118

AMERICAN MINES.

CHAP. XXI.

Northern

Peru-

(since called La Paz) ; and their operations werequickened by the stimulus arising from the desireto procure the mate or tea of Paraguay, whichsilver could most easily purchase, and which wasdeemed an indispensable refreshment for thosewho laboured in the mines.

In the same century the silver mines of Yauri-cocha or Pasco, in the more northern part of Peru ,were first opened, and yielded a large portion ofthat metal. It is thus that though Potosi, whichhad at first yielded the greatest quantity of silver,had declined, yet the other parts of Peru advancedin their issue of the precious metals so considera-bly as more than to compensate for that deficiency.This increase, especially of silver, was greatly faci-litated by the extension of the mines of mercuryat Huancavelica. Those mines, as has been be-fore noticed, were discovered as early as the me-thod of extracting silver by the process of amalga-mation in 1576 ; but the quantity at first producedwas small when compared with that which theyreached between the years 1598 and 1684, afterwhich they appear again to have declined. Thequicksilver was under monopoly regulations, thegovernment making the delivery of it subservientto its purposes in securing the tax on the silver;so that the quantity which each miner receivedwas a kind of check on the quantity of silver onwhich he ought to pay the tax or the king’s share.

The chiefof those mines became choked up about