The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-10-03
Re ERUPTION OF SILVER.
THE SILVER MINES OF BoLIF.
IA.
Are Among the Richest In the World
An American Enterpriss and ITS
Wonderful success,
Especial Correspondence Of the Journal
and Courier.)

| Wonderful success,
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
and Courier.)
La Paz, Bolivia, August Is. 1908. /.
From time immemorial the gold and
silver mines Of Peru and Bolivia-both
| these modern republics having been in
eluded in one province under the old
Spanish regime-have been celebrated
in history and tradition as the very
richest in the world. During the last
two centuries about five hundred mill
lion dollars worth have been taken
from Peru alone: and official data.
proves that the single mountain of Pe-#
posi-, in Bolivia, has yielded the ineon-
eeivable sum of almost three billion dol
lars worth of money since its discovery
in 1545.
The ores Of Potosi, Cerro del Pasco
and other noted mines are SO rich that
a yield of two hundred dollars per ton
is common, even with the primitive
methods now employed. Remembering
that miners of the United States lind It
profitable to work mineral worth only
ten dollars per ton one may form some
idea what these Andean treasure-houses
might be made to disclose in tie hands
of. wide-awake workmen aided by mod
ern machinery. The gold and silver
! fields of these countries are producing
comparatively little nowadays, owing 10
the poverty and ignorance of the people,
their poor methods and worse manage
ment. For many years numbers Of the
mines most famous in history have had
nothing done to them beyond the reduc-
ton by modern processes of the refuse
Of the ancient miners.
I Perhaps the richest region on the
globe is that Of Potosi, the name itself
signifying fan Eruption Of Silver.
And the mountain is well named. for IL
is broken out all over with precious
metal, like well-defined case of small
pox. More than five thousand tunnels
and openings have been made in it, ev-
cry one of which has produced gold,
copper, iron, lead, tin, quicksilver, zinc,
anthony or some other mineral and
silver in greatest abundance. Gold has
been found in many places, buthas new
er been extensively mined, being mncia
I 1ldIutT 25lO get stLi & Wy hllS pAUNCsaAo II
vogue, while silver is so plentiful that
the people can afford to dispense with
the more precious but troublesome met
al To this day big nuggets of pure
gold are occasionally picked up by some
wandering prospector, and these bring a
higher price when sold as curios than
the value Of the bullion. Years ago Po-
tosi received its greatest boom by
means Of a stroke of lightning, which
detached mass Of solid gold from some
unknown cliff away UP the mountain
side and dropped 1t at the feet of a
group Of miners in the vale below. For
a long time this mysterious nugget was
the wonder Of the world; then it was
sold at fabulous price to the royal mu-
scum at Madrid, where 1t may still be
seen. Early mao the seventeenth cen-
fury the city of Potosi boasted of more
than one hundred thousand inhabi-
/ tants, but to-day 1t has hardly twenty
1 thousand. OF late years its mines have
been comparatively neglected, SO that
the output Of them all does not exceed
$2,5oO,OOO a year. f If the spirit of revo-
luton ever remains laid long enough
for capitalists to feel secure in invest
ing their money here, and if roads are
constructed so that the products Of in
terror Bolivia may find an easy outlet
to the sea and proper machinery for
working the mines find ingress by the
same means, a renaissance may occur
which will remind the world Of the Ell
/ Dorado of olden times.
At present the most prosperous min-
ing enterprise in Bolivia is a purely
American one, carried on exclusively by
United States money and machinery,
and is owned by Mr. w. K. Chnsty, a
young millionaire of Boston, Mass. His
principal mines, Of silver-lead ore, lie
at the base Of Sorato, the great noun
tain near the southeastern shores of
Lake Titicaca, which is one of the
|grandest snoW-clad giants of the An
dean system. He has also some extern
sive smelling works, and has been
granted by the government a monopoly
Of the smelling business in Bolivia for
a period of fifteen years. He has I'M
ported a diamond drill from Chicago,
and the president gave him the exelu-
sive right to use such a machine In the
/ so-called republic for ten years. All
this business, of which Mr.. Christy is
the sole owner, goes under the general
name of "Empresa Titicaca,'' and in
cludes not only one of the most extern
sive silver-lead mines known to man,
and the drill and smelling works above
mentioned, but several smaller silver
mines in the adjacent region and the
only coal mine in Bolivia. The latter,
in a comparatively treeless country
where the only fuel from earliest times
has been llama-dung and a species Of
fungus, mine of good bituminous coal
is worth about as much as so many
Jumps of gold. The way it came to be
found was as follows: The Indians OF
these high attitudes use llamas exclu-
sively for beasts of burden, and the
general cure--all among them for any
injury or ailment to which the queer
little animals are heir has been petro-
leum for external application. 1t Is a
very expensive remedy, however, for
these poor Indians, the most inferior
kerosene costing not less than$1.5o per
gallon in La Paz, and goodness knows
how much more in rernoter districts
An Indian coming through the untrav-
elled portion of the Sorato region one
day came upon pool of greasy mud
which smelled so like petroleum that he
applied it to an ailing llama, with the