Company.” Through the courtesy of Mr. F. N. Perkins, the General Manager of the mine, I was permitted to examine the contents of forty or fifty large wooden boxes which contained bundles of letters and records the originals of which had been sent to the directors of the company in London. The discovery of the material was particularly fortunate because the succes- sive general managers or superintendents of the copper mines appear to have been exceptionally intelligent men, and in ad- dition to reporting on the mining properties they were of necessity obliged to report upon the state of the river, the occurrence of rains and unusual snowstorms, damages done by flood and drought, the condition of the trails and the pastures and springs along them, the state of the ports, and the con- ditions of land transportation and shipping.
For a long period about the middle of the last century a Mr. Bingley was general manager of the company, and his descriptions are of the greatest geographical and historical interest. He is quoted by Darwin, whose paragraphs clearly reflect the quality of the correspondence: “I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Bingley, who received me very kindly at the Hacienda of Potrero Seco.”[1] In many letters long ac- counts of the country and the people are interspersed with more technical matters. It was clear that the explanations he gave were of great value to the directors of the company in London, for upon them could be based explanations to the stockholders, particularly of the unsuccessful years. In addi- tion to these reasons the company had during part of its his- tory to supply its own transport mules and manage the con- veyance of its ores to the coast and their shipment overseas. Whatever the state of the pastures in the valley and whatever difficulties there were over water rights would naturally be touched upon because they bore not only upon the principal business of the company but also upon the subsidiary business of farming and grazing carried on to maintain the means of transport.
As the population increased and transport conditions im-
- ↑ Charles Darwin: Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the World, 2nd edit., London, 1860, p. 350.
