The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-30 00:00:00

Minerals of Darien,

Of the aurifercus character of the soil in many parts of
Darien I satisfied myself by tracing out some of the mines
formerly worked by the Spaniards. Of these the richest
was the Mina Real, or Royal Mine, in the Cereo del
Espiritu Santo, near Cana, in the east of Darien, which, as
appears from the returns of the Auditor Geaeral of the
Royal Treasury, paid, on an average, 100,000 castellanos,
or 300,000 dollars a year for the King's veintavo, or 5 per
cent. royalty. This mine was closed in 1685 by a decree of
the King of Spain, in consequence of the incursions of the
buccaneers, whom the fame of its riches attracted to
the isthmus. The following is a translation of the
decree :—" Year 1685, Royal Decree, March 12—That the
President of Panama break up and close the
mines of gold that exist in the vicinity of the rivers
of the province of Darien, because the coveting of them has
induced the pirates to undertake the transit from the sea of
the north t' the sea of the south, to the prejudice of the
public cause, and that the Viceroy of Peru co-operate with
him in the work." The original may be seen in the archives
of the Viceroyalty of Peru, at Lima, T. 3, N. 7. From a
tradition existing amongst the Granadians in the south of
Darien, I learned that the miners were n groes bought by
gentlemen who received a licence horn the King of Spain
to work the mines; that they hewed out the rock, ground
it in mortars by means of oxen, and kept a stream of water
running into the mortars, into which it was conveyed, by
tubes, from rivulets ou the mountain's side. The miners
had their heads shaved, and were branded on the
forehead. The town, Santa Cruz de Cana, had two bat-
teries, a strong garrison, nine villages or missions, and
many farms and hunting establishments in its vicinity.
No vestige of it now remains, and its site is overgrown by
forest. The produce of the mine used to be sent 'to Santa
Maria, on the Tuyra, for shipment to Panama. This town
was taken and burned by the buccaneers who crossed the
Isthmus from Caledonia Barbour to the Tuyra, via the
Chuquanaqua, in 1688. Amongst them were William
Dampier, the celebrated navigator; Basil Ringrose, Barty
Sharp, Richard Sawkins, and Surgeon Lionel Wafer, all
of whom, except Sawkins, wrote accounts of the expedition.
Sharp, on his return to London, was prosecuted at South-
wark, for piracy, at the instance of the Spanish Ambassa•
dor, but was acquitted Jor want of evidence. A very large
quantity of gold had been shipped trout Santa Maria to
Panama only tw.) days before the arrival of the buccaneers.
There are very stringent decrees against buccaneers on this
isthmus, in the archives of Lima, dated respectively 27th
Sept., 1683, 31st Dec., 1672, 31st July, 1686, and 14th Nov.,
1690; all apparently called for by distinct acts of flagrant
buccaneering. The wealth which the Spaniards derived
from the mine of Cana must have been considerable, judg-
ing from the fact that they maintained torts with strong
garrisons at all the approaches to it—viz., at Boca Chica,
Chapigana, Real de Santa Maria, Yavisa, Molineca, and
Pinogana. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made
by Americans to find out the mine, the precise locality of
which I alone succeeded in discovering. The nearest in-
habited place to it is Molineca, 24 miles distant. Besides
Cana there are other mountains in the east of Darien, rich in
gold, as San Juan, San Jose, Tumbaiaabe, Seteganti, &c.
The adjacent province of Choco, to the eastward of Darien,
has long been famous for its rich washings, from which
a considerable quantity of geld is annually exported. The
richest placeres aro on the Bebara and Andagueda, branches
of the Atrata. Immediately eastward of Chaco is Antioquia,
a province which yields two-thirds of all the gold found in
New Granada. To the west of Darien, in the Isthmus o

Panama, there are also gold washings. In an exploration
which I made from Panama to Pacora, about 30 miles dis-
tant, and in which I crossed the Rivers Matarnillo, Abaju,
Lalaha, Mari-Prieta, San Bartolome, and Juan Dias,
I ascertained the existence of extensive gold washings,
and saw evidences, in many places, and the mining
operations of the old Spaniards. There was a settle-
ment once established on the Pacora, by Mr M'Gregor,
formerly British Consul at Panama, and Don Juan
Ergote, an Andalusian, who used to cut Mora Limber, and
and export it to Guayaquil and Callao.

Near San BartolOrnj is the Cerro oel Pilon del Oro, the
highest mountain in that district, whence it is said a
SFaniard once extracted a block of gold. On the Terable
and other branches of the Chepo, near the boundary of
Darien, Major Doss found a large quantity of gold in 1852.
He also rediscovered the old mine of Sousou, in the ruins
of which an immense quantity of gold, which was ready
for transportation when it caved in, is said to be buried.
Gold is also found at Penonorne, westward of Panama. 11,
is scarcely necessary to state that gold mines are worked
in Veraguas, in the western part of the Isthmus.

