_Silver_.--In 1538 the crown officers in San Juan wrote to the Home Government: " ... The gold is diminishing. Several veins of lead ore have been discovered, from which some silver has been extracted. The search would continue if the concession to work these veins were given for ten years, with 1.20 or 1.15 royalty." On March 29th of the following year the same officers reported: " ... Respecting the silver ores discovered, we have smolten some, but no one here knows how to do it. Veins of this ore have been discovered in many parts of the island, but nobody works them. We are waiting for some one to come who knows how to smelt them." The following extract from the memoirs and documents left by Juan Bautista Muñoz, gives the value in "gold pesos"[84] of the bullion and pearls, corresponding to the king's one-fifth share of the total produce remitted to Spain from this island from the year 1509 to 1536: In 1509, gold pesos 8,975 1510, " 2,645 1511, " 10,000 1512, " 3,043 1513, " 27,291 1514, " 18,000 1515, " 17,000 1516, " 11,490 1517-18, " 38,497 1519, " 10,000 1520, " 35,733 In 1521, " 10,000 1522, " 7,979 1523-29, " 40,000 1530, " 12,440 1531, " 6,500 1532, " 9,000 1533, " 4,000 1534, " 8,500 1535, " 1,848 1536, " 10,000 ______ Total, 15 share 277,941 The entire output for this period was 1,389,705 gold pesos, or $4,169,115 Spanish coin of to-day, as the total produce in gold and pearls of the island of San Juan de Puerto Rico during the first twenty-seven years of its occupation by the Spaniards. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 84: Washington Irving estimates the value of the "gold peso" of the sixteenth century at $3 Spanish money of our day.] CHAPTER XLI WEST INDIAN HURRICANES IN PUERTO RICO FROM 1515 TO 1899 Whoever has witnessed the awful magnificence of what the primitive inhabitants of the West Indian islands called _ou-ra-cán,_ will never forget the sense of his own utter nothingness and absolute helplessness. With the wind rushing at the rate of 65 or more miles an hour, amid the roar of waves lashed into furious rolling mountains of water, the incessant flash of lightning, the dreadful roll of thunder, the fierce beating of rain, one sees giant trees torn up by the roots and man's proud constructions of stone and iron broken and scattered like children's toys.