contributing this treasure should never be referred to by him, nor included in any of his estimates, is, to say the least, very improbable. Mines returning a product in 1803 and 1804 worth from six to seven millions of dollars a year could not have so completely escaped the attention of every statist that neither their locality nor their names can be specified, and there can be but little doubt that the treasure seeking a European market through the mouth of the river La Plata was obtained chiefly in the mines of Upper and Lower Peru,

Gold and silver in small quantites are known to exist in Paraguay, and mines of both metals are said to have been worked in Uruguay and the seven missions, the Banda Oriental of the Spaniards, and these would seek the port of Monte Video in passing into the market; but from all the information we can obtain in reference to the quantity furnished by these localities, we have some hesitancy in placing it as high even as half a million yearly. More valuable deposits of the precious metals are contained in the Argentine Confederation, in the States of Salta, Tucuman, Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan, and Cordova; and, before the commencement of the revolutionary troubles, Salta and Tucuman had mines in operation, the machinery of which was generally destroyed during the war for independence, and the proprietors mostly banished on account of their adherence to the cause of Spain. The mines in the Famatina mountains, in the Sierra de Cordova, in San Juan and Catamarca, are just beginning as it were to assume some importance, and are represented as being very valuable. An estimate of half a million yearly for the States lying east of the Parana, for the whole period of sixty-four years, with a similar amount for the States lying west of the river, for the forty-four years ending with 1847, and $1,500,000 for the twenty following years, will be sufficiently high. The proportion of gold to silver being probably about the same as in Bolivia, may be stated at $75,000 annually, leaving $425,000 for the silver product in Paraguay and Uruguay during the period from 1804 to 1868, and in the Argentine Confederation for the forty-four years, and $225,000 gold and $1,275,000 silver for the last twenty years; making for the western side $4,500,000 gold and $25,500,000 silver for the twenty years. The whole amount for Paraguay and Uruguay will be $4,800,000 gold and $27,200,000 silver, or $32,000,000 of both metals, and $7,800,000 gold and $44,200,000 silver, or $52,000,000 of both metals for the Argentine Confederation, amounting, on both sides of the river, to $12,600,000 gold and $71.400,000 silver, and $84,000,000 of both metals, for the period from 1804 to 1868. The result may be stated as follows:

1804 to 1848. 1848 to 1868.

Product of republics of Paraguay and Uruguay.

1804 to 1868..

In 1803 Chili produced 12,212 marcs of gold, of the value of $1,780,000, and 29,700 marcs of silver, worth about $280,000. Up to that date the country had produced, according to Humboldt, gold to the value of $138,000,000, and, according to Chevalier, silver amounting in weight to about 680,000 pounds, troy, worth about $10,880,000, making a total value of precious metals of $148,880,000.

The quantity of silver produced previous to the discovery of the rich mines of Copiapo, in 1832, was not very large. After that date it rapidly increased, and at present amounts to a yearly supply of about 300,000 lbs. Gold, on the other hand, has declined to half, or even less than half, the quantity produced at the commencement of the century. The coinage of the latter metal, for the twenty years from 1804 to 1823, amounted to $12,214,892, and if the actual product be considered double the amount coined, the yearly average will stand at $1,221,489, showing a decline of half a million yearly since 1803. Previous to 1826 the Chilian government prohibited the exportation of the precious metals without being coined, consequently, after that, the mint returns declined to a very small amount. Among the returns of the English consuls are annual accounts made up by the Chilian government of the gold and silver known to have been exported, coined and uncoined, for the eight years from 1834 to 1841. These accounts, it is stated, are confessedly made upon very defective information. They show an exportation of gold to the value of $5,444,469, and of silver to the value of $11,434,643. If we assume that one-half the amount of gold produced during the eight years came under official notice in such a way as to be included in these accounts, the actual product for the time mentioned was $10,888,938, or $1,361,117 yearly, an amount very nearly the same as the yearly average for the twenty years from 1804 to 1823. Half the sum of these averages is $1,291,300. The annual product in 1800 is stated by Whitney at 7,500 pounds fine gold. In 1850 it is put at about 2,900 pounds. If the yearly decline is supposed to have been somewhat regular during the period of half a century, a mean of the two quantities would very nearly express the average annual production. Such a quantity would be 5.200 pounds, worth, being fine gold, $1,289,600, very similar in amount, it will be seen, to the average number heretofore obtained, and we may take half the sum of the two numbers as the annual production for the period from 1804 to 1848, with some confidence that it cannot be far out of the way. four years, produce $56,760,000. Since 1835 the supply of gold appears to have A yearly supply of $1,290,000 would, in fortybeen increasing, the product in 1850 being about 400 pounds more than in the former year. In 1865 Chevalier estimated it at 1,200 kilograms, equal to about 3,215 pounds troy, being an increase, since 1850, of about 300 pounds. An average of these several quantities is 3,057 pounds, equal in value to about $758,000, which may be assumed as the average yield since 1848, producing for the twenty years $15,160,000, and making for the sixty-four years a gold product of the value of $71,920,000.

