Note 61 — Chapter XIII · THE CENTRAL PROVINCES. CORDOVA, LA RIOJA, SANTIAGO, TUCUMAN, CATAMARCA, SALTA.

Luccock, in his Travels in Brazil, speaks of a very singular metallic formation which he met with in the province of Minas Geraes, not far from Villarica. He says (page 490), "A hill on our left now presented a wonderful object; it was one entire mass of iron, so perfectly free from any mixture of common soil as to produce no vegetation whatever, but was covered with a complete coating of rust or oxide of iron. The hill is so lofty and steep that its top was not accessible; but from its more elevated parts nodules of corroded metal had rolled down, and greatly embarrassed the road: at the foot of the mountain the soil is red clay mixed with ponderous brown dust. As we advanced the metal seemed to become less pure, until, after an extant of two leagues and a-half, it altogether vanished, and was succeeded by the common clayey land, &c. I had often heard of this immense mass of metal, but none of the reports had presented any adequate picture of it to the imagination. The very core of the hill, as far as we could judge, appeared to consist of vast blocks of iron, in tables; and it is so free from alloy as to produce when smelted ninety-five per cent. of pure metal."