Hermanos gold minings, with 20 crushing machines.
The French Uruguay gold mine company, the working of which is stopped for the present, has spent in the region mentioned more than three millions of dollars, and has established milldams in the rivers Cunapiru and Corrales so as to employ, for the grinding, a powerful hydraulic strength.
The working of the mines on a great scale is just beginning now without interruption.
During the last two years over 72,000 tons of quartz have been extracted and crushed, giving a result of over 420 kilog. of fine gold.
Mines of lead and copper and marble quarries are now worked in the departments of Minas and Maldonado.
The agate stone is exported as it is found in the Catalan hills, department of Salto, and there exists in Montevideo an agent of the house established in that department, where are sold the stones worked out into art objects.
In La Paz, near Montevideo, there exist quarries of red and blue granite, some beautiful pieces of which are employed as columns in some important buildings.
Stone is abundant in the Republic. Everywhere in Cerro, La Paz, Sauce, Colonia and other places they continually open new quarries which permit a considerable exportation for the works undertaken in Buenos Ayres and La Plata.
The Colonia quarries alone employ over two thousand workmen.
The territory does not only count with its native trees the wood of which is employed in the industries and the rural economy; but all over its fertile soil do grow, reproducing themselves, and perfectly accustomed to the climate, nearly all the trees of the other regions.
Among the native trees there are the _nandubay_, that has the property of petrifying itself under the ground, the _urunday_, the lapacho, the viraro, the coronilla, the espinillo, quebracho, tala, araza, the carob-tree, the black laurel, the timbo, guaviyu, copal, the white, red, brown and yellow willow, the mataojo, paraiso, the wild acacia, the ceibo and many others, the wood of which may be employed for making all kinds of casks and buildings, and also for burning.
"The riches of the forests in this country," says Dr. Ordonana, perpetual secretary to the Rural Association, "belong to two distinct categories. The first one extends itself along the banks of the rivers and rivulets of the interior of the Republic, and the other is a consequence of the sediments, ground and sands brought down by the rivers that form the Plate, which, stopped by the banks of low Uruguay, give birth to plants like those described by clever botanists as Azara and Bomplan, as belonging to the regions of the Pilcomayo, Parana and Paraguay.