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sentations seems to require an apology. Thedifferences, however, do not greatly affect theview now taken of the subject, in this case ex-tending over a period of ten years out of fifty-five ;they would not have been noticed, if it had notarisen from a more attentive examination of theaccessible documents than the proportion which itbears to the whole view would have induced.
Humboldt procured correct returns of theamount of the Cobos at Potosi, from the year1579 to 1789, from which he has calculated thequantity of money procured in those years in amanner deserving the highest confidence. Atpresent we have only to do with the years from1579 to 1600. This appears in the twenty-oneyears to have amounted to twenty-nine millionsone hundred and eighty-five thousand nine hun-dred and ninety pesos, or one million three hun-dred and eighty-nine thousand eight hundred andfifty-nine annually, being equivalent to about twohundred and eighty thousand pounds on theaverage.
We have thus examined the statement of theCerro de Potosi with more minuteness than willbe necessary to apply to other mining districts, onaccount of the long and extensive fame which thatmountain has enjoyed, and to reduce, as far as canbe done, to accurate figures the extravagant re-presentations to which we have all been accus-tomed from our childhood.