richer than Tipuani and offer flattering inducements for hydraulic mining. The former is estimated at 100,000,000 cubic yards of gravel, yielding 37½ cents per cubic yard, and the latter at 20,000,000 cubic yards, yielding 50 cents per cubic yard.
Along many of the rivers flowing eastward in this section, deep placers of great richness exist. The La Paz River, flowing through La Paz from the western slope of the Cordillera Real and called in the native Aymara language "Chuquiapa," meaning "river or gold," also carries considerable gold, and in the days of the early Spaniards, was worked with great profit.
The present washings of Chuquiaguillo, an affluent of the La Paz River and only a league distant from La Paz, are also worthy of mention. It was here that an Indian in the seventeenth century picked up a mass of native gold that sold for $11,269, and which may now be seen in the Museum of Natural History in Madrid, and a few years ago, another nugget worth $5,000 now in the possession of Señor Juan G. Matta, the Chilian minister, residing in La Paz was found.
GENERAL REMARKS.
There are other gold-bearing districts capable of yielding enormous quantities of this precious metal under proper conditions, as, for instance, the Rio Suipacha, in southern Bolivia; but, like the districts already named, they are practically unproductive for the want of strong and well-directed capital, suitable machinery, and skilled labor. It is proper to observe, however, that, while Bolivia is thus rich in gold and is far richer in silver, it is well understood by those acquainted with the country and its environments that, situated as it is 500 miles from the Pacific coast, the cost of transporting the machinery and other materials necessary to successful mining in this country is so great that these rich deposits only offer inducements to strong capital and the best possible management. All the silver mines of Bolivia now worked under these conditions,
