de Mancayan, was divided amongst the Igorots into larger or smaller
parcels strictly according to the number of the population of the
adjacent villages, whose boundaries were jealously watched; and
the possessions of each separate village were again divided between
certain families; whence it is that those mountain districts exhibit,
at the present day, the appearance of a honeycomb. To obtain the ore,
they made cavities, in which they lighted fires in suitable spots,
for the purpose of breaking the rock into pieces by means of the
elasticity of the heated water contained in the crevices, with the
additional assistance of iron implements. The first breaking-up of
the ore was done in the stream-work itself, and the dead heaps lay
piled up on the ground, so that, in subsequent fires, the flame of
the pieces of wood always reached the summit; and by reason of the
quality of the rock, and the imperfection of the mode of procedure,
very considerable down-falls frequently occurred. The ores were divided
into rich and quartziferous; the former not being again melted, but
the latter being subjected to a powerful and persistent roasting,
during which, after a part of the sulphur, antimony, and arsenic
had been exhaled, a kind of distillation of sulphate of copper and
sulphate of iron took place, which appeared as "stone," or in balls
on the surface of the quartz, and could be easily detached. [135]

[The Smelter.] The furnace or smelting apparatus consisted of a round
hollow in clayey gound, thirty centimeters in diameter and fifteen
deep; with which was connected a conical funnel of fire-proof stone,
inclined at an angle of 30°, carrying up two bamboo-canes, which were
fitted into the lower ends of two notched pine-stems; in these two
slips, covered all over with dry grass or feathers, moved alternately
up and down, and produced the current required for the smelting.