exposed on the side of the mountain, only waiting a pick and
shovel, and at one place there were five thousand tons in plain
sight. I should call the stuff first-class Bessemer ore, running
about sixty-three per cent metallic iron. The people know it is
there, but have no knowledge of its value, and are too lazy to
ever work it themselves. As to transportation, it would only be
necessary to run a freight railroad twenty miles along the sea-
coast to the harbor of Valencia and dump your ore from your own
pier into your own vessels. It would not, I think, be possible
to ship direct from the mines themselves, even though, as I say,
the ore runs right down into the water, because there is no place
at which it would be safe for a large vessel to touch. I will
look into the political side of it and see what sort of a
concession I can get for you. I should think ten per cent of the
output would satisfy them, and they would, of course, admit
machinery and plant free of duty.''

Six months after this communication had arrived in New York City,
the Valencia Mining Company was formally incorporated, and a man
named Van Antwerp, with two hundred workmen and a half-dozen
assistants, was sent South to lay out the freight railroad, to
erect the dumping-pier, and to strip the five mountains of
their forests and underbrush. It was not a task for a holiday,
but a stern, difficult, and perplexing problem, and Van Antwerp
was not quite the man to solve it. He was stubborn, self-
confident, and indifferent by turns. He did not depend upon his
lieutenants, but jealously guarded his own opinions from the
least question or discussion, and at every step he antagonized
the easy-going people among whom he had come to work. He had no
patience with their habits of procrastination, and he was