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50 silver, a mineral not rare in their Empire, and being deficient in the knowledge of extracting this metal from the quartz, their most advanced method of smelting consisting of small cone-shaped furnaces built at elevated points where they might be fanned by the mountain breezes, they were only able to skim the surface of the vast gold deposits of the country. And yet, with their primitive appliances and methods, they had no trouble in securing this precious metal in such great abundance that history furnishes no parallel of such treasures of gold as were found in the royal palaces, temples, and public edifices of the Incas at the time of the Spanish conquest.

The sudden destruction of their Empire by the Spaniards in 1532, the sacking of their cities and temples, the assassination of their Emperor, Atahualpa, and the hardships to which they were subjected by their conquerors in their insatiable greed for gold, led the Incas to attach a new importance to the precious metals and to conceal their rich treasures with all possible haste. The undisputed fact of history is that the amount of gold and silver thus buried in caves and forests far exceeded in quantity that which was taken by the despoilers of their Empire.

Disheartened by the fierce intimidations to which they were subjected, and no longer permitted to gather gold for the decoration of their temples and royal palaces, the Incas practically abandoned all forms of gold and silver mining until the close of the seventeenth century, a period of more than one hundred and fifty years. About this time, Sorata, the present capital of Larecaja, was founded, and soon became the most opulent city of Upper Peru, now Bolivia. Quickly following this event, an expedition of Spaniards, mainly from Chile, and a few Portuguese adventurers who had ascended the Amazon from Brazil, visited the prov-