Silver Mines of Honduras circa 1855

Last Updated: 17th Dec 2007

In 1856, Ephraim G. Squier published a popular account of his visits to the rich silver mines of the Tegucigalpa district of Honduras, now part of the Francisco Morazán Department.

Born in Bethlehem, New York in 1821, Squier's budding career as a journalist took him to Ohio, where he became fascinated the Mound Builders - a nation of ancient native Americans who had constructed complex earthworks in the Mississippi Valley. In collaboration with Smithsonian Institute anthropologist Edwin Davis he published
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1847). Expanding his interests to Central and South America, Squier quickly became a recognized authority on the ethnology and archaeology of the Americas. In 1849 he accepting a post as US
charge d'affairesfor Central America, a position which provided him a unique opportunity for further study. In 1853, he became Secretary of the Honduras Interoceanic Railway Company, and also served as United States commissioner to Peru from 1863 to 1865, and US consul general of Honduras in 1868.

A VISIT TO THE SILVER MINES OF CENTRAL AMERICA

IT was included in the instructions which I marked out my course of travel in Central America, that I should examine the silver region of Honduras, where that State borders upon Nicaragua, and report to my employers the condition, yield, and probable value of the principal mines. In pursuance of this duty, I collected all the information that could be gathered by conversation during the month of my first sojourn in Tegucigalpa, before visiting the gold fields of Olancho; and on my return I made large additions to this knowledge by a personal inspection of the localities. On both occasions I enjoyed the hospitality of many distinguished gentlemen interested in the production of silver, more especially of the Senores Lozano and Ferrari, who are probably the owners of the finest and most accessible mines of silver on either continent.

The gold of modern discovery has widened the basis of our commerce, and, as an object of productive industry, has given birth to two new commercial centres, which will divide between them the wealth of the Pacific. These events are more important than revolutions.

But if GOLD has thus established for itself a new dignity and power, as a cause and instigator of progress, no less, in times near at hand, will the virtue of SILVER be acknowledged; when its production, like the sister metal, shall fall, once for all, into the hands of Anglo-Saxon industry, and under the ken of its prophetic intelligence. But I am not now permitted to predict, and must confine these pages to what I have merely seen and heard.

Nearly in the centre of the plain of Lepaguare, fronting the great hacienda of Don Francisco Zelaya, there is a hill, or ridge, called Cerro Gordo, about eight hundred feet high. In this hill, which is a mass of primary rocks, there are veins of silver; but as they are in the centre of some of the richest gold fields of the continent, many years will have elapsed before the price of American miners’ labor will allow their being worked. Beyond the Cerro Gordo I saw no silver ores until I arrived, on my home journey, at Tegucigalpa; for I did not take the road through Cedros or San Antonio, but chose a shorter route across the mountains, as shown in the map on the following page.



Tegucigalpa (the Department) contains within its boundaries ten minerales, as the Spaniard call them — mining districts — each of which has its group, or cluster, of important mines, most of them long since opened, and many in a good working condition. I shall begin this brief account of them with a narrative of my descent into an old and deep silver mine in the mineral of Santa Lucia.




The map on page 726, which is the only one I have seen, was made for me by the venerable Don Francisco Lozano, himself a rich mine of information on all that relates to silver and gold. His death, which happened during my absence in Olancho, was a serious loss to the silver interest of Honduras. In company with Senor Ferrari, I started early in the morning for the mineral of Santa Lucia, half a day’s ride from Tegucigalpa in a northeasterly direction, by a winding and ascending road. Half way to Santa Lucia we turned aside to take a passing look at the Mine Grande, celebrated for the breadth of its veins. It is a joint property of Ferrari and the heirs of the elder Lozano. The principal vein (veta principal) is 11 varas (33 feet) in thickness, and yields a good working per-centage to the ton of ore. Good ores yield from $80 to $200 per ton, and rich ores much more than that. The richness of an ore is governed by its chemical constitution, and can not exceed a certain average, unless, as in the Guayavilla mine, it contains threads of pure silver. Mina Grande belonged formerly to the wealthy royalist family of Rosas, who were driven out by the revolution of independence. The works are drained by subterranean channels (taladras). It yielded more than a million to the family of Rosas, whose enormous wealth and tyrannical oppression made them an object of hatred to the revolutionists.

