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The bounder becomes the real proprietor of the mine, and may

either work it himself, or give it in lease to another, without

the consent of the owner of the land, to whom, however, a very

small acknowledgment must be paid upon working it. In both

regulations, the sacred rights of private property are sacrificed

to the supposed interests of public revenue.

The same encouragement is given in Peru to the discovery and

working of new gold mines; and in gold the king's tax amounts

only to a twentieth part of the standard rental. It was once a

fifth, and afterwards a tenth, as in silver; but it was found

that the work could not bear even the lowest of these two taxes.

If it is rare, however, say the same authors, Frezier and Ulloa,

to find a person who has made his fortune by a silver, it is

still much rarer to find one who has done so by a gold mine. This

twentieth part seems to be the whole rent which is paid by the

greater part of the gold mines of Chili and Peru. Gold, too, is

much more liable to be smuggled than even silver; not only on

account of the superior value of the metal in proportion to its

bulk, but on account of the peculiar way in which nature produces

it.