The ore for some time was conveyed to the docks at Santa Lucia with mule teams and motor trucks. These were eventually replaced by wire cables and the ore was sent to the coast by gravity, greatly decreasing the cost of transportation. Splendid wharves and receiving sheds, dumps, etc., have been built at Santa Lucia, whence the ore is lightered out to deep water anchorage. Fully 300 tons a day are now being removed and conveyed to the landing. An average of 8,000 tons a month is shipped in steamers that can take aboard 800 tons a day. This mineral is consigned to the United States Metal Refining Company. In 1916, thirty-three steamers carried 75,000 tons of mineral to this Company. Quite a little city has sprung up around the mine, and 2,000 men are given employment by the Company. Comfortable quarters have been erected for the officials, employees and other members of the force. A large amount of ore was mined in 1918 and held for the completion of a new concentration plant, which will enable the Company to utilize ore which under war freight rates would not have been profitable to export. Following the demise of Sr. Luciano Diaz, his son Antonio Diaz assumed control and is carrying on the work of the proposed improvements. At the time of the closing of the Spanish régime in Cuba, fourteen mineral claims had been made in the Province of Pinar del Rio. Between 1909 and 1911, 212 were denounced, including 48 of the Company headed by Mr. Astor. From 1911 to 1918, 2970 claims were registered in the Bureau of Mines. A large proportion of the interest in copper mining in Pinar del Rio was undoubtedly the result of the wonderful wealth that has come from Matahambre, the ore from which mined in 1916 was valued at $5,500,000. Not until the early part of the 19th century did the presence of those enormous deposits of iron ore found throughout the mountain districts of Oriente present themselves to the outside world as a profitable commercial proposition. Nearly all of the great iron deposits of Oriente lie within a few feet of the surface; and on the southern slopes of the Sierra Maestra it is necessary only to scrape the dirt from the side of the hills, take out the ore and send it down to the sea coast by gravity. Similar conditions exist at the Mayari mines on the north coast, just back of Nipe Bay, where the deposits need nothing but washing with cold water. The soil being thus removed at little cost, the iron is ready for shipment to the smelters of the United States.