Thus, not only is Darien itself an auriferous country, but
it has gold-bearing regions on each side of it, and it is quite
possible that the excavations and cuttings which will be
required for the canal may bring to light extensive deposits
of gold.

Among the minerals of Darien it is not unlikely that coal
may be found, since there are coal mines both to the east-
ward and westward of it, and it was the opinion of Sir E.
Parry and Mr Wheelwright that the veins of coal in Chi-
riqui and Veragaas bisected the whole isthmus. In July,
1851, I saw some specimens of coal at Lorico, on the Sinu,
which had been obtained at Cienago de Oro, higher
up the river. The Sinn is the next large river to
the eastward of the Atrato. On the banks of the
Carare, a branch of the Mag alena, coal has also been
found, and on my passage to Honda, in April, 1852, I met
a gentleman who was proceeding to Velez to hire labourers
to work in the Carare coal mines. Coal has also been found
on the banks ot the Magdalena itself, near Conego, about
twelve miles below Honda. Coal of excellent quality is ob-
tained in the neighbourhood of the plain of Bogota, between
the village of Soachi and the great Fall of Tequendama,
which is twelve mile- S.W. of Bogota. This coal is used
in Mr Wilson's iron works at Pacho, near the ash works
of Cipaquira. Between Facativs. and Vitiate, on the
road from Honda to Bogota, there is also a verb
extensive coal district. As to Chiriqui, W. W.
Ridley, Esq., C.E., of New York, says in his report :
"Concerning the quantity of coal that can be obtained in
Chiriqui, no doubt can be entertained that it is sufficient
to supply the steamers on the Pacific for ages." Messrs.
Whiting and Shumaa in their report, dated April 1, 1851,
on the coal formation of the Island of Muerto, near David,
in Chiriqui, say— " We have found the Muerto coal to burn
equally as free as the very best English coal, emitting a
bright, beautiful 11 ime, with as much bitumen." This coal
contains 58 per cent if solid carbon. At the Island of
Muerto, Messrs. Whiting and Shuman also found monu-
ments and columns covered with hieroglyphics, similar •to
those discovered in Yucatan by Mr. Stephens.—There
are also columns, idols, altars, images of the sun,
and other evidences of the former existence, in New
Granada, of a great nation now extinct, at San Augustin,
and in the forests of Laboyos and Fimana, about 2 deg
north, near the sources of the Magdalena. Some years ago
a discovery was made at the village of Tarraba, in Costa
Rica, of a large bed of coal, upwards of six miles in length
and 160 feet in breadth. Thus the existence of coal, both to
the eastward and westward of Darien, render it very pro-
bable that Sir E. Parry and Mr Wheelwright will be found
to have been correct in their opinion, and that future in-
vestigations will lead to the discovery of coal in Darien.
The existence of coal in Veraguas, Chiriqui, Costa Rica,
Vancouver's Island, the Aleoutian Archipelago, Amoy,
and the Island of Formosa, is a great point in favour ot
the route from Panama to China by grand circle
sailing. I believe that coal may be found in the Galls-

pagos Islands, which are occasionally visited by whalers in
quest of water and of the large species of turtle, from which
they derive their name. I visited these islands in May,
1849, in the whaling brig Norman, of Nantucket, Captain
Gardiner, on my pa, sage trom Panama to San Francisco.
The Norman, like many of the Naatucket whalers, was
navigated by a crew of Portuguese from Fayal, in the
Azores. An enterprising Equadorian has recently settled
on one of the islands and introduced some cattle,—" The
htionus of Darien" by Dr Clam.

FALL OF EARTjI AT WINDSOR CASTLE.--Yester-
day morning, at an early hour, one of the sides
of the deep excavation which has been made near the wall
of Wolsey's Chapel, Windsor Castle, became loosened,
and fell into the cavity which has been dug for the purpose
of containing the heating apparatus for the chapel. The
opening, which had bees carried down to the chalk of the
hill on which the Castle is built, is partially filled with
some tons of earth and clay from the side which has given
way. Had the accident occurred a little later, it is pro-
bable some of the workmen, wh® would then have been
in the hole, would have suffered by the slip.
MRS TOM THUMB HAS A BABY.—The New York
correspondcnt of the Boston Post writes :—" I am
at liberty to say, bluntly, that Mr and Mrs Tom Thumb
have a baby, a real, genuine, flesh-end-blood chip of the
old blocs, and three months old at that I Those who have
seen the 'blessed brat' describe it as neither a world's
wonder nor a world's fright, but a little, cunning, crying
doll of a thing, and in no respect peculiar or remarkable,
except in the promise it gives of becoming as big again as
either of its immediate ancestors. Not being the seventh
son of a seventh son, I wont pretend to enter into the
scientific questions involved in the lusus natutae, farther
than to congratulate the happy parents and Grandpa
Barnum upon tbis addition to the happy family at B.idge-
port ; even if it does contribute an added curiosity to the
great 13.9wrnara's stock in trade."