Mr. Danson has been quoted as placing the gold product of Chili at $99,963,000 for the forty-five years ending with 1848; but by looking into the paper read by that gentleman before the Statistical Society of London, in 1850, it will be discovered that in dealing with the accounts of treasure shipments from 1834 to 1841, furnished by the Chilian government, he inadvertently subjected quantities expressing the value of one metal to arithmetical processes intended for quantities representing the value of the other, producing an error in the result as to gold of nearly thirty millions of dollars. The amount that would have been obtained, according to his theory, had no error occurred in the calculation, is $70,757,532. The result obtained for the silver product was $38,555,205; but if the error just mentioned had not occurred, it would have been $56,525,000, nearly twice the amount at which Chevalier estimated the product for nearly the same period. In 1803, we have already seen, the supply of silver amounted in value to $280,000. In the twenty years from 1804 to 1823 the amount coined

was $5,009,622, and if this be supposed to represent but two-thirds of the actual product, (a more liberal allowance for contraband than has heretofore been made for silver,) the quantity produced in the twenty years would amount to $7,562,698, or an annual average of $378,135, which being considered as the yearly product during the twenty-eight years from 1804 to 1832, when the mines of Copiapo were discovered, the whole product up to that date would be but $10,587,780, and we may feel considerable assurance that this estimate is sufficiently high. From 1832 to 1845 we find the yearly product stated by Mr. Whitney and other authorities as averaging about 107,000 pounds troy, worth $1,712,000, and producing, in the fourteen years, $23,968,000. In the following two years the yield was something greater, and we may add for these $3,474,672, making, with the supply from 1804 to 1832, $38,030,459, being nearly the same result reached by Mr. Danson by a lucky miscalculation.

M. Chevalier estimated the amount of silver produced in Chili from 1804 to 1845, both inclusive, at 1,803,636 pounds troy, worth $28,858, 176. By adding the produce of 1846 and 1847, the value of the silver obtained in the forty-four years would, according to his estimate, amount to $32,332,848, a sum $5,697,611 less than has been obtained by the foregoing calculation; but the quantity herein estimated is only $27,442,672 for the sixteen years from the opening of the mines of Copiapo, being an annual yield of $1,715,000 during that period; and this does not appear an extraordinary production when it is considered that these are among the richest silver mines in the world, and that those of Potosi and Pasco, situated in a region of perpetual barrenness and desolation, more than 13,000 feet in elevation, produced for many years after their discovery a much larger quantity, and that the great Comstock mine in Nevada is producing a yearly supply ten times as great.

Mr. Whitney has put the produce of the Chilian mines for the eight years from 1846 to 1853 at 1,750,000 lbs., worth $28,000,000, or an annual value of $3,500,000; and Mr. J. Arthur Phillips, a mining engineer of Kensington, England, places the product of 1865 at 300,000 lbs., worth $4,800,000.

In 1851 the export of silver in bars and ingots from the port of Caldera amounted to 3,030,874 ounces, worth $3,788,593, and in ores of different degrees of purity, of from eight to seventy-three per cent., 2,312,829 lbs. In 1855, the export of silver and silver ores amounted to $4,725,655. Since the last named date a railroad has been completed from Caldera to Copiapo, which it was expected would greatly reduce the expenses of mining, and lead to the exportation of some 300,000 tons of ore collected at the mines, which will yield from forty-eight to four hundred ounces of silver to the ton, but which had been thrown aside as too poor to pay the expenses of transportation. Increased activity in the mines has been apparent ever since the completion of the road, about 1858, and an annual average of $4,500,000, for the twenty years since 1848, will not be too much. This will produce $90,000,000, and the production for the sixty-four years may be stated thus:

New Granada, formerly constituting a part of the viceroyalty of that name, from 1819 to 1830 forming a part of the republic of Colombia, and at present under a reformed constitution, with its former provinces erected into confederated

states, known as the "United States of Colombia," had contributed, according to Humboldt, up to 1803 a gold product of the value of $275,000,000, obtained from washing the rich sands of the provinces of Antioquia, Choco, and Veraqua, in the valleys of the rivers Cauca and Atrato, and on the coast of Barbacoas. At present the precious metal is obtained by washings and by rock mining, several English companies operating in the latter branch on the river Porce. Chevalier, in 1847, made an estimate of the amount of gold produced in the country from the opening of the mines to 1810, and placed it at $295,000,000, which is substantially the same as the estimate of Humboldt.

