one of various colours, some
white, some red, some black. This ore, after being broken in pieces,
is grinded or stamped in a mill by the help of water, into a gross
powder, with which quicksilver is afterwards mixed. To this mixture a
brisk stream of water is let in, which reduces the earthy matters to a
kind of mud, which is carried off by the current, the amalgam of gold
and quicksilver remaining at the bottom, in consequence of its weight.
This amalgam is then put into a linen bag, and pressed very hard,
by which the greatest part of the mercury is strained off, and the
remainder is evaporated off by the force of fire, leaving the gold in
a little wedge or mass, shaped like a pine-apple, whence it is called
a _pinna_. This is afterwards melted and cast in a mould, to know its
exact weight, and to ascertain the proportion of silver that is mixed
with the gold, no farther process of refining being done here. The
weightiness of the gold, and the facility with which it forms an
amalgam with the mercury, occasions it easily to part from the dross
or earthy matters of the stone or matrix. This is a great advantage
to the gold-miners, as they every day know what they get; but the
silver-miners often do not know how much they get till two months
after, owing to the tediousness of their operation, as formerly
described.

[Footnote 5: This is a material error. Valparaiso is on no river, and
lies forty English miles north from the river Maypo, on one of the
upper branches of which, the Mapocho, St Jago is situated.--E.]

According to the nature of these gold-mines, and the comparative
richness of the veins, every _caxon_, or chest of fifty quintals,
yields four, five, or six ounces of gold. When it only yields two
ounces, the miner does not cover his charges, which often happens; but
he sometimes receives ample amends, when he meets with good veins; and
the gold-mines are those which produce metals the most unequally. In
following a vein, it frequently widens, then becomes narrower, and
then seems to disappear, all within a small space of ground; and this
sport of nature makes the miners live in continual hopes of finding
what they call a _purse_, being the expanded end of a vein, which is
sometimes so rich as to make a man's fortune at once; yet this same
inequality sometimes ruins them, which is the reason that it is more
rare to see a gold-miner rich than a silver-miner, or even one in any
other metal, although there be le