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Moreover Acosta* who went over both Americas, and whose work can only be sufficiently appretiated by those who have visited the same places, confirms the assertions of Cieça. He relates that "in the time of the Licentiate "Polo," (consequently before the year 1549), "the fifth amounted to a million and a half of piastres per annnmt." He adds notwith

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standing the confusion which prevails in the "books of accounts of the first years, we know "from tradition, and from the investigation "carried on by orders of the viceroy Don "Francisco de Toledo, that the quantity of regis"tered silver from 1545 to 1574, amounted "to 76 millions of piastres, and from 1574 "to 1585, to 35 millions of piastres, (at 13 "reales and one quartillo), which in forty years "amounts to 111 millions." These 111 millions of piastres imaginary money (pesos de minas), only suppose an annual produce of 555,000 marcs, which differs very little from that of the vein of Guanaxuato. There is no doubt that Acosta speaks of the whole quantity of silver extracted from the mines, and registered at the treasury. He says expressly se ha metido a quintar, monta lo que

* Historia natural y moral de las Indias, (Barcelona, 1591) p. 138.

+ Which supposes a produce of 1,490,000 marçs (Herrera, Decada viii. l. ii. c. xiv.)

se ha quintado. Solorzano translates this passage of the natural history of Acosta, by the following words: ex Potosiensi fodina extracti sunt centum et undecim milliones.

official

The authors whose works contain exaggerated valuations of the quantity of the precious metals which have inundated Spain since the middle of the 16th century, appear to have confounded the value of the produce of the mines with the fifth paid from it. Although they had no knowledge of the papers which I have here published, they would never have fallen into this error had they only read attentively the works of Acosta, Cieça, and Alonzo Barba*. The latter who filled the cure of a parish in the town of Potosi, only values the quantity of silver extracted from the Cerro de Potosi between 1545 and 1636 at 450 millions of piastres of 8 reals, a sum which merely supposes an annual produce of 4,900,000 piastres, or 576,000 marcs, which forms a singular contrast with the 613 millions gratuitously admitted for the first periods from 1545 to 1556. However, Alonzo Barba had no motive for lowering the total produce; on the other hand, he endeavours to prove that an extent of ground of 60 square leagues might be covered with

* Barba. Lib. ii. c. i.

the number of piastres coined from the silver of Potosi.

The following table exhibits the state of these mines from the period when the fifths were recorded with accuracy.

Mines of the Cerro de Potosi (Hatun-Po

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From 1556 to 1566 2,159,216 428,767

1595 7,540,620 1,497,380 887,073

1585

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As there is some uncertainty respecting the period at which they ceased to reckon by piastres of 13 reals, of which 5, make a marc of silver, I prefer giving both valuations of the piastres till 1595; and we thus obtain the maximum of wealth which we are at liberty to suppose. A passage of the commentaries of Garcilasso, already quoted by us,

would lead one to believe, however, that a few years after 1580, they reckoned at Peru by piastres of 8 reals de plata. During the whole period of 233 years, from 1556 to 1789 the mining of Potosi never attained so high a degree of splendour as from 1585 to 1606. For several consecutive years the fifth was a million and a half of piastres, which supposes a produce of 1,490,000, or 882,000 marcs according as we value the piastre at 13 or 8 reals. This wealth is the more surprising, as according to Acosta, more than a third of the silver was never registered. After 1606 the produce has been gradually diminishing, and especially, since 1694. From 1606 to 1688 however, it was never below 350,000 marcs. During the last half of the 18th century the mountain generally supplied from three to four hundred thousand marcs; and this produce is undoubtedly still too considerable to allow us to advance with a celebrated author* that the mines of Potosi are no longer worth the trouble of working. These mines in their present state are not the first in the known world; but we may rank them immediately after the mines of Gua

naxuato.

The contents of the minerals of Potosi

* Robertson's History of America, b. iv. p. 339 and 399.

have diminished in proportion to the increase of the works in depth. In this point of view, and in many others besides, the Cerro de Potosi bears a great analogy to the mines of Gualgayoc. At the surface of the earth, the veins of Rica, Centeno and Mendiata, which traverse primitive slate were full, throughout their whole extent (puissance) of a mixture of sulphuretted, red, and native silver. These metallic masses rose in the form of crests (crestones), the rocks of the wall and roof having been destroyed either by the action of water, or by some other cause which has changed the surface of the globe. The Veta del Estaño on the other hand, contained at its surface only sulphuretted tin, and the minerals of muriated silver only began to appear at great depths*. This mixture of two formations on one vein, exists also in the Old Continent, for example, in several mines of Freiberg in Saxonyt. In 1545 minerals containing from 80 to 90 marcs per quintal were very common; but we must not admit with Ulloa that the whole volume of minerals extracted from the mine, amounted to this degree of wealth. Acosta says expressly that in 1574 the mean contents were from 8 to 9 marcs, and that the minerals which

* Barba, lib. i. cap. xxxii. p. 56. + Werner Gangtheorie, p. 248.

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