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442 task of repairing the ruin, which this long season of abandonment had occasioned. Even for a Company it may be regarded as one of the boldest mining speculations ever yet attempted.

The drainage commenced on the 1st of February 1825. Steam-engines were not employed upon it, on account of the scarcity of fuel; but eight Malacates (horse-whims) of the largest kind were erected round the Tiro General, and kept at work day and night without intermission for twenty-one months, in which time they lowered the water 185 varas. As it descended, the levels which became accessible were repaired, and ores raised wherever veins of any promise appeared; and such was the vigour and activity with which these operations were carried on, that, (as I have already stated) a "Barra," or share in the Valenciana, which, in 1824, would not have sold for 20,000 dollars, was thought by the natives to be worth 100,000 dollars at the time of my visit. It is indeed true, that the difficulties of the drainage increase in proportion to the depth from which the water must be raised; but then they diminish in other respects, because the mine contracts below the level of La Soledad, towards which the water was gradually descending, and the volume of water to be raised consequently decreases. Upon the whole, I saw no reason to question the probability of a favourable result, and the natives were very sanguine in their anticipations of it, fixing for the completion of the drainage the term of eighteen