Part 16

But, although since the days of the Ancients the minerals of Spain have not been worked on the same enormous scale that was then adopted, the industry has never been neglected to the extent that is generally supposed. The majority of people cherish the delusion that since the times of the Moors the metallic resources of the Peninsula have not been exploited, and that the revival of activity that is now being witnessed is a development of recent months. Nothing could be further from the truth. That the eyes of English capitalists and investors have only lately been turned upon this Bonanza is an indisputable fact; but in a quiet unostentatious way the country has been mined without interruption for centuries, and fabulous fortunes have been made by a comparatively small number of people. And this select coterie of millionaire mine-owners has, for years, managed to disguise the magnitude of its operations and secure immunity from active competition.

Before the discovery of America thousands of mines were being energetically exploited in Spain; new mineral discoveries were of daily occurrence, and Royal Charters were granted by tens of thousands. But the astounding richness of the mines of Peru and Central America enticed whole armies of Spanish miners to the new Eldorado, and for a while the home industry languished. Spain has never since re-attained its commanding position as a mineral country in the eyes of the world; but hundreds and hundreds of mines have been and are being worked by small companies and private individuals, and the returns have been buried from sight in official statistics and unpublished records. While the general public were being kept out of the country as the result of this carefully cultivated policy of suppression of facts, it was inevitable that the plums should fall into the hands of a few wealthy monopolists. The small local owners did not stand a chance. If they mined for copper there was no market for their ore; the fall in the price of tin rendered that industry for a while unprofitable, and the development of iron properties necessitated the expenditure of more capital than the Spanish proprietors could command. And the agents of the mammoth firms, who form a close corporation for the exploitation of Spain’s mineral resources, have been up and down the country, inspecting, and acquiring for ready cash all the most promising properties. There has been no fuss, no sensation, no publicity, and no incitement to competition. The direct consequence of this condition of affairs has been to give currency to all kinds of erroneous impressions with respect to the condition, the profits, and the prospects of Spanish mining. A general belief has grown up that the minerals have been largely worked out; that the difficulties of transport, the vexatious mining regulations, and the paucity of natural facilities have combined to spoil the industry--fallacies which have been fostered by those whose interests were best conserved by their promulgation.

This condition of affairs has obtained very largely in the iron industry of Northern Spain--an industry that is so widely known that it is unnecessary here to make more than passing reference to it; but in the Southern Provinces (principally) of Almeria, Granada, and Murcia, the iron mines are being developed in the interests of a far larger number of persons. Both foreign and Spanish capital is invested in the enterprise, and many of the mines are fully equipped with wire tramways and American waggons, and the promise of the future of the Southern iron fields is well on its way to being realised. Foreign capitalists are embarked in the venture which, until now, has attracted the attention of few Englishmen; and, indeed, until recently Englishmen have only possessed a vague idea of the magnitude and richness of Spain’s mineral deposits. The French people realised it long ago, and attempted, in a half-hearted and parsimonius manner, to develop them, but with only indifferent success. Native enterprise proved even less satisfactory, and the attempt of the Government to work the world-famous Rio Tinto mines resulted in utter failure, and the sale of the property by public tender in 1873. The Rio Tinto

mines, like those of Tharsis, were extensively developed by the Romans, and so perfect was the smelting process they adopted, that in the heap of ancient slag on the surface hardly a trace of copper remains. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians both worked the Rio Tinto property prior to the advent of the Romans, and their galleries and shafts are found in every direction and at every depth explored by the Moderns. Especially on the North lode are found innumerable shafts and vast slag heaps, the latter testifying to the great extent of their smelting operations. On this lode are also to be seen the traces, now almost obliterated, of a Roman town and a Roman cemetery; while upon the summit of the Cerron Salomon (3,000 feet) are the outlines of a fortified enclosure covering many acres. From the time when the Roman occupation was broken up by the inroads of the Visigoths, until the middle of the sixteenth century Rio Tinto fell into utter oblivion. The Moors apparently never directed their attention to them. An attempt was made to reopen the mines under Philip II., but the purpose failed, and for another two centuries the property remain neglected.