The entrance of the principal vein is situated on a beautiful piece of well-wooded table-land, near the summit of a high mountain of lime-stone, on the camina real (royal highway) to Santa Lucia, more than 4100 feet above the sea. It was amusing, and really pitiable, to observe the excessive rudeness and inefficiency of the methods used for extracting the metal. Two old gray-headed Indians were slowly pounding up the rich ore between large stones; but even by this process they earned a fair living, and a profit for the proprietors. The best organized works employ rude machinery for pounding, which consists of two irregular mill-stones, dragged around in a circular stone water-trough, by mules or oxen pulling at a long beam which turned on a centre post, like old-fashioned cider-mills. One which I saw elsewhere in operation, moved by water, hobbled stupidly around, crushing, it may be, half a ton a day very imperfectly. The crushed ore, or mud, is treated by fire or quicksilver, or both, according to the nature of the ore. A good crushing machine of modern make, such as is used by the quartz miners, will do more than fifty times the work of these rumbling old mills, and with as little cost. A single mill would prepare ore enough on the Mina Grande to yield $5000 in silver every day, and on some mines $10,000. The manager, or major domo, told me, with a great deal of Spanish pathos, that they lost half their silver, and at least half the quicksilver used in amalgamation, by bad machinery and stupid management. I saw little mounds of refuse ore, each of which would be a fortune to a Yankee miner with his crushers and his “science.” An unaccountable error prevails at present about the expenditure required upon silver mines. I saw here, in the Mina Grande, ore enough at hand to keep two crushers at work. A good mill can be bad for five thousand dollars; ten thousand in all would erect the ovens, pay for the quicksilver, and set the miners at work. But the outlay of the same money by a Spaniard would yield only a very moderate return.

We descended from Mina Grande with one of the noblest landscapes in the world before us, through a growth of shrubbery and pitch pine. A sea of mountains, forested to their crowns, lay around us. Arrived at the foot of this eminence, we began to ascend another, at the summit of which is the village, or hamlet, of Santa Lucia. Our tough little mules struggled gallantly up the steep road, and at eleven o’clock we had reached the highest point, 4320 feet above the sea. The temperature, by my own thermometer, did not here exceed 720 Fahrenheit at noon. Our little party stopped at the door of a neat stone house, which belongs to Senor Fialles, and the servant, who was loaded with provisions, soon spread an excellent dinner, of which we gratefully partook after the toil of the morning. After dinner we resumed our journey, traversing by a good road a dense forest for several miles, and arrived at two o’clock before a small hamlet of four adobe houses, the property of Senor Ferrari, one of which covered the entrance of the great San Martin mine, said to be the richest in the district. One of the four houses was designated by Senor Ferrari as a store-house, where the more valuable ore is collected until it can be carried to the mill, three miles distant. A third house served as a residence for the major domo, or director of works, and a fourth for servants.

The entrance to the mine is on the brow of the mountain, looking northwestward against a spur of the Cordilleras, called the Lepaterique, which divides the department of Comayagua from that of Tegucigalpa, and some of its peaks are among the highest in the State. Through a “gap,” or depression, in the Lepaterique, we saw the distant “peak of Comayagua,” near the city of that name, rising like a cone of indigo in the clear evening air. The foliage of the immense valleys and hillsides which environed us was diversified with beautiful tints, the hrighter shades of oak and shrubbery contrasting with the evergreen darkness of the pines.

After we had sufficiently enjoyed the splendor of this rare view, we prepared ourselves for a descent into the famous Mina de San Martin, by first taking each a “stiff horn” of aguardiente to keep off the subterranean cold. Then, with a naked Indian, bearing a tallow candle, to proceed us, and another in similar costume to bring up the rear, with slow and cautious steps we began our backward descent into the “cellarage.”



My seven months’ residence in Honduras had given me a tolerable command of the Spanish language; but during the explanatory conversation which took place between Senor Ferrari, the major domo, and myself — before we entered the mine — I was obliged frequently to ask for definitions of terms. The vocabulary of the miners includes a variety of technical expressions. The ore itself, which they call brosa, is a combination or mixture of crystallized minerals—limestone, quartz, suiphuret of lead, sulphuret of antimony, of iron, of copper, etc., etc. — which fill up the irregular fissure, or break in the mass of the raspalda, or live-rock of the mountain. A vein of ore (veta) may lie between two beds of flat rock, like a sheet between two blankets; or it may be simply the contents of a crack or fissure, which descends into the lower regions of the earth to an incalculable depth. The metal (metales) is some-times pure, in threads of silver, penetrating the crevices of the rock like the roots of a plant; hut the quantity of this is never great, and the best mines are those which furnish a steady yield of rock-ore, or brosa. It is probable that the sulphurets of silver, antimony, copper, mercury, lead, iron, etc., which are found in these crevices, have risen up, either in the form of vapor or of lava (liquid rock), from volcanic furnaces in the deep chambers of the earth.

We entered first what is called a fronton, a horizontal chamber, or drift—in other words, a hole in the rock; but this terminated immediately over a perpendicular shaft or well; in mining language, a pozo. Down this, preceded by our guide, we commenced a slow and cautious backward climb, by means of an upright log of oak, with notches cut in it, by way of steps, for the feet and hands. These posts are called escaleras. An escalera is usually four varas, or eleven and a quarter feet in depth. At the foot of each escalera is a small platform of earth just wide enough for a landing-place; the drift is then horizontal for a few feet, and a second escalera commences. I think that no person would undertake alone, though he were the bravest man in the world, the descent into the gloom of one of these mines. The reflection that others have gone before, and go every day without danger, is hardly sufficient to assure him. At the foot of the second escalera the darkness became impenetrable, and here was the commencement of a fronton, or horizontal drift, with galleries branching out, their roofs supported on either side by walls of solid stone formed of the raspalda, or the natural rock, cut with great regularity, and the roof propped, in addition, with pillars of heavy oaken timber, between which glittered millions of bright reflections from the crystalline ore. The air of this cavern had the clammy dampness of a neglected dungeon. Continuing our way along the drift, we resumed, a little further on, our slow and cautious descent of the escaleras.

