munications,
together with facts gathered from the most authentic Spanish, British,
and French literature relating to this metal, form the basis of the
following contribution:
The
long isolation of Colombia, from which she is now fortunately rapidly
emerging, has hitherto operated to prevent the American public from
knowing much about the wonderful mineral wealth of that naturally
highly endowed Latin-American country. The Hon. John Barrett, Director
of the International Bureau of the American Republics, submitted a
special report to the State Department on the resources of Colombia at
the time that he was United States minister to that Republic, and
alluding to her extraordinary wealth of minerals, declared that "silver
is found in Antioquia, Cauca, and Tolima; copper in Boyaca; platinum in
Cauca; petroleum in Tolima; while lime, alum, chalk, magnesia, sulphur,
marble, asphalt, cinnabar, lead, quicksilver ore, are found in large
deposits in many parts of the country."
The
mineral resources of Colombia, especially in precious metals, early
attracted the attention of the Spanish conquerors, discoverers. and
rulers. Indeed, during the Spanish regime of three hundred years the
Colombian gold fields were admittedly the richest in the world, and
down to 1848, when those of California were discovered, they furnished
fully one-third of the whole supply of American gold, in spite of the
extremely primitive methods employed by the Spaniards. It was while
engaged, through their thousands of Indian slaves, in extracting gold
and silver from the alluvial beds of the streams and rivers of western
and southern Colombia that the first traces of platinum were
discovered. The new metal came to be so highly prized that, in 1804,
Don Ventra Salzas Malibran, lieutenant-governor of the Province of
Atara, submitted a curious report to the viceroy, Don Antonio Amar, in
which the author adduces arguments to prove that platinum is really a
kind of white gold. Whether it be true or not that platinum was first
discovered as far back as 1720, it is recorded that 4,202 pounds of it
were shipped to the Spanish King in 1788. According to Dr. Don Vicente
Restrepo, in his admirable work on the gold and silver mines of
Colombia," platinum first began to attract attention in Europe in 1748.
It had previously been observed by miners in the Choco and Barbacoas,
but it was thrown aside as useless. As far back as 1720, it is said,
the method of separating it from gold by means of quicksilver was
known in Popoyan, Cauca. The Spanish Government, in 1778, ordered all
platinum to be sent to the royal treasury, but without offering any
remuneration. Ten years later $2 a pound was offered for it in the name
of the King, and at the end of 1788 about 3,820 pounds of platinum had
been collected in the Choco. The mines then producing most platinum
were those of the Opagado, a tributary of the Atrato. The low price
paid by the Government led to its being sold to foreigners, who gave as
much as $12 per pound for it and made fortunes by reselling it in
Europe.
The
value of Colombian platinum was recognized, at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, by the great German explorer and scientist Baron
von Humboldt, who wrote:
Platina
in grains is only found in two places in the known world, viz, in the
Choco and Barbacoas. It is peculiar to certain sedimentary lands that
cover surfaces of COO
a Restrepo, Vincente. Estudio sobre las rainas de oro y plata dc Colombia, Bogota, 1888.
