arose, for the casting of cannon, in Spain, and interest in the mines was revived. A German engineer made an agreement with the local authorities to extract the copper and did so with great success. The ore was found to be very rich in copper and also to contain so much gold and silver that it would be worth working for those metals entirely apart from the copper. Under this expert management the mines became highly profitable. In the administration of Angulo the German engineer had two mines assigned to him as his own, in return for which he instructed all comers--chiefly slaves who were sent to him for the purpose by the settlers--in the art of smelting and refining copper. Large quantities of the copper were at that time sent to Spain, and the first cannon mounted on La Fuerza, in Havana, were made of it, being cast at the royal foundry at Seville. It is related that one of these cannon, a small falconet, burst in the casting, and so badly injured the superintendent of the works that he had to be taken to a hospital, where he expressed a bad opinion of Cuban copper. This was the origin of the really unfounded belief which long prevailed, and which was recorded in technological works, that Cuban copper had some peculiar quality which rendered it difficult and even dangerous to work. The first essays toward the growing of sugar, which has become one of the greatest industries of the island and in which Cuba surpasses any other equal area of the earth's surface, were made as already related in the closing years of Velasquez's administration. They did not at that time prove important, and nothing more was done until the first administration of Guzman. That enterprising governor, always ready to do anything to enrich himself, asked permission to import negro slaves free of royalty, in order to establish the sugar industry, promising under penalty to begin the construction of a sugar mill within two years and to complete it within four years. The crown considered that too long a time, and refused to waive the royalty on slaves for his benefit, whereupon he abandoned the scheme. Then Hernando de Castro made a similar proposal, reducing the time of completion of the mill to three years. The crown was more favorably impressed by his offer, and agreed to it, only to have him withdraw it. Juan de Avila and his brother Alfonso reported strongly in favor of establishing the industry in Cuba, and asked for a loan of capital from the royal treasury to finance the undertaking; but nothing was done. Chaves and Angulo also successively reported that Cuba was admirably adapted to the industry, and it was known that at that very time sugar growing was enormously successful in Hispaniola, Porto Rico and other islands. Yet by some strange fatality nothing practical was done, and the actual establishment of the great industry was postponed until near the end of the century.