I began now to perceive a faint rumbling sound, like the echo of footsteps in a hollow vault. This arose from the blows of the miners sounding far below us.

After a fatiguing descent of 150 feet, in an air so close and palpably damp as to impede respiration, we found ourselves at the bottom of the mine: the temperature at this point was 68° Fahrenheit by my thermometer. From the bottom of the lower escalera the vein had taken a more horizontal direction, and was excavated in caverns with arched roofs, which now re-echoed to the blows of the miners, who struck the rock with pointed bars of iron, breaking off at every stroke portions of the rich and sparkling brosa, and emitting from the chest, as they struck, a peculiar hollow groan, very painful to hear, for one unaccustomed to the sound, but which a tall Herculean fellow assured me was “necessary to the miner, and materially eased his labor.” The echoes of these caverns gave back a dense and muffled sound. It seemed as though the palpable darkness — compared with which the hlackness of the night is twilight - had poured itself into the hollows of my ears and deadened their sensibility. The cold damp, the haggard appearance communicated to all our countenances by the candle-light reflected from the shining ores, the wild and unnatural look of the subterranean workmen, the dark opening which led away to unknown depths and distances into the solid heart of the earth, the idea which continually haunted me of the mountain hanging overhead, which might at any moment fall in and exclude us from the light of day — an accident for which the miner has a word in his dialect, campana — these thoughts made me take an inward resolve that my descent into the Mina de San Martin should he the last of my adventures of this kind. To the perils of the sea and of the wilderness I had been already reconciled by experience; but when I was a miner in California deep shafting was little used, and I had no desire to become acquainted with its dangers.

One of the workmen drove his bar into a bank or shelf of ore, which yielded to the stroke like soft clay, falling out in pieces of from 10 to 30 pounds’ weight, glittering with the pyrites of silver and antimony. I pocketed as much as I dared ascend with. After a toilsome and perilous climb over yawning chasms which seemed like wells of liquid night, we arrived, breathless and reeking with perspiration, at the light of day. For a few moments the glare was intolerable, and we felt the full effects of our fatigue. A pull at the bottle of aguardiente soon, however, put our party in good-humor again, and served to protect us against the much-dreaded catarrh, the only disease of this climate, hut which is apt to terminate in a serious influenza. While we were resting, the major domo, a civil, intelligent fellow, gave me a very clear account of the methods employed for extracting the silver. It yields $200, and even $300, to the ton of ore when treated by American chemists, hut the workmen of Senor Ferrari do not realize half that amount from it. Some very ordinary specimens, which I picked up and took with me to San Francisco, were analyzed by my friend Mr. Hewston, of the Mint, and gave $218 to the ton; Ferrari’s results do not reach half that amount. The major domo appeared to he fully aware of the great loss incurred by the inferior processes in use in Honduras. “,” he exclaimed, “no hay intelijentes, no hai brazos, ni fundos, ni nada - absolutamente nada, Senor — Perdimos la mitad de la plata porque nadie sabe estraerte.” [“We work in the dark here, Sir; no intelligence, no workmen, no funds, nothing— absolutely nothing, Sir. We lose the half of the silver, because we are ignorant of the means of extracting it.”]

To my surprise the proprietor of the mine corroborated the statement, and joined in the complaints of the major demo, and then told me that he was so thoroughly disgusted with the miserable management of the native metallurgists, he would freely give me a quarter of the proceeds of the mine — which is one of the best in Honduras — if I would, of my own knowledge, or with the assistance of a good chemist, enable him to save his enormous losses in silver and quicksilver by the introduction of a good modern process.

Nature does every thing for Honduras, man — at least during the present age — almost nothing. A silver mine in Connecticut or Virginia yielding $20 of silver to the ton, would be a valuable property. The Germans work ores of argentiferous galena, which yield only $5 or $7 to the ton; and they are not unprofitable; large investments of capital are made in mines of an inferior quality in the United States, and roads constructed to reach them, which cost twice what will he required to control the access to the mines of Santa Lucia. It is our gross ignorance of Houduras, its geography, and its metallic wealth, which has allowed us to leave it so long a hidden and useless treasure. Not many years can pass before this darkness will have been dissipated by the press; and I regard even the slight and superficial information contained in this article, scattered as it will he, like wheat from the hand of the sower, over vast surfaces of active and fruitful mind, as the first in a series of events which will end in opening to all the world a new and inexhaustible source of commercial prosperity.

