kinds, each made of stone, and are of the most primitive character. In order that the primitive methods of milling usually employed in the country may be the better understood by those not having seen them in operation either in South America or in Mexico, a brief description may be of interest.
First is the "quimbalete," which is simply a large bowlder, with a short pole lashed to the top with rawhide to serve as a lever in rocking it with a "pump-handle motion" back and forth through the segment of a circle of about 5 feet in diameter over a flat bed stone, upon which the metal is thrown so as to be caught under the rocking bowlder.
This "mill," which is generally used where water is scarce, is operated by a single Indian, or, if it be a "double-handed quimbalete," that is, if the pole is lashed midway across the top of the bowlder, then two Indians are required, who, sitting astride either end of the pole, convert the old game of seesaw into an important industrial exercise.
The second is the "trapiche," and is the primitive form of the present Chilean mill. It consists of a large stone wheel 6 feet in diameter and 5 feet wide, called "voladora," whose axle is connected with a perpendicular shaft on which rests horizontally a large wooden wheel, similar to a Pelton, which, being propelled by water, drives the "voladora" around on a flat, circular bed stone called "solera," upon which the metal to be thus milled is thrown from time to time.
In milling gold ores, the water serves the double purpose of driving the mill and washing the metals. Rushing down a sluice box called "chiflon," at an angle of 45°, and striking the buckets, which consist simply of upright pieces of boards extending across the top of the wheel from its rim toward its center, it falls upon the ore traversed by the "voladora," carrying off the fine particles into a pebble-paved sluice box about 6 feet long, where the metal and quicksilver are finally deposited. The capacity of a new
