THE STORY OF MORRO VELHO

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2
THE STORY OF MORRO VELHO

by

BERNARD HOLLOWOOD

THE SAINT JOHN D’EL REY MINING COMPANY LIMITED, LONDON

(For Private Circulation)

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 First Edition 1955

Produced and Printed in Great Britain

and Published for The St. John d’el Rey Mining Company Limited
by Samson Clark & Co. Ltd., London and Stevenage

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 Author’s Note
In the preparation of this history I have been afforded
every assistance by the London Office of the Company
and by the staff of the mine at Morro Velho. On a
visit to Brazil in 1953 I was able to hold many con-
versations with Mr. L. E. Langley, the Managing Di-
rector, Mr. W. R. Russell, Mr. G. P. Wigle, Mr. A.
L. Yarnell, the present Superintendent, Mr. A. G. N.
Chalmers and other senior officials, past and present. I
have had access to the Company’s annual reports and to
excellent notes and lectures prepared by various authori-
ties at the mine. And, of course, I have availed myself
of all the printed literature contained in the Company’s
libraries. Sources are mentioned in the body of the text.

For all the help I have received I am grateful, and I hope

that the errors I have made in translating this assistance
into a literary history of Morro Velho will not prove
too numerous.
BERNARD HOLLOWOOD.
December, 1954

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 Contents
Page
AUTHOR’S NOTE 5
INTRODUCTION 9
CHAPTER I - ‘A Heart of Gold in a Breast of Iron’ 15
At the Vila Rica, Gongo Soco and Co.
CHAPTER II - Foundations 19
Dr. George Such, Outward Bound, Padre Freitas
at the Casa Grande

CHAPTER III - The First Mine 31

Hazards and Hardships, Burton on Prospectuses,
Superintendents and Workpeople, Morro Velho in

the News, Timber and Lighting

CHAPTER IV - Setbacks 51
Captain Treloar describes the Mine, The Fire,
Hard Times, The Mine Reopened

CHAPTER V - George Chalmers 65

The Crush of 1886, To Be or Not to Be, “C” and
“D” Shafts, Prosperity

CHAPTER VI - The Elements 81

The Cooling Plant, Electrification, The Peixe,

TheTramway

CHAPTER VII - Reductio ad Absurdum 99

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 List of Illustrations

Facing
Page

General View of Morro Velho 13

Chairmen 23

Title page from the First Annual Report, 1831 27

The Old Mine 35

Reproduction of article from The Illustrated London News,

20th January, 1849, by kind permission of the Editor at end

Muster of employees at the Casa Grande, Morro Velho, 1864 56

Headgear of the “A” and “B” Shafts 61

George Chalmers, Esq., M.Inst.C.E. 66

Visit of The President of Brazil (Dr. Rodrigues Alves)

to Morro Velho in 1904 77

The Codorna Dam and Lake 111

Plan and Section drawings of Morro Velho Mine at end

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 Introduction

This is the story of Morro Velho, the great gold mine of the St.
John d'el Rey Mining Company, a mine that is probably more than two
hundred years old, and has been worked by the present owners for ne-
arly a century and a quarter.
The mine is situated in the State of Minas Gerais, in Brazil, some
two hundred miles inland and almost due north of the spectacular and
beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro. On my first night in Rio I heard a
restaurant entertainer croon the words “O Minas Gerais” to the familiar
English tune “Two Lovely Black Eyes”, and later in Belo Horizonte and
Nova Lima I heard the tune again. It is now inseparably associated in
my mind with the rugged splendour and high romance of this wonder-
ful region of Brazil. Minas Gerais, which means quite simply "General
Mines", is a rich and thriving area: its industrial potential is enormous,
but the gold which was once its chief attraction and claim to fame is
now a relatively small item in the State's economy and is mined intensi-
vely only at Morro Velho.
Morro Velho, the "Old Hill", is part of the town of Nova Lima,
which with nearby Raposos and the village of Bicalho has a population
of some 30,000; and the whole settlement is entirely dependent on the
success of the Company’s mining operations.
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 Ninety-nine per cent of the employees of the mine are Brazilians
and most of them are accommodated in neat and comfortable houses
built by the Company. It is a complete community enjoying most of the
amenities of an urban and suburban civilisation.
Yet it is connected with the other towns of central Minas Gerais
by roads that would certainly be called second-class in England, and it
is not on the railway. It remains an isolated pocket of activity
and habitation in a turbulent sea of hills and mountains.
To the uninitiated a gold mine suggests a grotto of gleaming
rock, with veins of yellow metal, and riches for the taking. Well, Morro
Velho is nothing like that. Here we have a vast excavation, one and a
half miles down into the earth, a mine that one can only descend by
means of giant steps, deep vertical shafts and long horizontal galleries.
And the gold-bearing rock is beautiful only to the eye of the geologist:
it emerges from the depths looking very much like any other hard rock,
and the yield of gold from every waggon-load, every ton, of the stuff
is no more than a thimbleful.
This is gold that can be won commercially only by slide-rule cal-
culations of cost per milligramme, by the most precise control at every
stage of extraction and reduction. This is gold-mining as a science ra-
ther than as an art.
As will later be seen the lot of the “Companhia do Morro Velho”
(as the Company is known in Brazil) has not been an easy one. The first
properties acquired by the Company in 1830 at São João del Rei
10
proved unsuccessful. Then when the Morro Velho mine was taken over
there were many disappointments and at least two major disasters. In
1867 the mine was ruined by fire and subsidence, and then again in 1886
the entire workings were destroyed and flooded. These troubles would
have discouraged most engineers and businessmen, but the Company
has always been fortunate to have as leaders — both in London and in
Brazil — men of outstanding courage and vision, and every setback
has been made a springboard for new efforts. Outstanding among the
superintendents (there have been thirteen, including the present occu-
pant of the position, since 1830) is that remarkable character George
Chalmers, a man who surely qualifies to join the most select company
of British inventors and industrialists. It was Chalmers who drew up
the blue-print of the mine as it is to-day, who sank the two great "C"
and "D" shafts, harnessed the waters of the Rio de Peixe to provide
the mine with electrical power, built the tramway connection with the
Central Railway at Raposos, instituted the cooling system and laid down
principles of good behaviour and discipline which have ever since gui-
ded the British community at Morro Velho.
The Morro Velho story is not by any means finished: the mine
has immense reserves of orebodies and a future that should at least ma-
tch the past in activity and productivity. This Anglo-Brazilian enterprise
is an example of loyal co-operation, courage, perseverence and skill that
no serious historian of social and industrial endeavour can afford to
overlook.
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 GENERAL VIEW OF MORRO VELHO
This fine panorama of the mining settlement and the rugged country which surrounds it
is taken from a copy of a painting done about 1902 and now in the possession of A.G.N.
Chalmers. It shows the Reduction Works (centre), the Mechanical Shops and Compressor
Houses (to the right), and in the distance the old hill surmounted by its cross. Immediate-
ly below The Cross can be seen an exposed face of rock which marks the site of the old
12

mine and the great crush.

13
14
Chapter I

‘A Heart of Gold in a

Breast of Iron’

Two hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro, in a region of an-
cient mountains and scenic splendour, lies the little city of Nova Lima.
It is a pleasant settlement, occupying the site of an old village known as
Nossa Senhora do Pilar de Congonhas de Sabará; it is isolated, peaceful
and colourful, and to the eye of the traveller it offers topographical and
architectural patterns that can be matched in a score of towns in the
State of Minas Gerais. One would expect to find the urban effort of
man completely dwarfed and overshadowed here by the massive girdle
of rugged mountain ranges, but this is not so. The floor of the valley
is undulating, the atmosphere brilliantly clear, and the buildings, bright
houses, churches, shops and civic establishments, climb out of the ba-
sin to speckle the foothills with splashes of red, yellow and white and
soften the hard contours of the brown uplands.
But if Nova Lima is superficially typical of the highlands of Bra-
zil it is subcutaneously unique, for Nova Lima is built on gold and is the
oldest thriving mining centre in South America. Rich in precious metal
it is also rich in history - a history not of war and politics, but of patient
achievement, hard pioneering, engineering and scientific progress, and
15
social experiment.
The story of Nova Lima and the great mine of Morro Velho has
attracted the attention of many writers, Brazilian and European, and all
have been impressed by the strong thread of romance and adventure
that binds the chronicle of practical achievement. This book is intended
as a brief and straightforward summary of the story of Morro Velho
and its century and a quarter of development under the St. John d’el
Rey Mining Company. I shall let the facts speak for themselves and res-
trict personal impressions to a minimum.
At the Vila Rica
There was no systematic mining of gold in Brazil before the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century. But in 1808 foreigners were allowed
to settle in the country and European skill, capital and labour began to
tap the rich lodes of Minas Gerais. For at least three hundred years men
had scraped at surface deposits, panned the river gravels and worked
shallow excavations, and their efforts had often been amply rewarded.
Ouro Preto, the city of ‘ black gold’ and the centre of the goldfield had
become the wealthy capital of Minas Gerais, an El Dorado for Portu-
guese adventurers and speculators. But these gay cavaliers of industry
lacked both the will and the equipment to pursue the gold into the dep-
ths, and with the gradual exhaustion of readily-won surface deposits,
they abandoned mining for lucrative agriculture, to become planters of
sugar, tobacco, cacau, maize and (later) coffee.