Although we know that, under Spanish rule, millions of silver were taken annually from these mines, we are not therefore to suppose that the methods of mining were in those days any better, or the arts of metallurgy more advanced. The secret of the great yield lay in the number of workmen employed in taking out the ore, and the number engaged in breaking and crushing it. The aim of American miners is to save labor by machinery; machinery, first, to draw the ore up rim the mine; next, to break and crush it into fine dust, rapidly and without waste; and, finally, skillful metallurgy, in amalgamating and refining, which should not only save, as in Germany, every ounce of silver, but economize the quicksilver now dissipated and lost. Where there is a profit of ten dollars by the old process, there should be a hundred by the new.

Ore Crushing Mill

The operation of breaking ore for the mill is now done by a lazy naked native, with a hammer or a stone. A hundred of these fellows would hardly supply the trough of an American quartz-mill. The tanateros, indeed, who are a class of workmen employed to bring up the ore in sacks from the bottom of the mine, do their work manfully, and are, physically, superior kind of laborers. They climb nimbly up the slippery escaleras with a load of 125 pounds attached to their backs. The enormous development of their muscles proves the violence of the exercise. These men are Indians or half-breeds, and are beautiful in form, mild, industrious, and obedient. The same labor would be much better and more economically performed by a small steam-engine, such as would cost only three or four hundred dollars; and yet by the slow methods in present use, more than two millions, it is said, have been netted since it was first opened, long previous to the Revolution, from the San Martin mine; corresponding with more than thirty thousand tons of good ore, allowing the usual losses, from a mine only 150 feet in depth! This is certainly the largest yield on record. Not less than 60,000 tons of rock and ore together must have been carried up on the backs of tanateros! Consequently, one million sacks of stone and ore have been taken out through the mouth of the mine! If steam were applied, the annual yield of this mine, in pure silver, would be limited only by the number of awn who could work abreast in its subterranean galleries.

From the San Martin we rode over the same evening, not a mile distant, to the Gatal another celebrated mine, also the property of Senor Ferrari. Our road lay through a forest of stunted oaks, mingled with large pines, very suitable for mine-timber, and terminated at a small settlement resembling the one already described. Notwithstanding my resolution, I made a second descent into the earth at this point, and found the excavations of the Gatal much more extensive and imposing than those of the comparatively modern San Martin. Galleries branch off to the right and left to a great distance, following the course of a second intersecting bed of ore, which traverses the plane of the larger or perpendicular vein. One of these, called the veta azul or blue vein, is apparently conformable with the stratiflcation — like a bed of trap interposed between two layers of sandstone — while the other (veta principal) is a perpendicular fissure. All the fissures of the mountains, and consequently the beds of ore in this mineral, run north and south, except the veta azul.

I am not a professional geologist, and can not explain, even hypothetically, the causes of these fissures, through which the precious metals have oozed up to the surface from the interior metallic-lava lakes of the earth. Did they arise in vapor, condensing upon the walls of the fissures? Were they dissolved in water, heated far beyond the temperature of white-hot iron, and prevented from evaporating by the pressure of solid miles of rock above them? West the fissures made by ancient earthquakes, themselves occasioned by the bulging of the crust of the earth as it cooled? Did the metals rise molten, in the form of lava? Of one thing I am convinced, however, that the causes — whatever they may have been — pervaded a wide extent of territory, and were deep-seated in the earth. Silver mines in this region never give out; they vary in width, but are indefinitely continued. Their supply is inexhaustible.

While examining the interior of the Gatal, I observed more carefully the method of propping the roof of the excavation. Wherever the roof is shaky, or of loose stone, heavy masses of unhewn timber — oak is preferred — are set under, as supports. The weight of the roof pressing slowly and insensibly downward, will sometimes bend these columns like reeds. Fragments are continually dropping from the roofs of the galleries. The miners grow accustomed to the danger. As I was standing in one of the caves which are left where large masses of ore are taken out, I looked up, and saw over my head a mass of at least five tons weight hanging in the crevice, and ready at any moment to fall. The echo of the voice or the sound of a hammer might have brought it down. One of the miners touched me, without speaking, and pointed to the rock. I stepped quietly out of the way, with a sensation like sea-sickness.

A campana, or “caving-in,” is not so dangerous an affair, however, as might be imagined. Before the roof comes down—more especially when the strata above are horizontal, or moderately inclined—the mine gives out a sound, quivering and grumbling; each timber prop — set close to its fellow — begins to sigh and struggle against the roof like a weary Hercules. The crash comes on slowly. A wind blows out of the mine; the miners run to the main gallery, which is always secure, and a sound is heard for a few moments, not loud, but awfully significant of the forces at work.

