The copper-mines of Aroa have been known from early colonial days, and even in 1800 some ore was exported. The greatest output was recorded after the concern was conceded to an English Company in 1880, and in 1891 (the maximum year) 38,341 tons of ore, with a smaller quantity of 25 per cent. regulus, was shipped from Tucacas. Three years later the production began to decrease greatly, and smelting-works and mines alike fall into disuse. They have now been reopened by an English syndicate, and, under Mr. Scrutton’s energetic management, have already commenced to pay well. In the eighties the mines of Aroa sent to Swansea so much ore and regulus that in the statistics they ranged next to Chile. The mines, or the entrances to them, are in a beautiful limestone gorge, full of the blue and green tinted pebbles and boulders which led the pioneers to search for the source of the mineral. On the left bank there are some cottages situated under an overhanging rock which would give a nervous inmate qualms, but presumably here as elsewhere familiarity breeds contempt. The manager’s and other white houses up the valley look charming with their girdles of orange-trees, bananas, and papayas. Wash-outs in the gorge sometimes cause considerable damage, and at the time of our visit the mine was temporarily closed owing to the disablement of the centrifugal pumps buried under the debris brought down by exceptionally heavy rains; four inches in an hour was, I think, the fall during part of the downpour, which also carried away or buried big pieces of the Bolivar Railway. As one walks through the galleries with a little acetylene lamp clouds of bats brush past, and the floor is alive, where dry, with cockroaches. The most recently opened parts develop a very high temperature owing to the oxidation of the copper pyrites, and in “El Purgatorio,” as it is called, one finds it difficult to breathe for a moment until a slight effort of will forces the lungs to take in the hot air. In many of the older workings there are quantities of beautiful stalactites and stalagmites in all shades of blue and green. Unfortunately, the copper-salts which colour them also make them brittle, and it would be difficult to bring one away without injury. After these the ore looks very black and dingy, though the freshly broken surface glitters brightly enough.