Ultimately they were leased to a Swede named Liebert Wolters in 1725, and the property reverted to the Crown in 1783. The Government at first leased the mines, but the wretchedly unsatisfactory result of this arrangement prompted them for a while to undertake the management. The loss to the Government was so great that they disposed of the mines in 1872 for £4,000,000 to a group of capitalists, who formed the present Rio Tinto Company. This company has developed the property on a vast scale, and in accordance with the dictates of modern science. A railway line has been constructed to Huelva, a distance of fifty-three miles, terminating in a pier nearly half-a-mile long in the River Odiel. This pier consists of two floors, used respectively for loading and unloading. It has, at some portions of its section, ten lines of railway abreast and above, and can easily berth five large steamers. The ore for export is brought from the mines and shot directly into the ships’ holds. The quantity of pyrites extracted in 1901 was 1,928,776 tons, of which 633,949 tons were exported. The sulphur ore shipped in that year was 119,683 tons, and 21,100 tons of copper were produced by treatment at the mines. Of the ore that is not exported a portion is worked up into copper by the cementation process, and the remainder by smelting. The sulphur fumes emitted by the roasting, which is a necessary prelude to parts of the processes, had denuded the surrounding hills of every vestige of vegetation before the company commenced operations; and the so-called Hill of the Pines has not borne a tree for thirty or forty years past.

At the Rio Tinto mines there are nearly fifty miles of railway above ground and over ten miles underground, all of which are available for locomotive traffic. The underground workings are all reached by adits or galleries running in from the hill-side on different levels. Nearly fifty locomotives are daily employed in these workings, besides those used for the traffic to Huelva. The original town has been greatly enlarged, and three or four separate villages have been built by the company for the housing of their army of workmen, which numbers between 10,000 and 11,000 persons. Stores have been opened to supply the needs of the workmen, schools have been founded and hospitals built, both at Huelva and the mines, and forty armed guards, recruited out of the Civil Guard, are maintained to preserve order and protect property. The company has also constructed several reservoirs for the storage of water, which is of such importance in copper mining. The largest of these, which is about twice the area of the Serpentine, has a depth of seventy feet, and a capacity of 2,570,000 tons, or 575,000,000 gallons. These figures convey some impression of the vastness of the undertaking, but another figure may be added, viz., the revenue of the company, which last year amounted to upwards of £1,800,000. Of this sum over one and three-quarter million sterling was profit on sale of produce.

The Tharsis mines, though not such a remarkable proposition as the Rio Tinto, form a notable property. They appear to have been practically abandoned from the time of the Roman occupation until 1865, and were not worked at a profit until they were acquired by the present Scotch company. Since then, however, an enormous quantity of ore has been extracted, and last year a total output of some 400,000 tons of metal returned a profit of over £320,000. The mines are connected by a railway twenty-eight miles in length with the pier station at Corrales, a short distance from Huelva, on the opposite bank of the river Odiel. A fine iron pier, 765 yards long, allows the ore for export to be carried direct to the ships. The Tharsis mines and the Lagunazo mines are now yielding considerably smaller returns of copper ore; but at the Calanas mines the output is steadily increasing, and vigorous exploration work in this portion of the property has disclosed, in addition to the already proved resources of ore which can be profitably treated for the production of copper, a large mass of low-grade ore, which, though comparatively poor in copper is rich in sulphur.

The Rio Tinto and the Tharsis have been rightly regarded as the show mines of Spain, and the former can, of course, hold its own among the leading mines of the world; and, if it is unlikely that any other Spanish property will rival this cupiferous wonder, there are many that, under proper scientific management, will be found to be as relatively rich and profitable. What is required in Spain is money for development and brains to direct the operations. The existence of minerals, and of copper particularly, has been demonstrated; and now that English capital is slowly but in steadily increasing amount being invested in these mines, a tremendous reaction in the industry may confidently be looked for in this quarter of the globe. Within the past year or two quite a number of promising properties have been acquired for the English markets, and in every instance the results of the opening-up work have more than realised the expectations of the proprietors. The company, which was formed a short time ago to acquire an extensive property at Coruña, is regarded by experts as a proposition of the highest importance. Another company, called the Escurial Copper Mines, is already working at a profit, and promises to give very large returns for many years to come. La Recompensa Mines also appear to be rich in copper, and the ore also contains precious metals, assays giving as much as 12 ozs. of silver and 9½ dwts. of gold to the ton. An important fact in connection with all these mines is that they are only distant two miles from the Escurial Mines; consequently the cost of ore treatment will be considerably reduced by reason of the proximity of large smelting works now nearing completion. The latest reports from the Huercal Copper-cobalt Mines, in the province of Almeria, all tend to confirm the very high opinion which the English owners formed of their value at the time they acquired the property; and the English-owned Rio Rimal Mines in the province of Gerona are putting out very fine copper.