After the flight of the Rosas family, in 1831, the Gatal was neglected, and the galleries fell to decay; but recently they have been cleared, and are now worked with considerable results. The works are placed, as usual, upon the brow of a steep hill, perhaps 300 feet above the general table-land of the district. Penetrating the flank of this eminence is a subterranean conduit, or water-drift, called by the miners a taladro. The entrance of the mine is certainly not less than 200 feet perpendicularly above the mouth of the taladro. Out of this runs all the natural drainage of the mine, and the excess poured into it during the rainy season. The drain penetrates horizontally and upward to the galleries, with which it is connected by wells, or shafts, sunk in the remote interior. This taladro is estimated to have cost the Rosas $30,000, when labor under an arbitrary government was far less expensive than at present. American miners would have incurred an outlay of at least $100,000 in the boring of this tunnel, and without it the Gatal mine would he comparatively valueless. There are several mines in the mineral of Santa Lucia drained in the same manner. Taladros are the principal expense in silver mining. Without them the only resource would be a powerful steam-pump, and it is for this reason that all the mines of the department arc opened on heights, which gives an opportunity for subterranean drainage. Farther to the north, on the summit of the hill, is a lumbrera, or air-hole, which must have been equally expensive, as it penetrates to the lower galleries.

As we rode over the country many places were pointed out to me by my companions where silver veins had been traced; and there is no doubt that a net-work of silver penetrates all the mountains of this district. It will always be impossible to estimate the amount of silver contained in these hills, but it is not saying much to affirm that the present waste and wear of silver in arts and commerce might be readily supplied from them.

Having filled a sack with the glittering ore of the Gatal, I mounted with the rest, and we turned our faces homeward. At the roadside I saw a mound of not less than 1000 tons of refuse, or medium ore, mingled with rubbish, too poor for transportation by mules to the mill. This will yield $20 or $30 to the ton, and can be had for the asking. Senor Ferrari assured me that he does not raise more than half a ton a day from the Gatal, employing ten workmen. This dailyr half ton gives full employment to his mill, and yields an average of l2 and a half marcs, equal to 100 ounces of silver. A marc is worth $9 of good coined money in Tegucigalpa. There is not a mine in Santa Lucia which does not average four mares to the quintal of 500 pounds. The native miners, nearly all of them out of employment, haunt the old mines, and by a rude smelting process, in earthen pots, obtain buttons of crude silver, worth intrinsically about $1 the ounce. These are every day brought into Tagucigalpa, and sold to the retail traders at a large discount. This is one source, and at present the principal one, of the silver carried from Belize and San Miguel to London.

While riding in company with a friend in the vicinity of Tegucigalpa, I happened upon a group of Indians near the entrance of a deserted mine. It was a gloomy cavern in the side of the hill, overhung with aged trees. An old woman, with a couple of naked children, was boiling a pot over a fire of pine-knots. The father of the family, with a bar of iron in his hands, stood at the entrance of the cavern, waiting until the strangers should pass by. Several masses of very rich ore lay at his feet. Wishing to see this primitive metallurgist at work, I alighted, and remained awhile in the shade observing the process. A bag of copper dollars and a few words of encouragement were all that was required to induce him to begin again for me. He entered the low drift, creeping on his hands and knees, and soon the muffled blows of the bar announced that he had discovered a mass of ore by the twilight of the mine. In half an hour, or less time, he came out, dragging behind him in a sack about twenty pounds of the shining brosa. The man and woman then selected each a flat stone, and began pounding the ore, which was thus gradually reduced to the condition of a gravelly dust. The fire, meanwhile, was fed largely by the children; a smaller earthen pot, holding a portion of the brosa was set deep in a bed of coals. The wood was piled over it, sulphureous vapors escaped, and when the whole had burned fiercely awhile and fallen to ashes, our son of Tubal Cain drew forth the pot and turned out upon the ground a mass of gray, black, and red slag and ash, out of which I drew with a stick a button of red-hot silver, weighing, perhaps, two ounces. For this button I gave the miner a silver dollar, and he seemed well satisfied with the price, which was less than half its value in the market. These wandering miners form a considerable portion of the country population. Their occupation yields them a meagre subsistence. With them also rests the knowledge of many rich veins in the recesses of the mountains, to which they resort at certain seasons, transmitting the secret through many generations. It is, however, only the best ores that can be treated in such a primitive fashion, and the loss is excessive.

The riches of this wonderful region are not confined, however, to the precious metals. Lead in the form of suiphuret is almost too common to attract attention, more especially in the mineral of El Plomo, the ores of which are a mixture of lead and silver, the former in so large a proportion as to make them unprofitable by the native methods of working.

The hill called “El Chimbo,” two leagues S.S.W. from the city, is a mass of copper dust. The surface of this hill must have been once a solid rock of copper pyrites (sulphuret), now decayed and converted into a blue rotten-stone. While standing on the side of the hill I kicked away the sod with the heel of my hoot, and turned up the copper earth in lumps like potter’s clay. From a quantity of this clay, which was carried home for me by the mozo, I washed out clean grains of native copper. The entire hill seemed to be composed of it. Here, then, are thousands of tons of pure copper to be had for the washing, and a waterfall near by to do it with.

