are now abandoned; and those of the province of Arque in Cochabamba are not now regularly worked. The rich silver mines of Lipez also lie fallow, as do those of the department of Oruro. In 1870 great silver deposits were discovered at Caracoles, about 120 miles inland, in the desert province of Atacama, drawing thither a rush of
miners from all parts of Chili and Peru.
Among the other mineral riches of Bolivia copper takes the next rank, and is also widely distributed The province of Ingavi in La Paz possesses mines from which 15,000 to 20.000 cwts. of copper are annually taken. The departments of Potosi, Chuquisaca, Oruro, and Atacama are also rich in copper. Tin is mined to some extent in Potosi and Oruro, where it is found along with the silver. Lead is also frequently found in the neighbourhood of silver, as well as quicksilver. The methods hitherto employed for the reduction of the ores of this country are exceedingly imperfect and inefficient. More skill and capital are requisite to render them productive and remune rating Coal and iron have been found in the departments of Chuquisaca, Oruro, and Beni, though the extent or value of these products is yet unknown. Precious stones, chiefly the hyacinth and opal, have been found in the department of Santa Cruz, and diamonds in Beni.
Very valuable beds of guano extend along the Pacific coast between 23 and 25 S., those of Mexillones being specially famous. Nitrate of soda also exists in great quantity in the deserts of Atacama, and is profitably worked.
The roads which form the means of communication between Bolivia and the surrounding countries, and between the various provinces of the republic, are in no respect sufficient for the important purposes which they are destined to serve. By inattention to the formation and preservation of roads, the Spaniards and their descendants have fallen greatly behind the ancient Peruvians, whose industry and civilization they affected to despise, and laboured hard to depreciate. The present route, for it can scarcely be designated by the name of road, from Potosi to Jujuy, the first city belonging to the Argentine Republic, is about 310 miles in length ; and this place forms the point where a road commences for carriages and waggons as far as Buenos Ayres, an additional extent of land carriage of about 1617 geographical miles. The various routes from Bolivia to the coast of the Pacific, by the way of Cobija, by Tarapaca, and by Oruro to Tacna, can only be passed on mules or horseback ; and travellers are sometimes exposed to great perils and hardships from exposure to the storms which occasionally prevail at such great elevations. The President Ballivian, however, while in office, did much to obviate these difficulties, and initiated a new era of things by the construction of a-splendid highway, which leads from Sucre, and passing Santa Cruz, connects Mojos and Chiquitos and the fertile plains of the Beni and Madeira. Although railroads are as yet unknown in the greater part of Bolivia, and though the country presents the most formidable natural difficulties in the way of engineering, a beginning has been made in this direction. The only line at present constructed in Bolivian territory is a short one from the bay of Autofagasta, south of that of Mexillones on the Pacific coast, in Atacama, to the nitrate of soda works of Salar el Carmer ; it is intended to extend this line inland to the nitrate fields and to the silver mines of Caracoles. It is also proposed to extend one of the southern Peruvian coast lines, starting from near the point of Iquique to Oruro in Bolivia. At present one of the main outlets of western Bolivia is by the Peruvian railroad from the port of Mollendo and Arequipa to Puno, on Lake Titicaca, completed in 1870. Puno, its inland terminus, is connected with Bolivia by steam navigation across Lake Titicaca.
The productions furnished by Bolivia as articles of commerce are chiefly the precious metals, vicuna and alpaca and wool, guano, nitrate of soda, leather, coffee, cacao, and chinchona bark ; but from the fact that no direct com mercial intercourse has ever existed with the outer world, these products are frequently ascribed to the countries through which they must pass. Thus the metals and wools of Bolivia are looked upon as Peruvian, and the cinchona bark and gums passing out eastward are credited to Brazil or the Argentine Republic. The rude and simple fabrics manufactured by the Peruvian Indians are usually appropriated to their own domestic uses ; while the valu able vegetable productions, and the herds of cattle and mules which are reared in the eastern parts of the republic, have hitherto scarcely been sufficient for the supply of the inhabitants of those populous mining districts that are principally dependent on them for subsistence.
Before the war of independence a very extensive traffic was maintained between the upper provinces of Peru (or Bolivia) and the provinces of the Rio de la Plata for supplies of cattle and mules. These were reared in great numbers in all the interior Argentine provinces expressly for the use. of those countries, and were first sent by easy journeys to the luxuriant pastures of Salta and Jujuy, where they were carefully fed and tended during the winter, previous to their being conveyed to their final destination in . Bolivia and Peru. Some idea may be formed of the extent of this traffic from the statement that, besides all those furnished by the other Argentine provinces, the province of Salta alone supplied annually to Upper and Lower Peru from G0,000 to 80,000 mules, on all of which they realized considerable profits, the prices being proportioned to the distance to which they were conveyed. The customs derived from the import of cattle from the Argentine Republic still form an important source of revenue. The trade is now in a great degree diverted from the Argentine provinces to the ports of the Pacific called thePuertos Intermedios. Tacna and Arequipa, with their respective ports, have now becom e the principal channels through which Bolivia receives the produce and manufactures of other countries, the Bolivian port of Cobija being of little value, owing to the difficulties of transport from it by mules and llamas across the desert track and the mountains. There are no certain returns of the value of the trade of Bolivia; the importation by Tacna and Arica is valued at 5 or 6 millions of dollars, that of Cobija at li to 2 millions. A new and very important channel of communication for commerce will be opened between Bolivia and the Atlantic, whenever commercial enterprise and increasing civilization shall have established steam navigation on the Rio de la Plata and its tributary streams, or from the mouth of the Amazons to its distant tributaries the Beni and the Mamore.
various races, chiefly of the Spaniards with the Indian natives, A third of their number live in towns or " villas," the rest in smaller villages, or in the open camp. Besides the native Indians there are in the countiy some descendants of African negro slaves, and not a few Guaranis, who came over from the regions east of the Paraguay, and settling in the plains, have increased in numbers. The Indian population may be considered as the civilized, the half civilized, and the wild. To the first class belong the Quichuaand Aymara, or the Inca Indians, who are by far the most numerous, who have come most closely into contact with the Spanish invaders, and who occupy chiefly the highlands of the west. The Indians of Mojos and Chiquitos may be considered as representing the half-civilized class, retaining part of the civilization introduced among them in the 17th century by the Jesuits.
The nomadic or wild Indians of the eastern lowlands in
