Gold mining in Bolivia has not attracted so much attention in recent years as its importance merits, though there was a time when the fame of this country as a gold producer nearly eclipsed the universal renown of its vast wealth of silver. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which marked only the beginning of their development, the mines of Alto Peru yielded in gold, according to the authority of Humboldt, about two billion dollars, and in the eighteenth century the mine of Chuquiaguillo alone produced more than one hundred and twenty-five million dollars in gold. It is a remarkable fact that this mine has not once failed to yield large quantities of gold annually, ever since its discovery.

The history of the Chuquiaguillo mine is as old as that of the Incas, who received tribute from their Collasuyo subjects in the gold nuggets of this wonderful stream. Like the Chuquiapu, of which it is a small tributary, the Chuquiaguillo received its name from the Indians, in whose language the word means “heir of gold.” The mine is situated in the beautiful valley of Poto-Poto, about a league distant from La Paz, where the Spaniards found the Indians engaged in washing gold at the time of the invasion. Many thousands of Indians worked at the task of gathering gold for the Inca, and the settlement in which they lived was the Chuquiapu on the site of which the Spaniards founded the present city of La Paz.

The conqueror himself, Don Francisco Pizarro, was the first dueño, or owner, of the mine of Chuquiaguillo after the fall of the Inca empire. History does not record the amount taken out of the mine while under the exploitation of Pizarro’s agents; but during the colonial period huge nuggets were frequently found, one of these treasures, which was sent to the Museum of Madrid in 1718, weighing forty-seven pounds and eight ounces. The extraordinary feature of this mine is that it appears inexhaustible, great nuggets, or pepitas, being continually found. After the Spaniards were expelled from the country, Chuquiaguillo passed into the hands of various dueños, all of whom were made rich by its gold. One of these proprietors found a nugget of twenty-two pounds in weight.

In 1901 the Chuquiaguillo valley, with its rich gold mine, became the property of a German company; and under the able administration of the present director, Mr. Joseph Antonio Sedelmayr, the production has been increased greatly beyond what it was a few years ago. The latest improvements in machinery and other working apparatus have been made, the modern installations used in California placer mines being adopted, with some monitors which give the very best results. The earth is very rich in metal, a cubic mètre yielding thirty-five cents gold. The quantity of gravel appears inexhaustible, as the cerros are immense. Water is brought from the neighboring snow mountains, and there is sufficient incline to the valley to carry off the tailings. With other machinery which it is the purpose of the company to add to that already in use, the output of Chuquiaguillo may be enormously increased. So recently as March 22, 1905, a gold and quartz nugget weighing fifty-two ounces, of which forty-five ounces were pure gold, was taken from the mine, this handsome specimen being now in the possession of Messrs. Speyer and Company, of New York. The annual production of the mine since 1900 has been about an average of sixty kilogrammes, though the increase has been notable since 1902. The value of the gold taken out amounts to nearly one hundred thousand bolivianos annually. The cerros are so rich in metal, that the gravel which is washed down from their sides yields thirty-five cents worth of gold per cubic mètre, and nuggets as large as almonds are not rare. The process of bringing the gold-bearing gravel down to the river is by means of a hose which ejects a powerful stream that when turned on the cerro dislodges the earth, bringing the rich pebbles down to the base. In a beautiful locality, overlooking the valley, the administration house of the company is situated, and here the director receives his guests, entertaining them with the most charming hospitality. No paseo is more popular than a day’s outing at Chuquiaguillo, which is reached after a short horseback ride from La Paz through one of the prettiest of valleys, presenting many picturesque scenes along the route, and ending at the administration mansion. Every foreigner who visits La Paz and enjoys the honor of being a guest of the courtly dueño of Chuquiaguillo remembers it as a distinguished occasion.