Tegucigalpa should have been called Arguropolis — the Silver City — since there is none other in the world so well entitled to the name. Its grand cathedral, massive public buildings, and well-paved streets testify to its former wealth and prosperity. Many of its private dwellings must have heen occupied by men of vast wealth and aristocratic habits; but the day of these has gone by, and never will return. Non bis in idem — the same fortune will not twice happen to the same people. The Spanish race are outworn; their own servants have thrown down the tools, and now they sigh for us to come and help them.

Las Minas de la Plata, San Juan de Cantaranos, La Mineral de Guascaran, where there is a mine now in operation yielding silver; La Mineral de Plomo, where, in any part of the district, ten or twelve feet of digging uncovers flat layers of argentiferous ores conforming to the strata; Villa Nueva, Santa Lucia, with its six grand mines in a circle of less than twelve miles diameter; Yuscaran, with nine valuable mines, all well situated and drained, and from one of which, the Guayavilla, $500,000 was taken in four months during President Ferrara’s administration; Cedros, on the road to Olancho, where the silver is pure in threads; San Antonio, where there are vast horizontal layers of ore, yielding native silver, only a few yards beneath the surface, where $16,000 was taken out from Senor Gardela’s mine (the Veta Azul) in ten days, and where the Mairena mine, in the years 1804—1808, yielded an immense fortune to its proprietors; all these minerales lie open to the enterprise of Americans, who have the good-will of the government and the proprietors, to introduce machinery and the best methods of extracting the ore.

In the year 1805 Senor Mairena, with a portion of the proceeds of his own, the Mairena mine, built a church in San Antonio, at a cost of $600,000, and, at the feast of dedication, when the edifice was completed, threw away thousands in pieces of silver amoung the crowd. In 1816 the mine which yielded such enormous wealth was abandoned, all the workmen having been taken for military service. The mineral of San Antonio, though less than a quarter of a league square, has produced millions of dollars. At present, silver is taken from it only by a few wandering miners, who get out bars worth from five to ten dollars to sell to the traders.

I found the climate very cool and pleasant during most of the time in this elevated region. Its general height above the sea, which exceeds 4000 feet, makes it temperate, and the thermometer ranges some fifteen or twenty degrees lower than on the coast. The soil and air are both favorable in the highest degree to agricultural labor, and with an industrious population it would have no occasion to import any kind of food. The dullness of the lower class of people here is only equaled by that of negroes, but they will work when they are well paid and fed. Of machinery their ideas are limited to an ox-mill, and in these days they can not even build that. The general insecurity of property since the beginning of revolutions in 1821, has so thoroughly demoralized the people that they are even afraid openly to accumulate riches. It was related to me that a German miner, who came up from Nicaragua, having discovered a good vein of silver in a recess of the mountains, began working at it in the Indian fashion, and in two seasons he had accumulated what we call in California “a pile” — several thousand dollars — which he hid carefully away in the shrubbery of a canon or gorge. He made periodical journeys to the nearest settlement — twenty miles distant — for provisions. At length, grown weary of his solitary life and the danger attending it, he went down to San Miguel, on the Pacific, and persuaded a merchant of that place to go with him and assist in the removal of the treasure. Such incidents are entirely possible, and of the many that were related to me, I have no doubt a good number were truly told. Three adventurers from Nicaragua, in the same manner, going up into the mountains, lighted on a cinnabar mine, and, working all by themselves, carried off seven or eight thousand dollars in quicksilver before the proprietors discovered them.

Miner and Family

I will endeavor, before closing this article, to give my readers a rough description of the various metallurgic processes now in use in Honduras; hut before doing this I must make sure to place on record the history of an enterprise undertaken some years ago in Yuscaran — the exploration of the celebrated Guayavilla mine.

The causes of the decay and neglect of silver mining in Honduras are not perceived by Americans only. My esteemed friend, the elder Lozano, whose knowledge of silver mines exceeded that of any person I have met, was truly sensible of the faults and misfortunes of his countrymen in their political and mining economy. His death, during my absence in Olancho, deprived me of many advantages; hut I took the precaution during my first visit to note down several conversations with him, and to procure all the information which the time permitted.

“My countrymen,” he would say, “have gained many things by throwing off their allegiance to Spain; hut they have also deprived themselves of great benefits by not establishing a firm and lasting government.”

“Why, then,” I asked, “have you not cultivated a good understanding with powerful and well-governed nations — Great Britain for example, or France? Have not they always shown a willingness to trade with you, and to develop the wealth of your mines?”

