In South America, the mines of Potosi, Cerro di Pasco, and Gualgayoc, are the most renowned for their richness. In 1545, an Indian, while pursuing some deer along the declivity of a steep mountain, took hold of a shrub, the roots of which, giving way, brought to view a mass of silver, the first discovery of the riches which have rendered Potosi the proverbial symbol of wealth. The Indian, wisely concealing his good fortune, repeatedly visited the mine, but his improved circumstances having been remarked by one of his countrymen, he was obliged to take him into the secret. Unfortunately a quarrel ensued, and the faithless confidant betrayed it to his master, Don José Villaroel, a Spaniard, whose extraordinary success in working the mines soon drew the attention of all America to the wild Cerro di Potosi. A town of 100,000 inhabitants soon rose in the desert, in spite of the wintry inclemency of the climate (12,842 feet above the level of the sea) and of the fabulous prices of provisions, as all the necessaries of life had to be conveyed from a vast distance over the pathless mountains. But if living in Potosi was extravagantly dear, Mammon took care to provide his votaries with the necessary means; for the treasures which were here extracted from the bosom of the earth seem rather to belong to the world of Oriental romance than to that of sober reality. According to Humboldt, the mountain of Potosi, whose topmost mine is situated 15,384 feet above the level of the sea—considerably higher than the eternal snows of the summit of Mont Blanc—produced from 1545 to 1803 no less than 230,000,000l., besides the silver which was not registered, or had been carried off by fraud, and which may probably have amounted to as much again. During the period of their greatest prosperity—from 1585 to 1606—when they annually yielded 882,000 marks of silver, 15,000 Indians were occupied in the mines of Potosi. At present, however, their produce, though still considerable, has diminished to one-eighth, and the population of the town has shrunk in the same proportion. The ores were at first reduced in a very imperfect manner, according to the old Indian method. On the mountains surrounding the town of Potosi, wherever the wind blew with sufficient force, portable smelting ovens of clay, in which numerous holes kept up a strong current of air, received alternate layers of ore and charcoal, and the lively blast soon separated the metal from the dross. The first travellers in the Cordillera describe with enthusiasm the magnificent aspect of more than 6,000 fires, which every evening blazed on the mountain crests of Potosi. Amalgamation was first introduced about the year 1571.