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By the time that Brazil had achieved her independence (1822) Ouro
Preto’s greatest days were over. The ‘ Vila Rica’ was in decline.

Gongo Soco and Co.

In the second year of Brazil’s independence, the first British mi-
ning company to operate in Minas Gerais - the first of the many - be-
gan business. It was the Imperial Brazilian Mining Association, better
known by the name of its chief property, the Gongo Soco mine. It was
a rich mine containing much free gold, and for a time the company
prospered. Then in 1856 the workings were ruined by flooding and the
mine closed down.
The Gongo Soco venture preceded the formation of the St. John
d’el Rey Mining Company by six years. In May, 1830, the directors of
this company, which had lately acquired two properties in Brazil, sent
out Charles Herring to act as superintendent, to take over the mines
known as São José and São João d’el Rey.

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18
Chapter II

Foundations

“ Know all men by these presents that we ‑­
ROBERT ADDISON Esquire of the Somerset Coffee House in
the Strand in the County of Middlesex
JOSEPH CONSTANTINE CARPUE Esquire of Dean Street
Soho in the said County of Middlesex
STUART DONALDSON Merchant of Old Broad Street in the
City of London
JAMES MACKENZIE Merchant of LeadenhalI Street in the
said City of London
JOHN DISTON POWLES Merchant of Freemans Court Cor‑
nhill in the said City of London
JOHN ROUTH Merchant of Austin Friars in the said City of
London
JAMES VETCH Esquire of Leicester Square in the said County
of Middlesex
- being directors of an Association established in London under a De‑
cree of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Brazils dated the 5th
November 1828, denominated The Association for Working the Mines
of Sao Joao d’el Rey in the Province of Minas Gerais in the Empire of
19
 Brazil have and each and every one of us hath nominated and
appointed . . . Charles Herring the Younger lately of London and
now about to proceed to the said Empire of Brazils, Merchant, to
be the Superintendent and Attorney of the said Association . . . to
carry into effect a
certain Contract and Engagement . . . bearing the date 19th Mar‑
ch, 1830, between Andrew Loughman the elder and Andrew Lou‑
ghman the younger ... the said Joseph Constantine Carpue and
George Such of Magdalen Hall M.D. (the Owners of the said Mi‑
nes) on one part and the said Stuart Donaldson, Robert Addison,
James Vetch and James Mackenzie of the other part and to enter
upon and take possession of the said Mines ....”

This wordy and virtually unpunctuated document is an extract

from the original power of attorney authorising Charles Herring (kno‑
wn in Brazilian archives as Carlos Herring) to transact business on
behalf of this group of City gentlemen, described as the directors of
an Association for Working the Mines of Sao Joao d’el Rey in the Pro‑
vince of Minas Gerais in the Empire of Brazil, to take over the mines
and operate them. And this is the first (and almost our last) mention of
the seven founders of the St. John d’el Rey Mining Company. We know
very little about them. They met for mutual advantage and gastronomic
delectation at various coffee housestypical business men of their day.
The long struggle against Napoleon Bonaparte was over and the mer-
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cantile traditions of Western Europe had been freshened by a new spirit
of enterprise and adventure. Gold was a magic word, and Brazil was a
land of mystery and enchantment, a land where anything was possible.
But if the founders were romantic speculators they were also hard-hea‑
ded bargainers and careful administrators: they knew how to pick their
executives (Herring proved an excellent superintendent) and they knew
how to retain effective control over men and affairs six thousand miles
distant from their snug, friendly clubs and coffee houses.
Until the year 1808, when the Portuguese royal family fled from
the wrath of Napoleon and sailed to the colony under the protection
of the British fleet, Brazil had been cut off from the rest of the world
by the rigid mercantilist and protectionist policy of the Portuguese Go‑
vernment. But with the establishment of the United Kingdoms of Por‑
tugal and Brazil, the restrictive decrees were abolished, Brazilian trade
began to expand, foreign ships were allowed to enter Brazilian ports
and immigration was permitted. Then in 1824, two years after the de‑
claration of Brazil’s independence, the Constitutional Charter of the
Empire introduced the notion of mining concessions and so opened
the way for the first gold rush of the nineteenth century.
Dr, George Such
One of the first to take advantage of the new conditions was
Dr. George Such, a German who had lived in Brazil for many years. He
obtained a licence to operate in Minas Gerais, and in partnership with

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 CHAIRMEN
J. D. POWLES 1832-1867
J. HOCKING 1867-1890
F. TENDRON 1890-1910
SIR HENRY P. HARRIS, KB.E. 1910-1941
THE RT. HON. LORD RATHCAVAN, P.C. 1941

MANAGING DIRECTORS
J. ROUTH 1849-1852
J. HOCKING 1862-1890
M. A. McCALL 1910-1913
C. F. W. KUP Feb. 1915-1931
L.E. LANGLEY 1933

SUPERINTENDENTS
C. HERRING 1830-1846
G.D. KEOGH 1846--1853
THOS. WALKER, M.D. 1853-1857
J. N. GORDON 1857-1876
PEARSON MORRISON 1876-1881
G. H.OLDHAM 1881-1884
G. CHALMERS, Sern. 1884-1924
A. G. N. CHALMERS 1924-1930
A. H. MILLETT 1930-1940
E.DAVIES 1940-1948
W. R. RUSSELL 1948-1953
G. P. WIGLE 1953-1954
A. L. YARNELL 1954

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Andrew Loughman the elder, Andrew Loughman the younger, and Jo‑
seph Constantine Carpue he worked the mines at São João d’el Rey and
Sao Jose. But the partners soon ran short of capital or enthusiasm, or
both, and in 1830 the licence was transferred, as we have seen, to the “
Association “ which was the precursor of the St. John d’el Rey Mining
Company.
On 26th April, 1830, the Chairman of the Company addressed
the first of the Board’s many letters to its superintendents - and a very
long, detailed and informative letter it was. “ ... You will in the first ins‑
tance embark at Liverpool with the party under your charge in the Co‑
lumbian for Rio de Janeiro. It will be proper that you establish, in con‑
cert with Capt. Dalley, such regulations for the men, during the voyage,
as may tend to secure regularity and good order. You will doubtless
take advantage of all convenient opportunities which may offer on the
voyage for making yourself acquainted with the respective characters
of the men. . ..”
Many paragraphs were devoted to the licence, the £10,000 depo‑
sit required for its registration, Messrs. Harrison and Company, of Rio
de Janeiro, the Board’s agents, the title to the Mines, and the method of
working the deposits, and of course, expenditure and expenses.
“ ... You will please keep a diary of everything that occurs in your
proceeding from the time of your arrival at Rio de Janeiro, a copy of
which you will transmit once a week to the Board. This Diary will be a

24
very useful record. ... You will write to the Board once a week if the
post at St. John d’el Rey permits. . . . You will send duplicates of all your
letters . . . “.
“In conclusion, the Board have only to add that in all cases whe‑
rein it may happen that their instructions cannot be exactly carried into
effect, they rely on your best discretion being used to accomplish them
as nearly as circumstances may permit.
“ Wishing you a good voyage, I remain, Sir, your most obedient
Servant,
J. D. Powles (Chairman).”
The Columbian sailed and the S1. John d’el Rey Mining Com‑
pany was under way.

Outward Bound

From a Report of a Special General Meeting of the Shareholders

of the St. John d’el Rey Mining Company held at the City of London

Tavern on Thursday, 3rd March, 1831 (“ at twelve for one o’clock”), we

learn that the party under Herring’s leadership consisted of:

1 clerk 2 dressers

1 mining captain 8 miners

2 mine carpenters 1 pitman and

2 blacksmiths 2 buddle boys.

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 The Directors were “happy to state that the selection of persons
was made to their entire satisfaction,” and that in their view “no party
of a like description has been despatched from this country to any part
of the New World more likely to answer the purpose for which they
have been sent.”
An industrial recession in England had caused a sharp increase in
unemployment and a general reduction in wage-rates, and it is interes‑
ting to observe that the Company was able to recruit its expedition of
twenty men and boys for a total annual outlay in wages and salaries of
£2,310 - “affording a striking proof,” says the report, “of the impro‑
ved terms on which mining skill and labour are now obtainable in this
country.”
Unhappily, the mines at São José and São João d’el Rey did not
fulfil expectations: the first was found to be waterlogged and unworka‑
ble, and the second yielded such a poor return for four years of toil
and worry that it too had to be abandoned. But in 1834 the Company
transferred its activities to a richer and more profitable locality, to Con‑
gonhas de Sabará, lying one hundred and sixty miles north across the
mountain ranges. To Morro Velho.