“Their intentions,” he replied, “may have been good, but their efforts have not resulted favorably. I do not know why they are so un-lucky, unless it be that their manner of treating our people has been too arbitrary, and too openly selfish. They think it necessary always to terrify and overawe us; or perhaps, as in the case of Nicaragua, instead of cultivating just and friendly relations, their agents have aggressed and trampled upon us at every opportunity. We are not the less sensible of injustice because we are weak. Besides that, Senor, they carry too much away with them. We wish those who develop the mines to remain with us, and give us a portion of the benefit.”

“And have all these enterprises proved unsuccessful?”

“By no means. Mr. Bennett’s management of the Guayavilla mine in Yuscaran was eminently successful, for a time. That, you know, was broken up by a revolution.”

“I should like to hear more about it.”

“Mr. Bennett was at one time the partner in business of your consul, Senor Follin, at Omoa. A very intelligent gentleman is Senor Follin, who has rendered eminent services to Honduras. Well, as I was saying, Bennett went afterward to Omoa, and died there, I have heen told, in 1847. He came to Tegucigalpa in 1838, and re-opened the Guayavilla mine in Yuscaran, near by here, with Cornwall miners, who were sent for from England; coarse, quarrelsome men, hard-headed brutes, but good miners — very good miners, Senor; and I wish Senor Ferrari and I had a hundred of them. Long before this, the Guayavilla mine had been worked. Previous to the year 1821 — the year of revolution — Tegucigalpa was a rich capital, and the mining business made us all rich, prosperous, and proud. When the two factions, the Conservatives and the Democrats, began their civil wars, now happily terminated by President. Cabanas, each in its turn seized upon the miners and pressed them into the army. The estates were confiscated, the foreign and Spanish proprietors driven out of the country. Industry fell dead. There was no capital, no credit, no exchange. Confusion, misery, and distrust prevailed, and extinguished even avarice and ambition, passions in which we are not deficient, Senor. The export of silver fell off to less than half a million.

“At length, after seventeen years of distrust and inactivity, Mr. Bennett made his appearance, and we were again delighted with the sound of business and the dawn of better days. Many citizens of Honduras joined Mr. Bennett and his English associates, and the Guayavilla mine was re-opened. Its wealth in silver exceeded all expectation. The Cornish and native miners, paid weekly their regular wages, worked with energy and skill. Thousands of tons of rich ore, yielding one hundred and even five hundred dollars to the ton, were rapidly taken out. The stamping-mills, furnaces, and quicksilver machines, were soon erected and in full operation. Provisions in abundance poured in from the country. Every body in Tegucigalpa began to smile and look happy. Trade revived. The women bought luxuries, and enjoyed themselves. People danced and sang, and made jollifications, and all this quarter of Honduras was in a tumult of pleasure and prosperity. Every one was benefited and no one was jealous. Oh! Senor Guillermo,” said the old man, pausing to draw a deep sigh in the midst of his narration, “if your countrymen, los Americanos del Norte, that great and happy people, would but come here and renew those good old times, how rich and happy we should hecome!” The old gentleman paused to roll a fresh cigarito; then waving it gracefully in the air, he said, “Do you helieve, Senor, that the great railroad from Omoa to the Pacific will ever be built?”

“Certainly,” I replied, “Senor Lozano, it will be finished; and, more than that, the mines will he re-opened by my countrymen."

“Ah, I am too old to see such happiness; is not this country a beautiful piece of earth ?“

“But the Guayavilla mine,” said I; “proceed, Senor.”

“Well, as I was saying, the mine yielded enormously. Nothing like had been ever heard of before. The ore was often found coated over with threads of pure silver, and pieces yielded fifty per cent. Enormous ovens were constantly filled with it, from which streams of silver poured away day and night. Government, partially interested, gave us every help. All the proprietors and stockholders were enriched. No enterprise of industry ever yielded better or more constant returns. The fame of the mine extended even to England. The silver was shipped to that country through Belize. Here was a forcible illustration of the value of foreign labor, skill, and capital, in Honduras. I used to see the workmen paid off in lines, commencing at noon on Saturday, and not ending until dark.”

“This prosperity had an end, however,” said I.

“Yes, Senor, la fatelidad del pais, the curse of the people — revolution, killed it all. Ferrara, the murderous instrument of the aristocratic faction (Serviles), was elected by fraud to the presidency; property confiscated; rich men murdered, or driven away; all respectable and honest people banished; all affairs reversed and ruined. A gentleman of Guatemala, a large proprietor of Guayavilla stock, dying, the property went into the hands of his brother, a lawyer of the lowest character in the party of Ferrara. Hitherto the Guayavilla mine had been comparatively exempt from the outrages of the Servile faction. This was owing to the influence of foreigners, principally Englishmen, and some members of the faction of Ferrara who were interested in the property. The lawyer of Guatemala, Senor Don Philipe Janregui, defrauded the heirs of his brother; and because he knew that at the close of Ferrara’s administration he would be compelled to restore the property, resolved, meanwhile, to make the best of it.

