The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-08-16

Steel company, and the Maryland Steel
company. Its maximum monthly output
| is 40, 900 tons. Siboney is the shipping
port of the Juragua Iron company's
mines.
The Spanish American company, OF
which Charles F. Rand, Of New York, is
president, acquired its property In 1852.
Its shipments so far have been 400 OO0
| tons-to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Eng
land. Scotland, Wales, Belgium and
Germany, where it has cen sold in the
open market. Its maximum monthly
| output is $4,000 tons. Daiquiri is the,
shipping port of the Spanish-American
Iron Company. Both these mining com.
panies shut down, owing to the war, on
April 81 1898 They will resume work
at once.
The Spanish-Americap Company gives
employment to 5S2 men and the Juragua
Company to over 800.
The Sigua Iron Company, which started
with big boom in 1880, built broad
guage railroad nine miles long and ex-
tensive buildings and SHIT DIS, shipped four
cargoes in 1894, aggregating $4,000 tons,
and have not been heard from since.
abandoning their property and closing
down their mines. Sigua, about seven
miles east of Daiqniri, was their port of
shipment. ALI their buildings, sheds,
and wharves valued at SO, 100000 were
burned down by the insurgents, and
their railroad beds and trestles. evide ntly
very badly built, have all been washed
away in the last three years by heavy
rains Their machine shops have all been
destroyed and were at one tire used as
salt works by the Cubans. They brought
the salt water long the railroad tracks
for distance of a mile, boiled it in the
company's watts and boilers and thus OBJ
tanned the alt.
The price OF ore today is about So q ton,
but when the Juragua Iron Company
began to operate it was worth In the
height orhood of 81 ton
One thing must be said in favor of the
Spanish Government in this respect
Their mining laws have boon exceedingly
liberal encoura cling and Offering every
facility to the opening up OF this new
field. All the machinery received by the
mining companies was exempted from
duty and all the coal imported and used
by them was entered free
Daiquirl deserves special mention
and recollection as being the great slave
emporium Eastern Cuba in the days of
slavery. They were landed at Daiquiri
and thence marched up to village called
vinent, where they were parcelled off
to the different planters. The walls of
the old slave pen at Vinent are still
standing.
The ignorance and denseness of the
flower of Spain's nobility who once flour
ished in Santiago province is manifested
in the fact that they never knew or sus-
pected the existence of ore in their prop
erty, calling the ore veins that ran
through their estates the scailo negra"
or "blacEroad" without for moment
wondering at or investigating its nature
AS Is we'll known the Santiago ore, with
its low percentage OF PHOSPHORUS ranks,
together with the Swedish, and the Span
ish Demerara mineral as the Hcrack ore"
Of the world.
The Pompo Mining Company of
Manganese ore-is relatively new con-
Germ and only shipped before the war
about 400 tons of ore. 1t has, however,
excellent prospects, as it can easily COM
pete in price and quality with the Japan
csc or any other Manganese or in the
world.
The price of hauling the different ores
from the mines to their shipping points is
relatively insignificant.
For the greater part of the way the road
is down grade on the slope OF hill, or
mountain. The motive power employed
is simply gravity.
An endless rope or cable to which is
attached one full and one empty chop
per- or ore car keeps in constant motion,
the loaded down grade Car pulling the
empty one up hill and so on ad ininitum.
At the foot of the grade, the bottom Of
the car is made to slide out, the ore falls
through pocket into the car beneath
and oot the ,t empty car a. nv and
course drawn by the descending heavily
laden car which follows it.
This economies motive power and rem
ders mining in Cuba comparatively cheap
and easy. The miners live in villages
built and set aside for their use, in the
immediate vicinity of the mines. Bar
racks are provided for the bachelors,
huts or little houses for those who have
families in which they are provided by
the Company with considerable comfort.
A "tionda'', or store, is opened in
the village where meals, provisio ms and
clothing can be had for nominal sum.
The wages of the miners is 81. 90 per
day-the greater number OF those en-
ployed are "Galloges" North Spaniards
from Galicia) who are, as rule. honest
hard working servants.
The mining village of the Juragua
Iron Company is called "FirmOja" and
that of the Spanish American Company
is known as V1nent.
The entire iron district is parcelled off
clear up to the "Gran Piedra,' the high
est peak of the Sierra Maestro and owned
by private individuals. Most of the titles
are held by Spaniards, some small parcels
by Frenchmen
A curious feature is that the land fee is
separate from the mining rights, both
Jules rarely Delng held by the same in
dividual. If You find ore on anybody
lands you can announce the mineral
properly and be cannot work it without
buying the mining rights from you,
AS it's name indicates GEL Cobro" about
Is miles from Santiago, is the heart of the
copper fields of Cubs. These copper
mines are extremely valuable and have
been worked since early in the century.
They were owned by two companies,
one English, the other American but have
been abandoned now for almost thirty
years. They were forced to shut down
by the Cobro Railroad company that held
the charter rights, and with which they
got into litigation. The mines are ex-
ceedinely deep and very damp. One of