CONDITION OF THE MINERS OF PERU.
The following correspondence, addressed to the Academical Society of Lima, tends to throw much light on the condition of the Peruvian miners, and on the internal economy of the mines. The first letter is from an individual of the above profession, who stiles himself Egerio Chrysoforo, and is to this effect.
"Mexico has constantly flourished by her mines; while Peru can scarcely maintain herself by hers, notwithstanding they are richer and more numerous. This diversity of successes, in the same order of causes, proceeds solely from the different estimation in which the pursuit is held in each of these kingdoms. In Mexico, a merchant, or an adventurer, advances, on the bare word of the miner, from fifty to a hundred piastres, towards the exploration of a mine, and receives, without abandoning the speculation, the information that the vein has been missed. In Peru, on the other hand, an habilitador[1] has scarcely advanced a sum of ten or twelve piastres, if he can even be prevailed on to supply so much, than he wishes both the miner and his mines to be ground in the mill for the pulverization of the ores, to the end that the pina may be secured to him, and his eventual profits ascertained.
"The enemies of the body of miners seek to justify them-
- ↑ The habilitadores are speculators who establish themselves in the vicinity of the mines, to make advances to the miners. They are repaid in the pina, that is, the silver, after it has been freed from the mercury with which it was amalgamated, without having been fused.
