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AMERICAN MINES.
CIIAP. XXI.
streams which descend from the Cordilleras. Theclimate is mild and the soil fruitful; and per-haps less suffering was inflicted in the extractionof that than of any gold or silver in the othertimes and countries where it has been acquired.A recent traveller who has visited Chili remarks,“ It is usually observed in those countries wheregreat mineral riches exist, that the soil is of abarren and unproductive nature; but Chili affordsa striking and solitary exception to this rule.Streams abounding in gold wander through themost luxuriant corn-fields, and the farmer andthe miner hold converse together on their banksIn the northern part of South America , for-merly known as the new kingdom of Granada,but now forming what is denominated the Re-public of Columbia , some little silver, but muchmore gold, was produced. The first conquerorsfound gold in Barquisemento, and in some otherplaces in the mountains to the north-east of thenevada of Merida, and in those to the south ofCaraccas, but they appear to have been very earlyexhausted. In the century now under consi-deration, the chief quantity of gold was procuredfrom the valleys or ravines in the mountainousregions of Antioquia, in the valley of Cauca ,between the central and western Cordilleras, andespecially in the province ofPopayan, at its southern