26
27
 The property was acquired by purchase, for the sum of £56,434
and included the entire effects listed as slaves, cattle, livestock, ores, to‑
ols, implements, machinery and stores. Five-sixteenths of the property
had been held by the heirs of Captain Lyon (“ George Francis Lyon,
Royal Naval Captain”) a former superintendent of the Gongo Soco
mine.
With renewed hope Charles Herring and six English assistants
- all that remained of his staff-left Sao Joao d’el Rey and prepared to
attack the hard rocks of Morro Velho.

Padre Freitas at the Casa Grande

The gold of Morro Velho has been worked for some two hun‑
dred years, and there have been few serious stoppages. We know that
the property was held for many years by the Freitas family, that Padre
Freitas employed some seventy slaves, became extremely wealthy throu‑
gh their labours, and eventually sold the mine. But the records tell us
little more than this about the early days. There are no obvious remin‑
ders of the old mine in the present surface structure of Morro Velho,
and the uninstructed visitor would probably look in vain for evidence
of the Freitas excavations. But one shoulder of the old mountain is hea‑
vily scored by a deep ravine, and this depression, which appears natural
enough under its carpet of vegetation, marks the site of the earliest
spadework. The dimensions of the chasm are so enormous that even

28
the credulous and highly imaginative find them difficult to accept. Here,
without a doubt, faith has moved mountains.
A more tangible and direct connection with Padre Freitas is the
company’s headquarters, the Casa Grande. This roomy and hospitable
building, or rather the original shell of it, was once the residence of the
Padre and subsequently that of the superintendents of the St. John d’el
Rey Company. (In 1928 when the building was given a new roof, it was
discovered that the old structure contained neither nails nor screws and
that it had been held together with cipó, a species of liana.) To-day the
Casa Grande is the official guest-house for visitors from all over the
world. And a splendid guest-house it is, equipped with fine verandahs, a
delightful floral courtyard (the abode of two fine and haughty macaws),
a swimming-pool and a museum.

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30
Chapter III

The First Mine

The mine, as acquired from Captain Lyon and his associates con-
sisted of three huge workings, three inclined caverns reaching into the
same lode. They were known as the Bahu, the Quebra Panella and the
Cachoeira and their vertical depth was probably between one hundred
and two hundred feet. The mineral was hacked from the parent rock
and then, whenever possible, hauled by tackle to a wooden platform
and wheeled out of the mine through a short tunnel. If mechanical
haulage was impracticable, “the stuff ”, as they called it, would be car-
ried out on the heads of black girls who had to negotiate a series of
rickety catwalks and ladders. The Bahú gave less trouble than the other
workings in which operations were handicapped by flooding and subsi-
dence.
By modern standards the mining practice of the eighteen-thirties
was crude and laborious. The percussive rock-drill, powered by com-
pressed air, had not yet been invented; all boring was manual and the
rate of penetration of the hard rock was seldom more than a few in-
ches a day. With modern drills, it is possible to penetrate as much as a
hundred and more feet a day. The treatment of the ores was similarly
primitive. From the mine “the stuff ” was carried to the spalling floor
31
where women armed with hammers broke down the larger pieces to
a size that could be handled by the stamps. These giant pestles - there
were twenty-seven of them at work in 1835 - which crushed the ores
and prepared them for the reduction plant, were powered by water. And
the water to drive the wheels had to be conducted long distances by
open channels or conduits called “regos”.
Detailed accounts of the progress of work at the mine were
transmitted regularly to the Board, and the earliest volume of official
Reports contains an important list of developments for the year 1835.
For example:
“Shafts. Bahú Sump Shaft. This shaft has been sunk 38 feet 6 in-
ches in blasting ground; its present size is 30 feet by 18, and total depth
from the brace or platform is 63 feet 6 inches.
“At the depth of 36 feet a projection of 2 feet was left, for the
purpose of fixing the first cistern or fork, and a similar one for the
same purpose has also been left at 60 feet.
“A new landing brace, 24 feet by 18, has been completed over the
shaft in the place of the old one; the timber for this being of large di-
mensions from the size of the shaft renders this a work of great labour
for our carpenters and draught cattle.
“Several pieces of strong durable timber have been placed across
the shaft for suspending and securing the pumps; and a pent-house has
also been commenced, to protect the men working in the shaft.

32
Thirty-five feet of new pumps have been added, and the shaft is at
present drained by means of 2 lifts, or columns of pumps worked
by the Capellão wheel ...
“Stopes. Bahú Stopes. Our stoping has been all westward from the
Sump Shaft, as yielding the best ore. The length of the present stopes is
135 feet from the shaft. We have stoped in depth 21 feet 6 inches, and
in breadth from 9 to 20 feet. .
“At the distance of 72 feet west of the Sump Shaft a stull of
durable timber, 21 feet long, 17 feet high, has been placed over part of
the stopes. A barrow-road 96 feet long has been fixed to the foot wall
from the platform, westward, for the purpose of extracting the ore
from this part of the mine. A tackle and landing-brace have also been
fixed to assist in clearing the stone from the stopes.
“Mine Machinery. A capstan and shears have been completed,
and fixed over the Bahu Shaft, for lifting pumps and pieces of timber.
“A horse whim has also been made and put up, and two pieces
of heavy timber, one 45 feet long, 14 inches through, the other 38 feet
long and 12 inches through, have been placed across the Bahu Mine, to
carry the poppet heads for the whim pulleys.
“Pumps. About 50 feet of pumps have been bored, bound and
finished, 5 working barrels, 2 wind bores, and 2 door pieces....
“Reduction Works. Stamps. Capel/ao. The frame for 6 heads has
undergone a thorough repair. Forty-eight feet of new strakes (double)

33
 THE OLD MINE
A painting dating from about 1850 (artist unknown). It shows the
scene at the head of the original mine excavation. In the foreground
company’s surveyors are at work. In the middle distance and to the right
34

we see the launders or aqueducts conveying the only source of power

available at that time-the water of the hills. The mill wheel on the right
operates the relatively primitive haulage system.
35
have been laid down, new hoppers made, and about 30 feet of small
launders . . .”.
And so on, and so forth. All very interesting, no doubt, to the stu-
dent of mining history, who can if necessary obtain fuller details from
the original source-books. The general reader, however, will perhaps
find the following items more comprehensible :
“A Bridge, on the road leading from the Casa Grande to the mine,
64 feet long by 12 feet wide, has been made over the rivulet which pas-
ses near the mine. The object in making the bridge of such large dimen-
sions was for the purpose of a cart-road, to supply the new fire-head
stamps.
“Dam, of about 40 feet long, has been made across the Riberão
dos Cristais; the rivulet which supplies the water for the hammer-mill
and smiths’ forges. This was constructed by means of two large pieces
of timber placed across the stream, the ends secured to rocks, and rows
of stakes placed against the stream, and the interstices filled up with
earth and grass ...
“Roads. Two hundred and seventy feet of old road leading to the
mine have been repaired and made good for the timber carriage to pass
...
“Charcoal. 2562 mule loads, or 10,248 bushels, have been made;
and of this about 2387 mule loads, or 9548 bushels, have been consu-
med.

36
 “Wood. 2794 cubic feet of timber have been brought in from the
woods, part squared; 167 loads of poles for different purposes, and 21
ditto of fuel for the tile kilns, hospital, and ant killers, and 5 dozen of
plank sawn.
“Buildings. Hospital. The Sobrado house has been repaired and
altered for the reception of the negroes of the establishment; and the
clothes of all the negroes are also made and mended here, the whole
department being under the superintendence of the wife of one of
our carpenters . . .
“ Casa Grande. The roof of the same, 81 feet by 61; the chapel,
and part of the iron store, 50 feet by 29, have been repaired and retiled;
the interior of the Casa Grande plastered and whitewashed; and the
kitchen of the same taken down and rebuilt.
”List of Carpenter’s Work
156 bedsteads for blacks, hospital, etc.
35 wheelbarrows
213 gearings for engines
9 window-blinds
3 horse-carts
1 garden-gate
2 wooden baths
2 cart-wheels
2 closets for Mine counting-house
3 chests for provisions
6 lamp-stands, etc., etc.”