“There is a law which prohibits the removal of those natural columns of rock and ore which support the roof and arches of a mine. In the Guayavilla mine they were solid ore of immense value. President Ferrara was bribed by Senor Janregui to procure a repeal of the law. Others of the owners agreed; the pillars were taken down, and in four months yielded more than half a million in pure silver; but the next rainy season the roof fell in, and the mine was ruined. The long galleries became choked with stones, timber, and mud; the machinery went to wreck, and the foreign proprietors, after expostulating in vain with Ferrara, abandoned the enterprise in disgust.”

“The mine, then, is still in ruins ?“

“Yes, a mere mud pit. The heirs recovered their property when Cabanas came in; but they have no capital.”

“Senor, it is my opinion that my countrymen will re-open the Guayavilla mine.”

“Bueno! if they will! Our department is full of silver veins. I will show you.”

The old gentleman then took a pencil and still retaining the inevitable cigarito, sketched with a trembling hand a rude map of the silver localities, or minerales of the department.

Carrying Ore Up

“Here,” said he, “ is cola for the world; forty good mines, known to be rich, and which have already yielded great sums with little labor. Veins, as yet unopened, intersect every mountain from base to summit. I have marked out the minerales for you thus. Each has its group of mines. Many are already drained, and require but a small outlay to be made productive. We offer great riches to your countrymen, Senor Guillermo.”

“They are a careful and considerate people,”

I replied; “and though they well know that it is a part of their future business to supply the world with silver, as well as with ships, food, and gold, they will not enter rashly upon these works. They wish tc know before they undertake. Americans are not like some other nations I could speak of, who throw millions into the sea to catch a few poor little fish.”

“That is right—I approve. But you shall be the first to inform them; they will believe you.”

It remains only before closing this very meagre and, I fear, unsatisfactory abstract of my information regarding the silver region of Tegucigalpa, to add a few paragraphs explanatory of the metallurgic processes in use here for extracting the ore. In my report to the Honduras Mining and Trading Company, I have explained these methods at large, and with the assistance of Mr. Hewston’s analysis of the ores, have given an estimate of the capital required to open new mines, and to clear out and work the old ones. This latter I believe to be much the best policy for those who engage in silver-mining in this region with a limited capital.

Mines are located upon high ground, as near as possible to the verge of a hill, to afford opportunity for drainage. It struck me that the American method of opening a mine at the foot of the hill, and making the entrance serve the double purpose of a drain and a level for ore-cars, would be far more profitable than the labor of tanateros. The ore and the water would then run out through the same channel by force of gravitation.

Ox-mills are in use in several parts of this region. They are slow and unserviceable. As mill-dams are too apt to be carried away by the vast torrents of the rainy season, small steam engines, fed with pitch-pine, which is abundant would he more manageable, and save a great expense in carrying the ore to the mill, as a steam-engine can be placed any where, even in the mine itself, if desired.

The Spanish year has one hundred feast-days, during which there is no labor. This is one third of the time lost. A little discreet management, such as paying double wages a few times to those who will work, aided by a good understanding with the priests, would soon break down this custom. The example of a few foreign miners will also have a great effect.

The ore, ground to a paste by the rolling stones attached to the horizontal shaft, or cross-beam, of the ox or water-mill, flows out in mud through a set of seives, which retain the coarser particles, and settles in a huge stone vat. This paste is shaped into cakes of 100 pounds each, mixed with a quantity of salt, to detach the sulphur during the baking process. The heat of the ovens is very great. The burnt powder contained pure silver, separated and diffused. It is spread out on a stone floor and sprinkled with quicksilver, showered down from above through seives. This forms an amalgam. The amalgam is washed out and heated in iron retorts, which sublimes the mercury and leaves the silver in solid buttons. The mercury is condensed in cold receivers, but a great deal is lost in the dust of the burnt cakes.

Another method is to roll the baked ore with water, pieces of iron, and mercury, in barrels, revolving by machinery. Ores which contain a great deal of lead are burnt, so as to drive off the sulphur, and melt the lead and silver together. The lead is then burnt out by a steady blast of hot air. This is the ordinary “cupellation.” All the operations of roasting, smelting, and “cupellation” are sometimes performed in one process by a powerful blast-furnace.

Quicksilver is, of course, in great demand; but the mines of quicksilver ore (cinnabar), though near at hand, are not worked for want of knowledge.

Germans would be probably the best operatives to employ on these mines, under American direction. They do not expect high wages, and are faithful to their engagements.

The ratio of profit in first-class silver mines is from 60 to $70 of gross receipts for $30 of outlay — an excellent return; but this is by the Mexican method of working, with a few German improvements. In American hands the profits should be doubled. That valuable cinnabar mines should remain unworked, within less than thirty miles of Tegucigalpa, is a fact that precludes the necessity of answering the usual question of overshrewd and ignorant people, “Why, if these mines exist, have they not been worked by those who own them ?“ To have acquired and to possess a good estate is the virtue and fortune of the Spaniard and of all his descendants; not to know how to draw from it a good revenue is his fault and his evil destiny.

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