1545 to December 31, 1800, show that the mines of Bolivia produced during that period 3,339,262,032 Spanish hard dollars. The same record shows that, of this sum, the mountain of Potosi alone produced, during the same period of two hundred and fifty years, the following:
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The chief source of this vast production of the mines of Potosi, next in point of wealth to those of Guanajuato, in Mexico, was the superficial stratas of "pacos" ores, known as "Colorados" in Mexico, and also chlorides of silver, a class of surface ores common to Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico.
To this sum of $3,339,262,032, produced from 1545 to 1800, must be added the production from 1800 to 1825, the date of Bolivian independence, viz, $67,104,003, making a total of $3,406,366,035, which sum, barring the amount produced from the date of the conquest in 1532 to 1545, for which period no reliable statistics are available, represents the total production of the silver mines of Bolivia during the two hundred and ninety-three years of Spanish rule in Alto Peru, the ancient name of Bolivia.