37
 The pioneers were jacks-of-all-trades, ready to turn their hands
to all manner of tasks. Isolated as it was the community was compelled
to fend for itself. Its economy was simple and to a large extent selfsuffi-
cing: supplies came up-country slowly and irregularly from Rio and the
trade routes, and men, women and children had to acquire skill in the
manipulation of many tools and materials in order to keep themselves
provisioned, housed and at work.
In spite of all hazards and difficulties the enterprise soon began
to prosper, though the shareholders had to wait eight years before they
received their first dividend payments. The return on the first month’s
activities was twenty-seven poundS, eleven ounces of gold, marketed
at about £3 an ounce, and in the following year the total output was
valued at some £10,500. And results would have been much more satis-
factory had there been less waste during treatment of the ore. In 1835
only five-eighths of an ounce of gold was being extracted from each
ton of ore treated; and an analysis of the waste or tailings conducted
on behalf of the Company by an Austrian expert showed that each ton
contained no less than one and a half ounces of fine gold. The result
of this enquiry was that more capital was raised, the reduction plant was
reorganised, the British staff was increased and an additional labour
force of two hundred and sixty-three slaves (men, women and children)
was recruited.

38
Hazards and hardships
Life in the British community must have been very hard at this
period; many of the necessities of a decent domestic existence were
lacking, and nearly all essential stores and certainly all luxuries had to
be imported and carried by pack-mule over the stony, dusty tracks from
Rio or Ouro Preto. The voyage from England occupied about six weeks
and the journey from Rio to the mine another fifteen to twenty days.
To-day the trip from Rio to Belo Horizonte - in a comfortable Brazilian
aircraft - takes an hour and a half.
The Englishmen travelled over the great ranges by mules, and
their womenfolk and children by litter. It was a bumpy, wearying route
beset by many dangers and discomforts. In 1953 I made the journey by
road in a luxurious car, spending a night at a hotel in Juiz de Fora, but
even so I found the going rough, dusty and tiring. Goodness knows
what hardships the pioneers must have suffered! Richard Burton visited
the mine some thirty years after its purchase by the English company,
and even he, a traveller of renown and world-wide experience, was of-
ten daunted by the Brazilian terrain. “When riding,” he wrote in The
Highlands ofBrazil, “lead the way, monopolise the path, and bump up
against all who approach you - they will probably steer clear for the
future. . . . In the morning take care of No.1; muffle your head, wrap
up your throat, stuff your boots with cotton. As the sun rises gradually
unshell yourself ... open your umbrella and suck oranges ...”.

39
 This is Burton in satirical mood, and we need pay little attention
to his extravagant claims or his strange advice. Burton had a welldeve-
loped gift of exaggeration: his “great rapids of Rio das Velhas” are in
fact no more than a swiftly-flowing stretch of water which has been
comfortably traversed in a rowing-boat by more than one superinten-
dent of the mine. Nevertheless, the hardships of the early travellers
must have been very severe.
Work at the mine was no less arduous. As the excavations be-
came deeper, an increasing volume of water was encountered and the
gimcrack pumping equipment was sadly overworked in the attempt to
keep the mine open. In addition the caverns and galleries could only be
supported by an ever-increasing quantity of timber. There were serious
falls of rock and there was much flooding. In 1844 the superintendent
reported to London that mining had been suspended as a result of
“continued and indefatigable rains. ... Every rego is, if not burst, at
least partially filled with earth. Every hand was put on to repairs. Some
idea may be formed of the damage when I state that it is estimated that
6,000 tons of earth and stone have been removed from the Bananal
alone by ourselves and the rains together.” This “serious inconvenien-
ce”, as Herring called it, meant some reduction in the dividend paid to
shareholders, but the stoppage was fortunately of short duration.
Burton on prospectuses
As Morro Velho and Gongo Soco proved their worth and the

40
news of their success reached London, a wave of speculative activity
engulfed the City. New mining companies were set up, scores of pro-
perties in Minas Gerais were purchased, and the market was flooded
with extravagantly-phrased prospectuses. Burton has guyed these do-
cuments very amusingly: “The ore, the lay of the lode,” he wrote, “and
the formation and mineral characteristics generally, are similar to those
of ‘St. John d’el Rey.’ It may be well to invent some such high-sounding
and well-known names as ‘ West d’el Rey’ , or ‘South d’el Rey’ upon the
same principle which till late years called all coal a ‘Wall’s End’. . . . The
original Brazilian owner made a large fortune before the works fell in,
and the miners were drowned out. Anything, however, can be ‘done by
an English Company and Cornish miners!’ The lode is from ten to thir-
teen feet wide at grass; it is at as shallow an horizon as possible, situated
above some valley, so that the facility of draining by adits and openings
is, ‘of no common order’! This splendid field for mining operations
must prove immediately remunerative to shareholders; it is an ‘affair of
facts and figures’ - an ‘investment rather than a speculation’. Finally if
the pretensions are to be of the highest order, there must be diamonds
and other deposits of which the reporter ‘abstains from speaking’!”
Few of these mushroom enterprises came to fruition, and the
proportion of outright failures was soon notoriously and indecently
high. But St. John d’el Rey went from strength to strength. In 1846 one
of the more reputable mines, the Cata Branca, closed down and Morro

41
Velho acquired most of its real assets including an excellent Cornish
mine captain named Treloar, much equipment and a band of slaves.
Captain Treloar was to prove a most industrious and skilful servant of
the St. John d’el Rey Company. He was a man gifted with remarkable
energy and soon he won the admiration and loyalty of the coloured
workers.

Superintendents and workpeople

The technical efficiency of the mine steadily improved, and as
the workings descended deeper into the lode it became clear that the
optimism of the pioneers was well founded. There was no deterioration
in the quality of the ore as it pitched east at an angle of roughly forty-
-five degrees, and no marked diminution in the quantity accessible. And
as the future of the mine now seemed assured, the Company was able
to turn its attention to improving the amenities of the settlement. A
school was set up for the education of the European children, a hos-
pital was built, and a plot of land, fifty feet square was fenced off as a
cemetery. And the Company sent out a chaplain to improve the moral
and religious atmosphere of the community.
It was during this period of technical consolidation and social
betterment that the mine lost its first superintendent. In 1847 C.harles
Herring fell sick, and left for home, and his place was taken by George
D. Keogh who had been acting as the Company’s secretary in London.

42
Keogh left for Brazil with detailed instructions from the directors on
the treatment of slaves. In 1842 the annual report of the Company had
stated: “They are better off than the labouring classes in Europe ... and
with respect to food, raiment, care and attention when sick, infirm or
old, the free Brazilians . . . are infinitely worse provided for. ...” Now, the
new superintendent was advised that “everything practicable” should
be done to make the slaves reasonably comfortable. “The cultivation of
little gardens, the keeping of pigs and poultry (the food was provided
by the Company) and whatever else can tend to their spending their
leisure hours in an innocent and rational manner. Any attempt on the
part of the English miners, who superintend them, to treat them with
harshness or severity, should be instantly checked. The feeling to be in-
culcated throughout the Establishment should be one of kindness and
goodwill, arising from the conviction that, although the colour of their
skin be different from ours, they are the creatures of the same Almighty
Creator, and entitled to the utmost forbearance at our hands by reason
of the inferior position in which it has pleased Providence to permit
them to be placed.” The language is stilted, perhaps, but the sentiments
expressed were admirable and perfectly sincere.

Morro Velho in the News

The issue of the London Illustrated News dated 20th January, 1849,
contained an illustrated article on Morro Velho. Careful drawings

43
showed a stoping section of the mine with three main workings, the
Bahú, the Cachoeira and the Gambá in section, the shafts, water wheels,
pillars of lode stone, the sump shaft and inclined plane, a perspective
view of the aqueducts and another of Morro Velho as seen from the
Casa Grande. The article reads: “The gold deposits in California - it
has been remarked by our contemporary, the Mining Journal - bear con-
siderable resemblance to those which enriched the Paulistas in Brazil.
Hence, an illustrated description of the most productive of the latter
mines may be interesting to our readers; and for this purpose we select
the Morro Velho, in the province of Minas Gerais, about 300 miles
distant from Rio de Janeiro. It is only in comparatively recent times that
attempts have been made to work the mines in the mountains of Brazil;
and the Morro Velho has proved a rich reward for British enterprise.
“The Mine of Morro Velho was worked for several years by the
Padre Freitas, who sold the property about twenty years since to the
late Captain Lyon, R.N., and partners; and these gentlemen, in 1834,
transferred the mines, estate, etc., to the St. John d’el Rey Company. On
their taking possession the lode was worked like a quarry, the ore being
above the level of the road. The ground worked by the old proprietors
has, however, been considerably opened out in length, and other lodes
immediately contiguous to it added.
“The depth of the mines is about 60, 40 and 30 fathoms, respec-
tively; and the pumping and hauling arrangements are most complete