There are other rich placer gold mines besides Chuquiaguillo in the department of La Paz which have yielded enormous treasure. As stated elsewhere, one of the most celebrated gold-bearing regions of Bolivia is in the province of Larecaja, in the neighborhood of Sorata, where the river Tipuani, which flows down from the snow-covered peak, contains large quantities of the precious metal. The gravel deposits in this river are so great that at a depth of one hundred feet no rock bottom is found, the production of gold increasing with the depth of the gravel. Tipuani gold is from twenty-two to twenty-three and one-half carats fine, and so abundant that the owners of the richest mine of this region, Señores Villamil, obtained during the fifty years from 1818 to 1868 one hundred and fifty-one thousand ounces of gold. Much of this gold comes in flat grains of the size of a melon seed, and it is always of high standard. Not only from the heights of the mountain Sorata, or Illampu, but from the other cerros of the chain which joins it to Illimani further south, innumerable streams flow into the valleys of the Yungas of La Paz which carry gold in the gravel that is found in their currents. Cajones, in the Yungas, is one of the richest gold streams. It is a singular fact that while quartz lodes have been discovered in different places about the headwaters of the ravines through which the gold-bearing rivers flow, they do not appear to correspond at all in richness to the deposits lower down. The rich placer mines of Yani and Tacacoma are in the same province as those of Tipuani.

In the province of Caupolican, the river Suches is noted for the abundance and quality of gold found in its sand and gravel, and this district presents the advantage of being within convenient distance of the shipping ports, as the town of Suches, the chief centre of the mining in this river, is situated only forty miles from the port of Lake Titicaca, and two hundred miles from La Paz. A great many rich placer mines have remained unexploited because of their inaccessibility. All around La Paz gold is continually being discovered, nearly every river having some gold-bearing gravel in its course. The Cerro Illimani contains gold in abundance, and it is related that in the year 1681, a lightning stroke detached a huge rock from the side of the mountain which was found to be enormously rich in the precious metal. All the streams that flow from Illimani contain gold, such as the Palca, Calacoto, Chungamayo, and others. The gold mines of Vila-haque, near La Paz, were famous in the times of the Incas, and are worked to-day.

Gold has been taken from the streams of Loayza province ever since colonial times, and the gold district of Araca, which lies at the foot of the Tres Cruces Range, is said by mining engineers to be one of the richest in Bolivia, lack of capital having prevented its full development in recent years. Under Spanish rule the celebrated gold mine of San Francisco, which belonged to a fabulously rich Spaniard, named Don Diego de Baena, brought an income of two million dollars gold, which the chronicle says the worthy miner spent to build the magnificent church of San Francisco in La Paz and the Cathedral in Oruro. He suspended the working of the San Francisco mine because of inundations. A mining expert, reporting on this district, says: “Many millions of dollars have been taken out of the gold mines of Araca, and much more could be obtained if capital were forthcoming for their exploitation.” The quartz vein of the Araca mines is very wide, the standard varying between five and twelve grains per ton of two thousand two hundred and forty pounds when treated by amalgamation, which, by the way, is an unsatisfactory method, as about thirty per cent of the gold is lost owing to the extreme fineness of the gold particles. A difficulty encountered in the exploitation of many of these mines is that of securing modern machinery for the treatment of the gold so that every unnecessary waste may be avoided. The Araca district has not been fully surveyed, though mining authorities say that what is known as the Rosario belt contains a million cubic mètres of gold quartz, and it is estimated that more than half a million tons could be worked with rich results. In Inquisivi, also, there are gold mines of great promise.

The department of Cochabamba, which is rich in products of every description, can boast of some of the most valuable gold mines of Bolivia. Choquecamata, situated about seventy-five miles from the capital city of the department in the serrania of Tetillas, is the centre of an extensive mining region. The central part of the serrania consists of granite and quartz, the Choquecamata River containing gold-bearing gravel from the point of its junction with the Potrero, at Encañada, over a distance of six miles down its course. It is an excellent mining region, the conditions being favorable for its development on a large scale by the hydraulic system. At their confluence the two rivers have made a new channel which cuts across the former channel of the Choquecamata, leaving a wide dry space, rich in gold-bearing gravel. It was here the mines were first discovered and worked by the Spaniards in 1740, and from this marvellously rich deposit, covering little more than half a league, which was called the Angostura, meaning “narrows,” gold was taken out to the value of more than forty million dollars. It is located at an altitude of about twelve thousand feet above sea level in one of the many picturesque quebradas of the province of Ayopaya, and was apparently known to the primitive inhabitants as a gold-bearing district, the name Choquecamata being Aymará and signifying “breeding place of gold.”

