the influx of capital and labour would rapidly make this a flourishing mining region. Chontales is a very rich district, where profitable mines are now in active operation, and Matagalpa requires only capital and improved means of transportation to develop its latent wealth.

Very little reliable information is to be had regarding the mineral resources and mines actually in operation. The best account is to be found in a report by U.S. Consul Newell,' based very largely on information obtained from Señor José D. Gamez, of Managua, from which some of the following particulars are taken :

Besides the vast mountain system extending to the Atlantic, rich in minerals, but as yet unexplored, there are the auriferous mineral districts of New Segovia and Chontales, which produce the gold ore now exported. The mineral district of La Libertad, in Chontales, is the most ancient as well as the best developed, though the machinery is still of the most primitive character, the yield of the mines varying from half an ounce to two ounces per ton, and the quality of the gold being from 14 to 20 carats. Most of the machinery used is moved by rude hydraulic turbine wheels and primitive steam-power. The machinery generally consists of one or more batteries of four large mallet triturators of the Californian system, the ore being beaten or ground in cups. In Boaco there are two mines operated in the crudest way, one worked by means of an old mallet engine, the other by the ancient system called "molinette."

1 United States Consular Reports, September, 1893. Report of Consul Newell.

In the department of Segovia the mines are richer, but the terribly bad condition of the roads makes the introduction of machinery very difficult and costly, so that no gold vein yielding less than one ounce per ton is worked. All the hills, and almost all the rivers, in that department contain veins, placers, and pockets of gold and silver, croppings of copper, tin, antimony, lead, and other metals.

In the mineral districts of Jicaro, Murra, Los Encinos, and Las Vueltas there are no less than twenty gold mines in operation, with six plants of machinery of ancient construction. The district of Telpaneca, which comprises also San Juan and El Pericon, has at least twelve nonproducing mines, and there are mines of extraordinary richness in the district of Cuje which cannot be operated with profit for the want of running water to triturate the ore. Most of the mines in this district are operated by the system of "molinette."

Throughout Segovia, Chontales, and Matagalpa, are found vestiges of placer diggings that were worked with profit in the days of the Spanish conquerors, the richest of these, however, being those along the Prinzapulca and Wawa rivers, on the Atlantic coast. Dr. Mierisch has made an important geological study of the Prinzapulca district, having analyzed ores from thirteen of the mines of that section, and has made a voluminous report on the subject which, however, has not been published. It seems impossible to secure any reliable statistics as to the output of the placer mines.

But every river flowing into the Atlantic and Pacific

contains gold, and on the Atlantic side, in some of the rivers where placer mining has been carried on in a very crude way for years, many thousand ounces of gold of a very high quality have been taken out. One peculiarity of the gold in these placers is the large proportion of coarse metal which is found. It is quite a common thing to come across nuggets of from one to five ounces in weight, and the gold is generally larger than a pin's head, and much of it averages the size of a linseed.

The "molinette" system is the same as that known in Mexico as the "arastra." The arastra is composed of a circular granite-paved bottom, from 6 to 20 feet in diameter, surrounded by a wooden inclosure over 2 feet high, with a vertical wooden shaft in the centre provided with two or more projecting arms, to which mullers, composed of large blocks of granite, are attached by means of chains. This primitive, but effective, machinery is operated by mules when water-power is not available. The mullers make from six to ten revolutions per minute, with a capacity of grinding, in a day, from one and a half to two tons of rock (the fragments being broken as small as a hen's egg, or less).

Within the last few years a new mining district has been discovered and opened up in the district of Sauce, in the department of Leon. The gold belt runs from the Atlantic through Nueva Segovia, Jicaro, San Juan Talpaneca and Sauce, right away to the shores of the Pacific, within a few miles of which gold and silver veins of varying richness have been found. It seems probable,