44
and efficient. There are about I, 100 persons now employed; and mon-
tWy about 6,000 tons are stamped by 96 stamp-heads moved by six
water-wheels. The ore is crushed by iron stamp-heads, weighing about
200 lbs. each, each head giving from sixty to seventy blows per minute.
The stone as it is pulverized is washed by a stream of running water
through very fine copper grates, and then is carried down a. slightly in-
clined plane covered with hides, which arrest the gold, and the heaviest
particles of the sand, while the earthy matter asses away.
“The skins or hides are taken up every two hours, and washed in
separate boxes. The sand of the three head skins (those next the grates)
is sent direct to the amalgamation house. The lower skins, being much
poorer, are again passed over the strakes.
“The process of amalgamation is very simple. The sand is put
into barrels with quicksilver, and revolved quickly by a water-wheel for
twenty or thirty hours, until minute examination proves that all the gold
has been taken up by the quicksilver. The contents of the barrels are
then gradually poured into the saxe (a long inverted box moving ho-
rizontally in a trough), in which the quicksilver (or rather amalgam) is
deposited, the sand being washed away at either end. Every ten days
the saxe is opened, and the quicksilver (or amalgam) is passed through
chamois leather, which retains the amalgam; and this is burnt off in a
furnace, yielding from 25 to 35 per cent of gold.
“The number of shares in the St. John d’el Rey Company’s

45
possession is 11,000 scrip; and the annual profits are stated at £40,000.
“We find the position of the company thus given in the Mining
Journal of the 6th inst:- ‘This company work three mines contiguous to
each other, and drained by the same water-wheel; the lode in two of the
mines varies in width from 8 feet to 32 feet, averaging 14.5 feet; and the
third, the Gambá, 4 feet 7 inches. The lodes dip boldly at an angle of
46°, at which incline the pumps are carried, and on the same plane the
kibbles from the stopes under the inclined shaft are hauled to surface.
There are two water-wheels for drawing stuff; one for the saw-mill; and
one at the reduction-house for working the amalgamation barrels; and
six others at the stamping-mills, working 96 heads. The whole body of
the deposit between the walls gives gold, yielding in different sections
2.5 to 5 oitavas to the ton, 104 oitavas being equal to l lb. troy. In the
Gambá Mine, lines of quartz, running into the country, broken for the
convenience in working, give 1 to 1.5 oitavas: each section of the mine
is very regular in its contents. The average produce for 1847 was 4.21
oitavas per ton, which was worth, in London (net), 7s. 7d. per oitava, or
£39 16s. per lb. troy. A cubic fathom of the deposit contains something
more than twenty tons; and each fathom sunk in the three mines ad-
mits of about 9,000 tons being broken, and the stopes kept in order.
Westward, a continuation of the deposit near the surface has lately been
ascertained, and is already opened upon, to the extent of 19 fathoms
from 8 feet to 12 feet wide, which adds further to the resources of this

46
magnificent mine. This new ground is close to the stamps; and there
is no doubt, we are assured, of its continuance westward, as there are
considerable excavations of the ‘old’ people in that direction. The mine
is now giving a clear profit of above £3000 per month; and, humanly
speaking, a great increase is certain, as a powerful set of new stamps has
just been completed.
“We are happy to perceive, by reference to the last published re-
port of the company, that the treatment of the negro force is by them
regarded as an important and interesting question.”
Improved amenities, better feeding, and wiser, more harmonious
relations between the white and coloured workers, had an important
effect on labour recruitment. The Brazilians, the free native workers,
had not hitherto adapted themselves very successfully to life in the mine
and the mining community. They were irregular in attendance, shiftless
and always ready with or without provocation to quit Morro Velho and
scratch a poorer living in primitive agriculture. Now, according to Cap-
tain Treloar, all had changed. By 1856 he was reporting: “No one inte-
rested in the welfare of the company can have seen the increase in the
Natives, and have watched the improvement in their conduct, without
feeling more than ordinary pleasure. That such numbers should have
flocked to Morro Velho, and descend and ascend some 150 fathoms of
ladders daily to their work, is a fact no one a few years since would have
believed ... their present deportment is a gratifying proof of what can

47
be done by management. These are men to be led almost anywhere,
driven to no place. They perform the same task for a day’s work as the
blacks, but many, indeed most of them, do more than the task and are
paid accordingly.”
“Some 150 fathoms of ladders “ will give the reader some idea
of the vastness of the mine at this period, and of the immense labours
needed to win the ores. And as the depth of the working increased, so
the costs of timbering and lighting grew heavier.

Timber and Lighting

There were frequent falls of rock as the giant timbers collapsed
under their burden, and new timbers, from further afield, always cost
more than those they replaced. Burton was vastly impressed by the “mi-
ghty timbering” - “timber in brackets, timber in hitches or holes; timber
in the footways and sollars or resting-places; and timber in the stulls,
platforms for depositing ore, for strengthening the wall, and for defen-
ding the workmen. All was of the best and hardest wood . . . and the si-
ght suggested a vast underground forest, but a forest torn up by terrible
floods, and dashed about by cataracts in all directions, with the wildest
confusion”; and he listed the timbers of Brazil - lovely-sounding names
to European ears.
And lighting? Well, in 1856, nearly 200,000 candles were consu-
med, together with 2,300 barrels of mamona oil for use in lamps. The

48
candles were brought from afar, often from Ouro Preto, and someti-
mes, as during the Crimean War, from remote Rio; and they were made
too - though in smaller quantities - in Morro Velho, where the women-
folk manipulated tallow and wick as cleverly as they made soap (from
wood ashes and waste fats) or “winnowed” their rice. These home-
-made candles were fashioned in bamboo moulds.
Costs steadily increased, but the mine continued to pay because
the operators were steadily becoming more efficient. The yield of fine
gold per ton of ore treated continued to improve, and so did the total
output . . .
1835 27,450 oitavas 1846 154,584 oitavas
1836 27,802 oitavas 1847 175,439 oitavas
1837 41,861 oitavas 1848 230,136 oitavas
1838 60,472 oitavas 1849 270,488 oitavas
1839 63,842 oitavas 1850 278,658 oitavas
1840 76,908 oitavas 1851 324,279 oitavas
1841 70,945 oitavas 1852 353,761 oitavas
1842 92,744 oitavas 1853 372,679 oitavas
1843 127,834 oitavas 1854 364,428 oitavas
1844 124,432 oitavas 1855 346,031 oitavas
1845 128,515 oitavas 1856 307,261 oitavas
(The oitava is roughly one-eighth of an ounce, avoirdupois).
. . . until the early eighteen-fifties.

49
50
Chapter IV

Setbacks

In 1857 the mine experienced its first real set-back and the
amount of gold produced showed a serious decline. The reason is given
in the report for the year: “ On March 7th, in a locality least expected by
the Mine Captains and the oldest and most experienced of the miners,
came down a piece of ground about 170 tons in weight, from the sou-
th wall and roof of the Bahu Mine, which carried with it the pumping
machinery, the inclined plane and the ladder road, with the timber su-
pporting the roof, for about 90 feet in length. Considerable expense
will be incurred in repairing the damage done by this fall.” The mine
captain, Treloar, was convinced that the repair of the mine would be a
long job. “Under favourable circumstances,” he said, “ I fear it will not
be less than twelve months.” The accident occurred at eleven o’clock
on a Saturday night after the borers had left the mine and before the
kibble-fillers had reached their place of work; otherwise the loss of life
must have been very heavy. As it was the big fall resulted in no injury to
the miners and” in this respect was indeed providential.”
The damage caused by the subsidence was tackled very skilfully
and energetically, and Captain Treloar’s estimate of one year for repairs
proved, fortunately, to be somewhat pessimistic. Money was lost —
51
— £5,000 during the first half of 1858 — and the payment of dividen-
ds was suspended until 1860, but the accident proved less ruinous than
was feared. In 1857 and 1858 the production of gold fell to 261,274
and 285,615 oitavas respectively, but by 1859 output had climbed to
363,214 oitavas, only slightly short of the previous peak figure of 1853.
There were two reasons why the bill proved so light: first, the fact that
the collapse did not put the entire mine out of commission (production
continued in the Gambá workings), and second, the utilisation of large
quantities of poor quality ore, which had not, hitherto, been considered
rich enough to be put through the mill.