Among the other Spanish mines in which English capital has been invested--and attention will be mainly confined to these in this chapter--tin and silver-lead play a prominent part.

Although tin was smelted more than two thousand years ago, and some of the first ore containing the metal was probably discovered by the Ancients in that north-westerly province of Hispania, which the Romans named Gallaeci, Spain is not to-day ranked among the great tin-producing countries of the world. Pliny refers to Cornish tin, but most of the metal contained in the ancient bronze weapons and objects must have been derived from the Spanish mines. The ancient town of Orense, the capital of the Galician province of the same name, which was founded by the Romans, and greatly esteemed by them on account of its warm springs, is the centre of the industry, and the country is scored and bored with many indications of the enterprise and energy of the ancient miners. Beariz, a little village in the mountains of Balcovo, is situated on a hill that is tunnelled with Roman workings in what are probably the richest tiniferous deposits in the richest tin district in Spain. Enormous quantities of the mineral must from this mine alone have rewarded the labours of the pioneers, who were so rudely interrupted by the invasion of the victorious Visigoths, and no succeeding owners have mined the property on the same gigantic scale.

The tiniferous areas of Spain are enormous; and the alluvial tin-bearing deposits, which extend for miles, are practically virgin ground. The Ancients, who worked the tin lodes of Galicia, entirely neglected these alluvials, and, more remarkable still, they have been neglected by every succeeding generation ever since. The quartz mining, which entails an enormous initial outlay in crushing and concentration plant, machinery, and explosives, was prosecuted to a limited extent until the slump, and the consequent fall in the price of tin, which caused the operations to be conducted at a loss. Immediately every tin mine in the country was shut down--the owners could only afford to work for quick cash profits. Small private companies are now making large profits from quartz mining--one company, of which nothing is heard by the general public, is shipping from thirty to forty tons of tin per month--but alluvial tin mining in Spain is only in its infancy. There are vast fields of tin-bearing alluvials that can be treated hydraulically at a cost of 2d. per ton, and yet there is not a single hydraulic plant, or a solitary dredger in operation in the country. When these districts are in full operation, when the tin fields of Beariz, of Arnoya, and Pontevedra and of Salamanca are being washed on a large scale, as they will be very shortly now, Spain will be near the head of the list in the production of tin.

There are two important reasons why tin stands so low in the table of Spain’s mineral output. In the first place the tiniferous areas are, comparatively speaking, so few that, although they may yield fortunes to their exploiters, the country can never compare with Australia and the United States in the aggregate output. And in the second place, although the tin is found in such exceeding richness that Señor Alfred Lasala, the eminent mining authority, reported on the Beariz mines, “It is almost impossible to cubicate the quantity of tin ore in these concessions,” yet the properties can only be made to pay when the mineral stands at a good price in the market. Spanish mine owners have very strong views upon the absolute necessity of making the mines pay their own way. The expenditure of capital in properly opening up the mines, with a view to future regular outputs is never entertained. “Spend nothing and get all you can without” is the motto they have adopted. Consequently the amount of development work accomplished on most locally owned properties is small, unscientific, and frequently dangerous.

The silver mines in the neighbourhood of Jadraque, in the province of Guadalajara, have supplied all the Spanish silver that has been coined for generations, and the supply of the metal would appear to be almost inexhaustible. The principal property in the district, called the Hiendelæncina, was at one time in the hands of an English company, who worked it for awhile unsuccessfully, and abandoned it when their capital was expended. On the advice of the Spanish mine foreman--advice which had been rejected by the English owners--the work was carried on by a Frenchman, who acquired the mine for the price of an old song. The lode was struck, as the foreman had predicted, and at the very spot he had pointed out; and within a year the lucky French owner had sold the mine for £160,000 cash.

Silver-lead, although not so widely distributed over Spain as are some other minerals, is found in no fewer than half-a-dozen provinces; and the industry is, generally speaking, in a healthy condition. In the case of the mines of Granada, transport difficulties have had to be overcome; and in Guadalajara, Murcia and Navarra, the want of capital and the absence of scientific methods have militated against their progress. The most favourable conditions for lead mining exist in the provinces of Badajoz, Jaén, Córdova and Ciudad-Real, where foreign capital has been more freely invested, and very large profits have already been obtained. Such astute investors as the Rothschilds are heavily interested in these latter districts, and of recent months several concessions have been acquired for the English market and are now being developed with English capital.

