Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/234

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214
OFFICIAL VISIT
[CH. XIV.

of ore extracted from these mines yields seventeen marks, six ounces and three-eighths of an ounce of silver[1].

There are other mines in the province of Comayagua; to facilitate the working of which the National Assembly passed a decree, on the 20th of February 1824, for delivering the gunpowder to the miners at prime cost. In Costa Rica, they are working mines of gold and silver; and some of copper have been discovered. The parties engaged in them are Mr. Trevithick and a Biscayan. The Supreme Government, as soon as the object of these persons was known, directed a letter, on the 30th of March 1824, to the Gefe of Costa Rica, to afford them every facility. In the interim, a company had been forming in England, and was established on the 1st of February 1825, with a capital of 6,750,000 dollars, under Don Antonio José de Irisarri, agreeably to a sanction transmitted to him from his govern-

  1. A quintal is 100lbs. net: a mark is eight ounces.