Captain Treloar describes the mine

From the point of view of the historian, the accident of 1857 is
interesting because the reports of the period supply detailed descrip-
tions of the mine. Treloar’s account is particularly instructive: “ We
have then, three mines — the Cachoeira, the Bahú and the Gambá. The
first two are on the main lode, the last on an offshoot. All dip easterly,
and underlie south. The Cachoeira is over the Bahu; in fact these are
one mine, having a bar of the lode intervening between them.
“Their dimensions in round numbers may be stated thus:
“Length 120 fathoms, depth on the dip 160 fathoms, and width
varying from 9 to 58 feet, average width downward 30 feet. In this
enormous excavation we have our shafts constructed of timberwork,

52
our pumping machinery, our inclined planes, stulls, footways for in-
gress and egress, and at the bottom our stopes. The roof, or hanging
wall, impends considerably as a whole, presents protuberances of great
magnitude, and the cleavage planes are transverse at some places and
nearly parallel at others: yet such was its inherent strength, that some
have been of the opinion it needed but little artificial support. Pillars,
however, of the lode, in addition to the bar, have been left. . . .”
In 1858 Thomas Walker (who had succeeded Keogh as superin-
tendent four years earlier) resigned and made way for J. N. Gordon, a
man who was to serve the company for twenty years and leave after a
serious disagreement with the London Office. Captain Treloar and the
new superintendent were out of step from the start, and very soon, in
1862, the Mine Captain left the company’s service.
Under Gordon’s administration Morro Velho for a time enjoyed
great prosperity. The amount of ore raised increased and the yield of
gold improved very markedly:
1860 .. ..... 428,166 oitavas
1861 .. ..... 543,637 “
1862 .. ..... 529,193 “
1863 .. ..... 476,005 “
1864 .. ..... 247,663 “ (Heavy fall of rock in the
Cachoeira Mine.)
1865 .. ..... 522,119 “
.
53
 1866 .. ..... 622,129 oitavas (The figure for 1866 was not to be
bettered for another 32 years.)
1867 .. ..... 418,542 “
Then in 1867 — disaster.

The fire
The most graphic account of the fire that destroyed the mine
was given by Captain Eslick, mine captain: “About midnight on the
21st November a fire was discovered in the interior of the Cachoeira
Mine. A pillar of at least 24 large logs of timber, which had been for
some time placed over the No.9 stull, East Cachoeira, with the view of
supporting a heavy mass of ground was, on examination, found to be
on fire, and the flames rapidly consuming it. There were soon upwards
of 40 people on the scene, all of whom worked hard and earnestly in
trying to extinguish the fire, but the wood at this locality being very dry,
this, coupled with the great distance the water had to be carried, greatly
made against us ... we therefore had to work under great disadvanta-
ge, and I am sorry to say the fire increased upon us and made its way
upwards, and before six o’clock the following morning we were obliged
to retire.”
The conflagration raged for four days until there was no more air
in the mine to support it — all openings to the mine, all shafts and adits
having been sealed — and the workings were completely destroyed.
Again there was no loss of life.
54
 What the reactions of London were to this calamity we can only
conjecture. There were rumours of sabotage in the mine, and there
were enquiries both on behalf of the company and the Brazilian Go-
vernment, but the origin of the fire remained a mystery. Burton, who
had spent a month at the mine in the same year, was nonplussed by
the news: “All was of the best and hardest wood,” he wrote, “ and it is
hardly conceivable how in such damp air it could have caught fire. The
immunity of Brazilian towns and cities results mostly from the use of
timber more like heart-of-oak than our dealtinder.”
Did the Company consider the abandonment of the enterprise?
Not, it would seem, for one minute. The lode had been proved and for
some years operations had been highly remunerative. The only problem
was to decide on the best way of re-opening the mine, whether to sink
new shafts directly into the lode or in safer barren country giving ac-
cess to the metal, and whether the shafts should be inclined or vertical.
There were careful surveys and researches: experts were sent out to
examine the site and to explore the possibilities of other properties in
Minas Gerais.
Inevitably there was some reduction in staff and labour during
this period of indecision. Twenty-six Europeans were sent home on
January 28th, 1868, and more followed them. A large number of the
native miners had to find new jobs, and many of the slaves were put to
work under contract with the Brazilian authorities on the construction
of the Lafayette-Sabará road.
55
56
Hard Times
These were difficult days in Congonhas de Sabará. For the first
time in its existence the mining camp knew the hunger and hard times
that are so frequently the lot of people who depend for their living on
the mysterious working of the bowels of the earth.
During this period the reduction department scoured the dis-
trict for material to feed the stamps, and gold was won from rejected
ore, killas, sands that had already been treated and poor-quality mine-
ral from new exploratory workings, and these efforts helped to reduce
unemployment and to keep the plant in running order.
At length the great decision was made. There were to be two ver-
tical shafts (‘A’ and ‘B’), each more than a thousand feet in depth, one
of them probing directly into the lode and the other having access to
it by means of a short gallery. The superintendent’s estimated cost of
this undertaking was some £37,000, but in the end the total expenditure
was £84,000, and the disparity gives some idea of the appalling difficul-
ties that were encountered in the sinking operation. How long the job
would have taken without the assistance of the new blasting material,
dynamite, it is difficult to say. Much hard rock was encountered and
against this old-fashioned gunpowder was of little avail. For fourteen
months the work on the shafts went fairly smoothly. But from 1870
onwards the company ran into a sea of troubles. There was a shortage
of dynamite, and there was flooding, coupled with the repeated failure

57
of the pumping equipment. Water flowed into ‘B’ shaft from the aban-
doned and waterlogged Cachoeira Mine which was some 150 feet dis-
tant. Then, in 1871, the walls of the old Bahú and Cachoeira Mines
collapsed and great masses of debris fell into the water lying in those
workings. In consequence, and according to the well-known principle
of Archimedes, the flood-level was raised, and water was forced throu-
gh the intervening rock and up shafts ‘A’ and ‘B’ of the new mine.
Nor was this all. Soon it became obvious that the massive falls in
the Bahú were endangering the Gambá and East Cachoeira Mines, and
all men and equipment had to be hurriedly withdrawn. Eventually both
mines collapsed. Trial and tribulation.
But at last, on October 7th, 1872, the great effort ended in suc-
cess. The superintendent, Gordon, announced: “The lode was reached
at the desired point, viz., below Stope No.3 in the west Cachoeira Mine,
ten fathoms below the last known level at a depth of 182 fathoms.”
It was a remarkable achievement, for contact with the lode had been
achieved almost exactly according to plan — only three feet six inches
out of calculation.

The Mine Reopened

At first the new venture” struck it rich.” In 1874, 361,400 oitavas
of gold were produced, and in 1875, 616,519 oitavas. And such splen-
did results allowed the directors to replenish the Company’s reserves

58
and reward those who had supported the undertaking during the long
lean years. The dividend for the second half of 1875 was equivalent to
50 per cent. and on 23rd June, 1875, the Board recorded: “That the sto-
ckholders desire to express their appreciation of the valuable services
rendered by John Hockin, Esq., the Managing Director in London, and
James Newell Gordon, the Superintendent at Morro Velho, in bringing
about the successful reopening and working of the mines, by presen-
ting them with the sum of one thousand guineas each.”
The future seemed bright indeed when the Mine Captain, Jack-
son, reported in most glowing terms of the riches waiting to be tapped.
He had worked for the Company for twenty-five years, he said, and had
never seen the lode in such promising condition. Since reopening it had
varied hardly at all in size. In the sump it was 28 feet wide and from
this point westward about 34 feet wide, and “as we lay open the mine
westward the lode will, no doubt, increase very much in size, as in the
Bahú, previous to the fire, the widest portion measured was upwards of
100 feet and its average width throughout the mine being then about 44
feet.” The walls, Captain Jackson said, were giving little or no trouble.
Ten years later, the mine collapsed in complete ruin and caused
the death of seventeen workers.
It is impossible to overlook the fact that the mine was for some
years after the reopening in the hands of those who for one reason or
another allowed self-interest to weaken their integrity and sap their duty

59
 HEADGEAR OF THE “A” AND “B” SHAFTS

— from a copy of a painting done in 1885 by C. Grimm. The building in the left middle
distance is the carpenter’s shop, and the vessels on the right are baling tubs used in the
60

unwatering of the mine. It is clear from this picture that water power was still being em-
ployed. C. Grimm was a German who settled in Brazil and became one of the country’s
leading artists.
61
to the Company. Gordon, the superintendent, absented himself for
long periods from the day-to-day running of the mine, surrounded hi-
mself with relatively inefficient and sometimes dishonest yes-men, and
dabbled, as he was strictly forbidden to do in the terms of his contract,
in various irregular financial ventures “on the side.”
Jackson’s optimistic report of 1875 was followed two years later
by a very different dispatch from Captain William James. James explai-
ned the very considerable reduction in the amount of gold won from
the mine (in spite of the larger quantity of ore raised and crushed) in
the following manner: “ We have had to quarry and haul, at considera-
ble expense, a vast quantity of killas that should have been sent to the
surface in the previous year. . . . The stone raised during the past twelve
months amounts to 78,546 wagons, and the gold returns to 466,183
oitavas. The output for the corresponding period of the previous year
was less by 6,936 wagons, yet the produce was more by 139,063 oitavas,
but this, I must here observe, was not obtained by fair and legitimate
mining, because, when the western limit of the lode was reached, undue
means were used to swell the returns by excavating all the rich availa-
ble mineral then laid open, without regard to the future working of
the mine.” Clearly there had been some remarkable “window-dressing”
during Gordon’s last years of office. He disappeared from the scene in
1876, in a cloud of acrimony, and was succeeded by Pearson Morrison.
There followed a relatively lean period. The quantity of ore