Near the site of the old missions which the Jesuits founded during the colonial period in the province of Chiquitos, now forming part of the department of Santa Cruz, rich gold mines were discovered centuries ago. The serrania of San Simon yielded handsome returns for the labor of the Indians under the direction of their Spanish masters. Within recent years other valuable mines have been found in this province, which is only partially settled and contains vast stretches of territory, the natural resources of which are practically unknown. The gold mines of Santa Rosa, which lie along the route of the new railway to be built from Santa Cruz to the Beni, were famous during the past century for their abundance, having yielded two thousand five hundred pounds’ weight of gold between the years 1847 and 1877. The few travellers who have journeyed through this region pronounce it one of the richest in the whole of Bolivia, and it possesses the special advantage of having as fine a climate as any country in the world, the four seasons being distinctly marked, though in a moderate degree. Gold is found in the Beni and in the Territorio de Colonias, but it will hardly be developed to any great extent until the transportation facilities in this part of Bolivia are improved. There is plenty of gold in the upper streams of the Acre, Madre de Dios, Orton, and the Beni, as well as in those of the Mamoré and other tributaries of the Guaporé or Iténez.

From central Bolivia southward a gold-producing region extends in a wide strip from Cochabamba to the border of Argentina. Chuquisaca is said to have been at one time a great mining centre, and, according to the historian Calancha, the name itself signifies “rock of gold.” The Inca’s subjects knew of the existence of gold in all these provinces, and the Spaniards merely followed their guidance in searching for the precious metal. Whenever it was possible, the Indian deceived his new masters and kept secret his knowledge of the locality of these mines. But though many rich cerros and gold-bearing streams exist which were never known to the Spaniards, they took possession of hundreds of mines in all parts of the country and worked them with great profit.

In the department of Potosí, the cerro of Poconota contains one of the oldest gold mines in the country. It is situated in the province of North Chichas, on the route from Potosí to Tupiza, and will be on the line of the railroad which is being built from Potosí to the Argentine border. The cerro shows evidence of having been worked by the Spaniards on a very large scale and with great success, as there are still vestiges of elaborate and expensive apparatus, which could only have been afforded by enormous returns from the exploitation of the mines. The gold of Poconota shows a standard of ten grammes per hundred pounds. The lode extends for a distance of two thousand seven hundred feet, and is forty inches in width and nearly three hundred feet in depth. It represents about half a million tons of ore, which will produce, at a conservative estimate, several tons of fine gold. In the provinces of Linares, Chayanta, and Lipez gold is found in abundance, the Indians having exploited mines in all the principal serranias and streams of these districts. They still wash gold from the streams of Caiza, Yura, and San Juan. In the province of Lipez gold quartz is found in the cerros of Colcha, one of the socavones being so rich that the Indians call it abitans, which means “storehouse of gold.” The Yura River, which flows through the province of Porco to join the Rio Blanco, San Juan, and other tributaries of the Pilcomayo, contains large quantities of auriferous gravel; and in the cerros of Yura, a canton of Porco, immense gold veins have been discovered which still await exploitation. In Suipacha, on the border of Argentina, a few miles south of Tupiza, gold is found in a vein forty miles long and seven feet wide, the precious metal being plainly visible in the quartz. Portugalete, midway between Tupiza and the famous Cerro Chorolque, is the centre of a region of gold mines which extend in all directions. All the quebradas of this district contain gold, which has always been worked in a primitive way by the Indians, and still provides their chief means of subsistence. The gold-mining district of Santa Catalina extends along the course of the river San Juan from its source in the Cordillera Real as far as the Suipacha mines, which are an extension of the Santa Catalina veins. It includes the quartz and placer mines of Esmoraca, Estarca, Chilco, and other rich valleys, which, like Portugalete, have for centuries been worked by Indians. Foreign enterprise is now being attracted to these rich deposits.

