Some time during the year 1529, copper was discovered on the crest of a hill known as Cardenillo, about ten miles west of Santiago de Cuba. Mines in this vicinity had apparently been previously worked by the Cubeno Indians, who did not enlighten the Spaniards in regard to their existence. The value of the find was not recognized until a certain bell-maker, returning as a passenger from Mexico, visited the mines and analyzed samples of the ore. As a result of his report the people of Santiago soon became aroused over the prospective value of the find and petitioned the crown for experts and facilities with which to develop the mine. Dr. Ledoux, the famous French metallurgist, carefully analyzed the ore from these mines, and as a result reached the conclusion that the natives of Cuba, although apparently making no use of the copper themselves, had trafficked with the Indians of Florida, since in the many assays made of the copper relics of those tribes, it was found that the same percentage of silver and gold were contained in them as was found in the ore of the Cuban deposits. No other copper ores known have percentages of silver and gold so closely identical to those of “El Cobre.” Little was done, however, toward the development of the Santiago mines until 1540, when the Spanish crown found itself short of material with which to make castings for its artillery and ordered an investigation of the Cuban copper deposits. In April of 1540, a German returning from a Flemish settlement in Venezluela visited “El Cobre” and entered into an agreement with the town council to work the mine. The ore yielded, according to the records, from 55% to 60% of pure copper, carrying with it also gold and silver. Samples were again sent to Spain to be tested by the crown. In 1514 forty negroes were set to work in the mines, under the direction of Gaspar Lomanes, and smelted some 15,000 pounds. In 1546 the German referred to above, John Tezel of Nuremberg, returned from Germany, where he had carried samples of ore from the “El Cobre” and reported it “medium rich in quality and very plentiful in quantity.” Tezel spent the remainder of his life, 20 years, in exploiting the copper of that section. Up to 1545 Juan Lobera had shipped 9,000 pounds of Cuban Copper to Spain. In the spring of 1547 still further shipments that had arrived in Seville and were ordered cast into artillery to be placed in the first fort in Cuba, La Fuerza, for the protection of the City of Havana. Three cannon were cast, of which one, a falconet, burst in the making, and was perhaps responsible for the report that Cuban copper was of “an intractable quality.”