62
raised and crushed was maintained, but the yield in gold deteriorated.
For this the new superintendent was in no way to blame. He had inheri-
ted immense problems from his predecessor: the mine was in poor sha-
pe; there was much unproductive rock to be extracted and there were
increasingly heavy demands for fresh timbers to support the sprawling
warren of workings.
Pearson Morrison died in harness in 1881 and his place was taken
by G. H. Oldham, previously head of the Mechanics or Shops depart-
ment.
The lode narrowed, and became less auriferous; there was trou-
ble with the pumps, repeated minor inundations, and an alarming in-
crease in the number of stout timbers failing to withstand the pressure
of the ceiling rock. Worse still, the general working atmosphere of the
mine once again began to deteriorate. There were ugly rumours. . . .
And the returns reflected the physical and mental unrest in the clearest
manner possible:

1875 ... 616,519 oitavas 1880 ... 249,292 oitavas

1876 ... 439,802 “ 1881 ... 298,773 “
1877 ... 485,707 “ 1882 ... 233,832 “
1878 ... 419,049 “ 1883 ... 198,716 “
1879 ... 381,590 “ 1884 ... 226,415 “

63
64
Chapter V

George Chalmers

In this year, 1884, Oldham was relieved of his duties and the Bo-
ard appointed George Chalmers superintendent. It was the best stroke
of business, I imagine, that the Company had ever done. In Chalmers,
they acquired a man of remarkable quality, a man of truly prodigious
industry, resource, inventiveness and courage; a man whose every act,
it seems, commanded respect. He was the man who rescued the Morro
Velho mine when all the world thought it lost, and he guided the busi-
ness for forty-three years, most of them prosperous, and left it as it is
to-day, sound, secure, and a credit to British enterprise.
When George Chalmers left England for Brazil, he could not
have imagined what Fate had in store for him, what hardships and bitter
disappointment; yet, knowing the man — as one soon does after a care-
ful perusal of his papers and the catalogue of his achievements — it is
difficult to believe that anything, even a peep into the immediate grim
future, could have deflected him from his purpose. For he seemed to
relish problems and obstacles that lesser men find insuperable.
Accompanied by Mrs. Chalmers and a female servant, he sailed
from Southampton in the R.M.S. Tagus, and arrived at Morro Velho at

65
66
the end of the year. His instructions were put in the most precise terms,
and provide us with useful knowledge of the period, the condition of
the mine and the manifold difficulties with which the Company was
beset. These instructions were given under such heads as Timbering,
Hauling, Water Power, Quarrying, and so on....
“Timbering: this it may be said is the most important subject in
connection with the workings of the mine. The excavation is so large
that it requires constant attention.... It is a vital point that an ample su-
pply of logs of timber of large dimension be kept in stock. The Com-
pany has lately bought the Jaguara Estate* expressly for its timber, with
a steamer and barge to convey the timber to Sabará.” (But the supply
of timber from the estate was disappointing and Chalmers was advised
that the steamer’s boilers were in poor shape.) Actually only about a
quarter of the estate was acquired by the Company. The property is
now owned by A. G. N. Chalmers, who followed his father as superin-
tendent of the mine.
“Hauling. . . . The weak point is that the underground air-engine
has hardly enough power to bring the stone up the inclines to the bot-
tom of the shaft.”
“Reduction Department. ... The recovery of gold by the strakes
and barrels barely amounts to sixty per cent. of the gold content of the
ore. Of the remaining forty per cent. unrecovered, some six per cent. is
recovered by re-treating the sand, leaving thirty-four per cent. of the

67
gold content ... unrecovered.... You will be surprised to find that, after
the Company’s many years of operations have been carried on, natives
are still working successfully below us, on sand we allow to escape.”
“Water Power ... still runs short in the dry season and a further
supply may be required for pumping, hauling and, possibly, at no distant
date, for lighting.”
“Stores ... a department, the management of which requires ac-
tivity and constant watchfulness to guard against waste and misappro-
priation of materials and provisions.”
“Labour ... European labour is most expensive — many of the
men earning, with overtime, above £20 per month — and if there be
even one European whose work can be done equally well by a native,
the former’s service should be dispensed with. The native labourers,
for the most part, are irregular in attendance, and take many holidays.
The Board have desired that they should receive money premiums for
steady attendance and every encouragement in the way of comfortable
houses and gardens to induce them to become attached to the mine.
“And there was much more in the same vein.
Chalmers had been at the Casa Grande only four months when
he made his first report. It was worded modestly and very carefully, but
it made the frankest references to the inefficiency he had discovered in
many departments. Of the reduction department he said that there had
been “ great want of care” and that the re-treatment process had

68
“undoubtedly been carried out in an unsystematic and slovenly man-
ner.” A year later his report was brighter. He could now refer to the
improved working atmosphere, the way that the men had” pulled toge-
ther,” an increase in the yield of gold, and a richer ore from the lode.
And the mine actually made a small profit! Not enough to afford the
shareholders any tangible return, but a profit. Things were looking up
again. Chalmers realised that the system of mining in operation was
inefficient and immediately planned a new venture to abolish the crude
underhand stoping, the vast and dangerous excavations and the increa-
singly expensive timbering. Time, unfortunately, was against him.

The Crush of 1886

After such a promising start the disaster of 1886 was bitter in-
deed. The magnitude and suddenness of the collapse were such that
all hope of renaissance at Morro Velho was crushed. The World and
apparently the Company were prepared to write off the Old Hill as a
complete loss. . ..
There are no detailed accounts of the disaster, but from the
spoken word of Chalmers himself the sad chronicle of events can be
sketched in. On 9th November new timbers were needed in the mine
and the measurements for them were sent to the surface. Next day the
logs were delivered but found to be too big, though they had been cut
correctly according to instructions. A fresh examnation of the work-

69
ings revealed very ominously that the roof and walls had encroached
some six inches during the night and that the crushing movement was
continuing. There were bursts of rock, small falls and a cracking of tim-
bers, and orders for the evacuation of the mine were immediately put
into effect. Unfortunately, the subsidence was so rapid and complete
that some of the miners were trapped and killed.
And so ended the second phase in the history of Morro Velho.
The main lode had been worked (if we include the years of reconstruc-
tion after the fire of 1867) for forty-one years and had produced no less
than 47 tons 8 cwt. 2 qrs. and 1 lb. of gold. And nearly £1,500,000 had
been distributed in dividends to shareholders.
But in 1886 only one man, George Chalmers, realised that the
best was yet to be.
While he busied himself with administrative duties — there were
Englishmen to be sent home, Brazilian workers to be paid off, materials
to be salvaged, and prospecting in and around Morro Velho to be or-
ganised — his mind was already at work on plans for the reopening of
the mine. He was convinced that the lode could be made more profita-
ble than ever it had been in the past, that a new and improved system
of mining could eliminate all the difficulties that had handicapped and
endangered, and finally ruined the efforts of his predecessors. His plans
were bold, even revolutionary, but he had complete faith in them, and
in his own powers to translate them into successful reality.

70
To be or not to be ...
But he could find no-one to share his optimism. Chalmers’ ideas
seem simple and obvious enough to-day. He envisaged a new mine,
far removed from the old workings and reached by means of two very
deep shafts. The lode, remember, pitched eastwards at an angle of rou-
ghly forty-five degrees, so that to tap it below the old workings the new
shafts would have to be at least two thousand feet deep, and shafts of
such depth aimed at a tenuous conjectural ribbon of auriferous rock,
were in those days considered wildly impracticable by most mining en-
gineers. Even the Mining Press was opposed to the idea, much to the
superintendent’s disappointment and disgust. “It is heartrending,” he
wrote, “to see a splendid lode like this looked on as a hazardous under-
taking on account of its depth. Not one single reason can be brought
to show why it should not be made just as good a mine as it has been
during the last fifty years. It is depth only, in my opinion, that disinclines
people from developing such a lode; it can only be depth that creates
the feeling of doubt. It is true that depth adds difficulties, but, where
sufficient power and machinery to meet those difficulties are supplied,
it matters very little. In the last mine we had not machinery and power
equal to the difficulties of depth; the new mine properly opened and
supplied with power and machinery will be, practically, nearer the surfa-
ce than the old mine. This the public finds it difficult to understand. If
they would realise the fact that the old mine was twenty minutes and

