A great deal of silver is raised in Europe. The mines of Hungary are the most productive, especially those in the mountains of Chemnitz. The metalliferous mountains of the Erzgebirge are also very rich, as also the mines near Christiania in Sweden. Silver is also found in Saxony, Transylvania, and Austria. In no part of the old continent is silver in greater abundance than in the Ural and Altaï mountains, especially in the district of Kolywan. There are silver-mines in Armenia, Anatolia, Tibet, China, Cochin-China, and Japan. The richness of the Andes in silver can hardly be conceived, but the mines are frequently on such high ground that the profits are diminished by the difficulty of carriage, the expense of living in a barren country, sometimes destitute of water, where the miners suffer from the cold and snow, and especially the want of fuel. This is particularly the case at the silver-mines of Copiapo in Chile, where the country is utterly barren, and not a drop of water is to be found in a circuit of nine miles. These mines were discovered by a poor man in 1832, who hit upon a mass of silver in rooting out a tree. They extend over 150 square leagues. Sixteen veins of silver were found in the first four days, and, before three weeks elapsed, forty more, not reckoning smaller ramifications, were discovered. The rolled pieces which lay on the surface produced a large quantity of pure silver. A single mass weighed 5000 pounds.[101] In Peru there are silver-mines along the whole range of the Andes, from Caxamarea to the confines of the desert of Atacama. The richest at present are those of Pasco, which were discovered by an Indian in 1630. They have been worked without interruption since the beginning of the seventeenth century, and seem to be still inexhaustible. The soil under the town of Pasco is metalliferous, the ores probably forming a series of beds contemporaneous with the strata. The richness of these beds is not everywhere the same, but the nests of ore are numerous. The mines of Potosi, 16,150 feet above the sea-level, are celebrated for riches, but the owners have to contend with all the difficulties which such a situation imposes. The small depth at which the silver lies on the high plains of the Andes, and the quantity of it on the surface, is probably owing, as has been already stated, to the greater deposition of the sublimed mineral from refrigeration near the surface. The ore in the mines at Chota is near the surface over an extent of half a square league, and the filaments of silver are sometimes even entwined with the roots of the grass. This mine is 13,300 feet above the level of the sea, and even in summer the thermometer is below the freezing-point in the night. In the district of Huantajaya, not far from the borders of the Pacific, there are mines where masses of pure silver are found, of which one weighed 800 pounds.[102]