Evening star., 1898-08-06

melted and that lump of silver Stag had
taken their place.
From Brewing to Smelling.
The biggest Yankee enterprise 1 have
found in mining way south of the equa-
tor is the smelling works of the Backus
anc Johnston Company at Casapalca, Peru
ihls company is composed of Mr. j.
Backus a Brooklyn man, who is a nephew
OF the famous engineer Meiggs; Mr.
j. H. Johnston of Bath who came out
mere mere TO work on the Meiggs railways. ana
capt. H. Guyer, the owner of the Guyer
Springs in Idaho, who is we'll known as q
practical miner and mining engineer in our
western states. Backus and Johnston made
d Lice tnlhS IN establishing a brewery 1t
Lima Ihey imported machinery for =
from the United States and made money
from the start. They sold the brewery somt
years ago to an English syndicate for
S"Oooo IN gold. They have since been
oeahhS IN mines, and have put a great deaI
OF money into their Smelter This is situat
ed at Casapalca, on the Oroya raiIroa}
away up in the Andes ninety-five miles
ron rom the sea and 13,6O6 feet above it, The
WORKS run night and day and I am told
that they smelt to as good advantage as
any establishment of the United States.
me superintendent of the smelter is Mr.
frank Pierce. the son of Richard r. Pierce
OF the Well-known Argo Smelling Works If
Denver, and the smelling is done after
much the same plan as that of the Argo
Ire company also has extensive silver
mines at Casapalca Capt Guyer told me
that the profits of the mines and works
during the past year were more than SlGO
SOD, while the profits of the year preceding
were even greater. About 500 men are EN-
pioyed ana the company controls the towr
OF Casapaica, which has grown I'D about
the works. The snleter was originally
started on a small scale to work over The
dumps OF the Ryo and other silver mines OF
which there something like 900 TONS
at TINS point. Then the
Ryo copper and silver mine and took a ten
years lease of the Carlos Francisco mine
both CT these mines had been worked from
the surface for many wears Rackus AMI
Johnston decided to run a tunnel into tbe
mountain and strike the ore body l 7CO feet
heiow the upper workings. They did this
put tailed to find pay dirt in the Ryo. A
ieW months ago the tunnel was pushed on
into the Francisco vein and here va,v
flch body of ore was struck l was shown
spe cimens of the ore at Casapalca TIE
seih n Is seven feet wide, and twenty inches
OF 1t assays, l am told, $50 ounces of silver
10 the ton. The tunnel Is 5000 feet below.
the outcfoppngs of the ore. and it is be-
ileNed that some rich pockets will be struck
III WORKING upward This miEe Is worked
aIter the approved American fashion Tthe
tunnels nave railroad tracks in them and
the ore when brought to the surface is
sent to the mills on a gravity tramway.
Ten-Day Llama Trip.
In addition to their own ore the Backus
and Johnston Company do large business
in smelling for the mines Of Yauli and of
Cerro de Pasco. The ore is carried from
forty to seventy-five miles to the smeIters
on the backs of llamas. Each of the llamas
carries about 100 pounds, and they are
driven here by the Indians in herds of from
twenty to fifty. 1t is not an uncommon
thing for 2C0 llamas to be unloaded in a
day at Casapalca, and the yards of the
smelter We're full Of these curious beasts
curing the whole of my stay. 1t takes the
iamas ten days to make the round trip
from Cerro de Pasco and about two days
from Yauli 1t is of the curious fea-
lures of freighting in the Andes that al
though Yauli is on the line of the railroad
Just twenty-five miles from the smelling
works, the ore can be brought that dis
tance more cheaply on llama back than
on the cars. In the same connection eggs
and vegetables are sometimes carried down
the mountains to the markets of the low
laEds on llamas, although the railroad al
most parallels the route of the llama trail
There is another large smelter at the end
of this railroad, at Antofagasta, on the sea
This smelter belongs to the famous Huan-
chaca Silver Mining Company, which pro-
duces the greater part of the silver of Bo-
liVIa today The smelling works are of
vast extent, comparing in size with any in
the United States They have cost about
two and one-haif million American dollars,
and smelt the ores of this company eX-
cIusiNey. 1t is a magnificent establish
The Gold of Incas.
AS to the existence of sold almost every
where in these Andean mountains there
is no doubt, but the finding it in paying
quantities is a different thing. The
amounts of treasure gathered by the In
dians before the days of the Spaniards and
since then have given false idea of the
richness Of the country. In the days Of
the TpcaS oh hiafc
by the Spaniards. had the masses as their
slaves They could put thousands of them
at gold washing in the various rivers and
though each man got but little the aggre-
gate was large. There was little wear and
tear cn the gold thus gathered 1t was
not used as money and but little of it went
into the hands of the common people, 1t
accumulated as the ornaments of the no.
bles and as decorations in the temples
and was consequently found III great guam
titles when the Spaniards came The
Spaniards themselves used the Indians as
| slaves and worked them SO hard that to-
day the Indian population of both Bo-
! livia and Peru is not one-tenth of what
| it was at the time of the invasion of Plzar-
| ro. The mineral region least prospected is
| that on the eastern side of the Andes.
] These parts of the country have been
| worked for years by savage Indians, who
| still bring gold to the settlements and
| dispose OF it in way of trade. The In
| dians hostile to foreigners and drive
I
| the rivers are covered with a dense vege-
tation, and the climate is in most parts
maiarious and very unhealthful. There
| are placer mines worked by the Indians
| on the Maranon, the Benz and Santiago
| rivers, and on the latter 1 am told that
| the gravel often pans out two ounces to
| the yard. Many of the mountain streams
| were paved by the Incas during the dry
seasons, when the water was low. The
| floods brought the gold down from the
mountain, and this was caught IN the cob
| bles and cleaned up when the waters went
| down. L travelled for some days with an
| English mining engineer named Sharp,
/ who has been sent out here by some Lon
| don capitalists to investigate certain prop
| critics. Said he: $50 far as have gone,
| and have travelled extensively in the GEN.
! trail parts of Peru, l find that the gold
| lodges are few and far between and very
| uncertain to extent. The free gold has
| been pretty we'll worked out and what Is
| left is in iron pyrites. copper pyrites and
| arsenical pyrites. from which it Is difficult
| to extract 1t. The mines are pockety and
| uncertain. Such mining as is done by the
Peruvians is after the most wasteful
methods. They use the arastria process.
4 1<,va At Laos af