Tupiza is one of the most important mineral centres of Bolivia, all the gold-producing districts of the province of South Chichas, of which Tupiza is the capital, being tributary to it, while it is further famous as the centre of the finest bismuth mines in the world. The various companies engaged in exploiting mines of gold, silver, tin, wolfram, antimony, lead, zinc, and bismuth, which are found in this locality, have their headquarters in the city of Tupiza. Minerals and precious stones, especially emeralds, are brought here for sale by the Indians, who find them in the various mines of the province. Portugalete, San Vicente, Lipez, Santo Domingo, Chocoma, Esmoraca, San Juan de Oro, Tatasi, and the magnificent Chorolque are among the most important mining centres.

The mine of San Juan de Oro is one of the very few in the province of South Chichas which are being exploited on a large scale and with the use of modern machinery. In 1905 a company was formed in Buenos Aires for the purpose of developing the San Juan de Oro mine to its full capacity; a capital of about half a million dollars in gold was invested in the enterprise, and a powerful dredge was put in the river as one of the initial steps of the work. Several dredges are now in operation, and the returns are most satisfactory, showing an average of fifty cents’ worth of gold per cubic mètre. The opinion is generally expressed by experts in mining industries that there is a great future in store for Bolivian gold mines, not only in this province, but throughout the entire country. The universal prediction is that the advent of the railroads will bring new enterprise to the development of abandoned mines and lead to the discovery of hitherto unknown mineral wealth.

The mining industry of Tupiza owes a great deal to the enterprise of one of Bolivia’s leading statesmen, Señor Don Felix Avelino Aramayo, whose name is identified not only with the progress of the city, but of the entire province. Many of the most valuable mines are his property, and it is owing to his great energy and enterprise that they have been made to yield an enormous fortune. Bolivia leads the world in bismuth, and it is chiefly out of Señor Aramayo’s mines that the precious mineral is taken. The firm of Aramayo, Francke and Company bought the silver, tin, and bismuth mines of Chorolque in 1889, and in addition to this famous mountain they also control the output of the mines of Tasna, a mountain thirty leagues from the city of Tupiza, which produces bismuth, tin, wolfram, and other minerals, and they have a large establishment for the refinement of ores at Quechisla, twenty-five leagues from Tupiza.

The magnificent cerro of Chorolque, which towers above the clouds and is visible hundreds of miles distant, where it looks like a huge white pyramid looming above the horizon, is the centre of the highest tin and bismuth mines in the world. The mines are worked at an altitude of eighteen thousand feet. The different lodes of tin are of great thickness, and their lower strata contain bismuth in chlorides or sulphides. Bismuth is sometimes met with also in its native state, as in Coribiri, where it is found in nuggets weighing six or seven grammes. The deposits of bismuth in the Chorolque lode are found only on the cerro and its slopes. Rich bismuth mines were recently discovered in the province of Inquisivi, and this mineral is found in some quantity wherever there are large deposits of tin. The total production of bismuth in Bolivia averages from four thousand to five thousand metric quintals annually, and its value fluctuates between fourteen and sixteen pounds sterling per metric quintal.

The picturesque little city of Tupiza has a population of about three thousand inhabitants. It is situated about sixty miles north of the Argentine boundary line, in the heart of a beautiful country, diversified by mountain, valley, and stream, and blessed by a climate which in summer is balmy and delightful, and even in winter is not too cold. Along its valleys are many prosperous haciendas and picturesque fincas, or country places, where various kinds of fruits and vegetables are grown. Cattle roam over the lower mountain slopes, and every condition is favorable for the future development of this locality as one of the richest in pastoral and agricultural possibilities as well as mineral wealth. Nowhere are valleys more picturesque, the skies bluer, or the fragrance of flowers and shade of trees more attractive to the sight than in this charming little border city.