his opinion, in case it is deemed expedient to
continue building at San Blas the brigs and corvettes necessary for the
protection of the military posts and missions, situated along the above
coasts, to order them preferably to be built in Cavite giving timely
advice, and previously taking care to make the necessary arrangements.

[Gold.] Gold abounds in Luzon and in many of the other islands; but as
the mountains which conceal it are in possession of the pagan tribes,
the mines are not worked; indeed it may be said they are scarcely
known. These mountaineers collect it in the brooks and streamlets,
and in the form of dust, offer it to the Christians who inhabit the
neighboring plains, in exchange for coarse goods and fire-arms; and it
has sometimes happened that they have brought it down in grains of one
and two ounces weight. The natives of the province of Camarines partly
devote themselves to the working of the mines of Mambulao and Paracale,
which have the reputation of being very rich; but, far from availing
themselves in the smallest degree of the advantages of art, they
content themselves with extracting the ore by means of an extremley
imperfect fusion, which is done by placing the mineral in shells and
then heating them on embers. A considerable waste consequently takes
place, and although the metal obtained is good and high colored,
it generally, passes into the hands of the district-magistrate, who
collects it at a price infinitely lower than it is worth in trade. It
is a generally received opinion that gold mines are equally to be
met with in the Province of Caraga, situated on the coasts of the
great Island of Mindanao, where, as well as in other points, this
metal is met with equal to twenty-two karats. The quantity, however,
hitherto brought down from the mountains by the pagan tribes, and
that obtained by the tributary Filipinos, has not been an object of
very great importance.

[Copper.] Well-founded reasons exist for presuming that, in
the Province of Ilocos, mines of virgin copper exist, a singular
production of nature, or at least, not very common, if the generality
of combinations under which this metal presents itself in the
rest of the globe, are duly considered. This is partly inferred
from the circumstance of its having been noticed that the Igorots,
who occasionally come down from the mountains to barter with the
Christians, use certain coarse jars or vessels of copper, evidently
made by thems