The number of Spanish mines that, having been abandoned by one set of owners, have been taken over by other persons and profitably exploited, is extraordinarily large--in fact, it might almost be said that there are few important properties in the Peninsula that have not changed hands at least once before enriching their proprietors. The Triumfo Silver-lead Mine at Córdova is an interesting case in point. So much fruitless exploration work was done on this mine that the French owners had come to the conclusion that further endeavours would only be wasted; but after listening to the combined entreaties of the Spanish foreman and their French manager, they reluctantly agreed to continue working for a few more weeks. Before the extension limit had been reached, an enormous seam of silver-lead had been located; and the output of the Triumfo to-day is only limited by the market requirements and the obligations entered into by the company. In La Mancha there is a silver lead-mine which a French company, after sinking an enormous amount of working capital and failing to strike the lode, abandoned as a “duffer.” On the representations of the Spanish mine captain, who never doubted the existence of the lode at depth, the property was taken over for a nominal consideration by some Scotch financiers. The Spaniard’s sanguine predictions were speedily verified; and for the expenditure of a trifling amount of further capital the Scotch investors acquired a mine of extraordinary richness, which has been returning them enormous dividends ever since.

In lead mining, the element of speculation is reduced to a minimum. In other branches of mining, 60 per cent. of the properties are failures; in silver-lead mining, 60 per cent. of the properties are successful. And, in the case of the 40 per cent. of the silver-lead mines that turn out badly, the explanation is that sufficient preliminary care has not been bestowed on proving the existence of the lodes before commencing operations. What may appear to be a lode may prove only a pocket; but where proper precautions are taken, this risk may be eliminated. The French engineers largely failed in their mining ventures in Spain for this very reason. They made haste too quickly, as the Americans say, and they were not expert economists. Then there is another favourable element in lead mining--it can be conducted with only a shaft and a winch--and as soon as the lode is reached, the mine commences to pay. A very large number of properties are locally owned, and the mines of Ciudad-Real, Badajoz, Jaén, Córdova, Seville and Almeria supply the markets of Europe with lead. It is found in large lodes, it is cheaply worked, and there is a ready market for the produce. It is, therefore, a branch of mining that commends itself to the fancy of the small capitalist; while the large capitalist is so eager to secure the ore that he will even advance money on it before it is taken out of the mine. The works at Peñarroya, and the smelting firms at Carthagena and elsewhere, absorb the entire output.

Amongst the important properties may be mentioned the San Antonio, Maria del Pilar and San Teodoro (situated at Agudo in the Almaden district) and the San Luis at Piedrabuena in the province of Ciudad-Real, and the silver-lead mines of Santa Maria, in the province of Badajoz. These latter mines, which have been proved to a depth of over 700 feet, and are now fully equipped with machinery, are the properties of the Santa Maria Mining Company.

There are extensive coal and cement stone mines at Almatret, in the province of Lerida. The coal or lignite, which is of good quality, is at present worked, and about eighty tons per day are being shipped. This will, it is anticipated, be shortly increased to 200 tons per day. The cement is suitable for constructive work; and experts who have reported upon the properties have expressed their belief that it will be found to approximate very closely to the composition required for true Portland cement. The quantity of cement stones is said to be practically inexhaustible.

One department of mining enterprise, which has remained unexploited from the time of the Romans until the last few years, is that of alluvial gold washing. The Romans washed for gold over a larger area, and on a much larger scale, than the chroniclers of the times were aware of. Even Jacob (1831) confessed himself unaware of the extent on which their operations were conducted, for modern investigation had disclosed that in the provinces of Lugo, and Orense, and Léon many of the rivers were washed by them on a scale of almost incomprehensible magnitude. So profitable must the operations have been that, in one case, the river Sil was diverged out of its course by means of a cutting made through a mountain spur in order that the river bed might be exposed for the precious metal. Considering the primitive means that the Romans possessed, this must be regarded as a gigantic engineering feat; and it has been estimated that if 10,000 men had been engaged on the work it would have taken many years to complete. Before 1100 B.C. the banks of the Guadalquivir were worked for alluvial gold, and sometime before 500 B.C. the auriferous

deposits of Spain were believed to be exhausted. But Pliny records that in 207 B.C., when the second Punic war ended in the Roman conquest of Spain, “the Asturias, Galicia and Lusitania furnished 2,000 lbs. weight of gold (4,427 lbs. English weight) annually; but Asturias supplies the most, nor in any other part of the world during so many ages has so great a quantity been obtained.”