable terms
could induce them to resume work. The priest related that, after the
Englishmen had spent a fortune of about L40,000, and seeing no result,
in despair they hired a canoe, telling the native in charge to paddle
out to sea, where they blew their brains out with pistols.

Afterwards a Spaniard, who had made money during years of office as
Chief Judge and Governor of the Bulacan Province, thought he could,
by virtue of the influence of his late position, command the services
of all the labourers he might require to work the mine. It was a vain
hope; he lost all his savings, and became so reduced in circumstances
that for a long time he was a pauper, accepting charity in the parish
convents of the province.

The Angat iron-mines undoubtedly yield a very rich ore--it is stated up
to 85 per cent. of metal. Up to the Revolution they were still worked
on a small scale. In 1885, at the foot of these ferruginous hills, I
saw a rough kind of smelting-furnace and foundry in a dilapidated shed,
where the points of ploughshares were being made. These were delivered
at a fixed minimum price to a Chinaman who went to Binondo (Manila) to
sell them to the Chinese ironmongers. In Malolos (Bulacan) I met one of
the partners in this little business--a Spanish half-caste--who told me
that it paid well in proportion to the trifling outlay of capital. If
the natives chose to bring in mineral they were paid for it; when
they did not come, the works and expenses were temporarily stopped.

In Baliuag, a few miles from Angat, where I have stayed a score
of times, I observed, at the threshold of several houses, slabs of
iron about 8 feet long by 2 feet wide and 5 inches thick. I inquired
about the origin of this novelty, and several respectable natives,
whom I had known for years, could only inform me that their elders
had told them about the foreigners who worked the Angat mines, and
that the iron in question came from there. Appearing to belong to no
one in