The latter, in his work on "New Spain," mentions the fraudulent exportation of gold from New Granada, under Spanish rule, as being quite extensive by the way of the Rio Atrato and the ports of Carthagena and Portobello; yet he allows but one-eighth of the whole for contraband, which might be regarded as rather too low an estimate, as he computed one-fifth of the whole for the silver of Potosi, a metal much less easily smuggled than the former on account of its less compendious character, and also because the illicit commerce from the Peruvian mines was mostly conducted over the mountains and solitary wilds of Brazil on the backs of llamas, while that of Granada found easy access to the frequented routes of trade From 1789 to 1795 the coinage of the two mints at Bogota and Popayan amounted annually to $2,095,000. In 1801 $2,100,000 were coined, and an estimated amount of $400,000 exported in ingots and wrought gold.

Mr.

In this case it will be perceived that the amount exported uncoined was calculated at very nearly one-sixth of the whole. The actual product at the beginning of the century was reckoned at 20,500 marcs, worth about $3,000,000, of which 18,000 marks had passed through the mints. The product from 1810 to 1846 has been computed by Chevalier at $81,500,000, and the annual yield at the latter date at 13,276 pounds troy, of the value of $3,200,000. Allowing $3,000,000 a year for the seven years from 1804 to 1810, and for the year 1847, we have for the forty-four years $105,500,000 by Chevalier's estimate. Danson, by adopting the opinion of Duport in reference to the gold of Mexico, that the mint returns represent only three-eighths of the actual product, and upon information based upon the returns of the English consuls coming down to 1829, calculates the amount from 1804 to the end of 1848 at $204,255,328, or nearly twice the quantity estimated by Chevalier, while the "New American Cyclopedia" puts the annual produce at from $10,000,000 to $12,000,000. None of these consular returns in reference to the gold and silver product of New Granada, of a later date than 1829, appears to have been published, and resort must be had to other data in endeavoring to estimate its amount. All authorities unite in representing the country as rich in gold, and capable of being made to yield a much larger annual tribute than it has ever yet done either under Spanish or native rule. Exclusive of the amount extracted by the English companies, most of the gold obtained in this as in other South American countries is the product of shallow washings, prosecuted chiefly by Indians and persons without capital, who depend mainly for their subsistence upon the quantities of the precious metals thus procured. Such a system of mining, while its aggregates may be comparatively small, will nevertheless be attended with considerable uniformity in the product from year to year, until the deposits becoine exhausted; a result which does not seem to have been reached in New Granada. As the annual supply in 1800, and also in 1846 and 1847, appears to have ranged from 12,600 to 13,276 pounds troy, worth from $3,100,000 to $3,300,000, according to the best information upon the subject we possess, and as the yearly coinage appears to have varied but little during the fourteen years of war, from 1810 to the defeat of the royal army in 1824, from what it had been during the ten peaceful years preceding the war, we may be justified in assuming that the product during the forty-four years differed but little from year to year,

or, if irregularities did sometimes take place, that they reciprocally balanced each other, and that a yearly average of $3,200,000 would come as near the true amount as it is practicable now to ascertain it. We thus obtain, for the period from 1804 to 1847, both inclusive, $140,800,000. As the country during the last twenty years has, upon the whole, been prosperous, undergoing slow but substantial improvement, we may increase the assumed average to $3,400,000 for the period, ending with 1867, and set down $68,000,000 for that, which is very near the estimate of Chevalier for the same time. The product for the sixty-four years amounts to $208,800,000.

Valuable silver mines are said to exist in New Granada, but it does not appear that they have ever been developed-at least, not to any great extent. Having no data at hand from which to compute the quantity of that metal produced, we adopt Mr. Danson's estimate of $170,000 for the period from 1804 to 184^, and for the remaining period of twenty years that of M. Chevalier, of $260,000 annually, producing $5,200,000. The supply of silver during the sixty-four years will be $5,370,000.

The treasure product of New Granada will then stand thus:

The remaining South American republics, Venezuela and Ecuador, have not hitherto furnished much gold or silver. In the sixteenth century gold was obtained in the first-named republic in quantities sufficient to lay the foundation of several opulent cities in the western departments, but in the seventeenth century the deposits had mostly become exhausted. Of late years new deposits have been discovered in the eastern borders of the republic, in the departments of Guayana and Cumana, and considerable quantities of gold are said to be obtained from the washings. Silver ores of great richness have recently been found in the mountains of Merida, south of lake Maracaibo, in quantities sufficient to insure a profitable return to capital invested in opening mines. So far, they do not appear to have been developed. Both metals also exist in Ecuador, and might be profitably mined if a more enterprising population had them in possession. The sands of the rivers of Guayaquil, and some of the affluents of the Amazon, contain grains and scales of gold, and the province of Oriente is represented as rich in both the precious metals; but the Indians, who are almost the only inhabitants and miners in these localities, habitually conceal from Europeans all knowledge of the mines.

When the comparatively unoccupied departments of these republics shall become settled by an energetic and industrious people, their annual supplies of these metals may amount to many millions of dollars. We estimate their products for the forty-four years at an annual supply of $300,000, and for the