Crossing the Atlantic to America, we find vast quantities of the precious metals in the mountains of the Brazils and along the whole range of the Andes. In the province of Minasgeraes, gold is obtained from subterranean excavations, as also by washing the surface soil, when diamonds are also found. Auriferous deposits exist in the deep valleys among the mountains of Chili, and in Peru and Bolivia are immense veins of silver ore. High up on the Andes are the mines of Pasco and Potosi; while in the same region, quicksilver, copper, lead, tin, and other metals have been discovered. The copper mines being nearest the sea, are generally worked, the ore being sent to Swansea. The lofty plateau of Mexico in North America has, from the first, been celebrated for its rich silver mines, of which there have altogether existed no less than three thousand, but the larger number of these have long been unworked. The gold mines of California and of Australia are too well known to require mention; but we must not forget the rock oil, concealed for ages in the North American continent. Both the United States and Canada now yield an abundant supply. The number of metals discovered beneath the surface, including the metallic basis of the earth and alkalies, amounts to forty-two, but metals, commonly so-called, number only twenty-nine. These are platinum, gold, tungsten, mercury, lead, palladium, silver, bismuth, uranium, vanadium, copper, cadmium, cobalt, arsenic, nickel, iron, molybdenum, tin, zinc, antimony, tellurium, manganese, tatiaum, chromium, columbium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, cerium. Many of these, however, are so rare, that as yet they are of no practical use. Gold has been known from the earliest ages, and is found in scales, threads, grains, and rolled masses, or nuggets, which latter have been discovered in California and Australia weighing from twenty to thirty pounds, but the largest of all met with was in Asia, on the southern side of the Urals.