71
the new mine will be five minutes from the surface they would perceive
the advantage of the new over the old, and that, practically, the new
mine is three-fourths nearer than the old.”
But these sound deliberations on the economics of space-time
did not vastly impress the investing public, and for a time it seemed that
there would be no practical support for Chalmers’ proposals. In rough
outline the scheme was to sink two shafts to the north at some distance
from the lode, to be carried down vertically to 30 fathoms below a roof
of 8 fathoms thickness which would be left intact between the old and
new workings. The lode would then be reached by a drift, and would be
stoped horizontally, the stope being 30 fathoms in depth. By this mode
of working the lode would be removed in chambers limited in size and
consequently manageable as to the amount of timber needed to keep
them safe. The superintendent had estimated that timbering had ac-
counted for almost twentyfive per cent. of the cost of working the old
mine, and he had now come to the conclusion that the excavations in
the new mine should be packed with material brought from the surface.
The result would be that the workings would never again be subjected
to the extensive pressure that had brought about the downfall of the
old mine.
Gradually these ideas found favour with members of the Board,
and Chalmers was summoned to London. There were daily conferen-
ces, at which the plan was considered in great detail; and one by one

72
the practical difficulties were resolved. His critics were won over, their
doubts and fears removed by his forceful character, his persuasive logic
and obvious mastery of the subject.
It must be added that Chalmers owed much to the drive and
enthusiasm of the Chairman of the Board, F. Tendron. He was inde-
fatigable in his efforts to convince his colleagues of the soundness of
the superintendent’s plans, and equally important, in his efforts to raise
funds for the venture. He was an excellent business-man, a man of ac-
tion and immense determination.
“ C” and “ D” Shafts
Finally, it was decided to reopen the mine. By November, 1888,
221,648 shares of the new capital had been subscribed, and within six
months the boring machinery and equipment for sinking the shafts had
reached Morro Velho. In May, 1889, Chalmers reported: “The main adit
was commenced on the 13th April and up to the end of the month no
less than 20 fathoms have been driven.”
There was intense activity at Morro Velho. New regos were cons-
tructed: pumps, compressors and other equipment had to be overhau-
led, renewed and transferred to new sites, brickmaking plant had to be
assembled, and set to work ... and the work of sinking the great “ C”
and “D” shafts continued round the clock. The descent to the new
mine was exceptionally rapid — the rate of sinking being reported as
“three times as fast as anything hitherto known in Brazil.”

73
 And at last the task was done. In the 61st annual report (1891-
92) we read that “The Directors desire to congratulate the Proprietors
on the completion of the hauling and pumping shafts. The sinking of
these shafts even in England, with steam power and the best appliances
and labour, would have been a great undertaking; but in Brazil, where
only water power, scattered over a large area of mountainous country,
was available, the undertaking became one of exceptional difficulty and
expense.”
But the completion of the adits and the shafts did not mean the
end of the Company’s worries. Much work remained to be done before
the first ton of ore could be raised and put through the mill. Water had
to be pumped from the old mine; the reduction works had to be com-
pletely reconstructed . . . and capital was already running out. Even the
news of the successful sinking of the shafts failed to extract the neces-
sary funds from shareholders’ pockets, and Chalmers, versatile as ever,
was compelled to take over the roles of copywriter and propagandist.
He wrote: “Probably they (the shareholders) have been scared by the
great depth of the mine we had to sink. There could be no doubt as
to the value of the lode which through sixty years’ working had been
almost unequalled amongst gold mines, and there can be no doubt as to
the value of the lode at the time we were driven from it, but there has
existed from the first a considerable amount of doubt as to whether we
should ever get to the lode or not. It was said to me: ‘... If ever you get

74
to the lode the mine will be of great depth, and if the water power for
the old mine was insufficient, surely for the new and deeper mine it will
be insufficient.’”
After this preamble, he proceeded to demolish every argument
put forward to discredit the mine. It was true that the old mine had la-
cked sufficient power, but the 445 h.p. available in 1886 had now been
increased to 717 h.p., and there was more power on tap should it be ne-
eded. It was true that the mine was very deep (“ I hope that some day it
will be double the depth “), but this was no disadvantage since the -new
winding equipment made the bottom of the mine at least as accessible
as the bottom of the old mine had been. The risk of failure, he wrote,
was over — “ the lode is rich and the Morro Velho mine may now be
fairly considered one of the most promising enterprises of the mining
world.”
By the end of 1893 all was well. The size of the lode had been
proved to everyone’s satisfaction, seventy stamps had been erected,
good progress had been made in the construction of the three-decker
strake floors designed by the superintendent. The water from the old
mine was being pumped away, and there was now no shortage of capi-
tal. During the year nearly 17,000 tons of ore were raised and the yield
was 80,000 oitavas.

75
Prosperity
The following years saw Chalmers’ prophecies come true. His
description of Morro Velho as “one of the most promising under-
takings of the mining world “proved accurate and has been accurate
ever since. The tonnage raised annually from the mine was soon twice
that of the old mine, then thrice, then quadruple: and the amount of
gold recovered increased proportionately. Here are the tonnages of ore
raised from 1894 to 1923 when George Chalmers’ term of office came
to an end.

1894 ... 23,692 tons 1909 ... 185,837 tons

1895 ... 72,894 “ 1910 ... 193,195 “
1896 ... 88,691 “ 1911 ... 196,310 “
1897 ... 95,239 “ 1912 ... 174,536 “
1898 ... 112,755 “ 1913 ... 175,823 “
1899 ... 133,530 “ 1914 ... 199,234 “
1900 ... 152,238 “ 1915 ... 201,552 “
1901 ... 158,048 “ 1916 ... 198,586 “
1902 ... 158,923 “ 1917 ... 185,274 “
1903 ... 156,158 “ 1918 ... 167,854 “
1904 ... 160,317 “ 1919 ... 170,828 “
1905 ... 157,743 “ 1920 ... 151,299 “
1906 ... 146,065 “ 1921 ... 169,234 “
1907 ... 156,459 “ 1922 ... 160,623 “
1908 ... 177,807 “ 1923 ... 160,275 “

76
77
78
79
80
Chapter VI

The Elements

The Morro Velho mine is one of the deepest in the world and is
located in one of the hottest of mining regions, and not unnaturally
matters of ventilation and working temperature have always figured
among the main problems of the Company, its engineers and superin-
tendents.
An improvement in working conditions improves the efficiency
of the employees, raises output and makes deeper or more extensive ex-
cavation possible: a worsening of working conditions discourages pro-
ductive effort, makes recruitment difficult, increases costs and severely
limits the field of operations.
In the early days when the mine was still comparatively shallow
the working atmosphere even in the deepest stopes was reasonably
good and natural ventilation proved adequate. Burton descended the
mine in the eighteen-sixties and found conditions so good that he was
unable to ply his pen in terms of censure. “Candle-burning,” he wrote,
“the usual test, detected nothing abnormal in the atmosphere; the air
was free, the ventilation was excellent, and sulphuretted hydrogen can
be found only after blasting.”
But with the sinking of the “C” and “D” shafts to a depth of
81
nearly half a mile and further rapid penetration to new horizons the
problems of ventilation became increasingly serious.
In 1915 Chalmers reported that” the system of distribution of
air, although meeting the case satisfactorily in the past, is becoming, as
greater depth ‘is attained, defective, and requires modification inasmuch
as even when on rare occasions the downcast air at the bottom of the
Mine is comparatively low in moisture, by the time it has passed over
two horizons it has become saturated . . .”. He attributed this to the
watering of the underground roadways to lay dust, the sweat from the
bodies of the workmen and the breath of men and animals (the haulage
mules), and pointed out that this excessive humidity was bound to have
a bad effect on the workers’ efficiency.
At that time the mine was 5,826 feet in depth (rather more than
a mile) and the superintendent had already decided that there would be
trouble ahead for the Company unless new measures were adopted to
reduce the temperature and humidity of the working atmosphere. He
reviewed the history of ventilation in the mine: “In the first place natu-
ral ventilation was sufficient; later, however, furnaces had to be adopted
during the hot season (December to March) to assist the natural venti-
lation: then as the Mine became still deeper a Capel fan was installed at
the top of the upcast ‘C’ shaft to ensure a more constant volume of air,
and, finally, a Sirocco fan of larger capacity was installed in place of the
former, the output of which could be increased by additional power,

82
when required. Besides this, auxiliary fans are used on all explorations
beyond the main system.”
Under normal conditions at the mine it was found that air tem-
perature increased by one degree Fahr. for every 180 feet of depth,
while the rock temperature increased one degree in every 125 feet. But
other factors had to be taken into consideration - the heat from machi-
nery, lights, the decomposition of mineral and animal heat. At horizon
26, a depth of 7,626 feet, the rock temperature, according to Chalmers’
estimate would be no less than 126.5°F., giving rise to conditions that
would make work impossible.
The solution to this problem lay in supplying the mine with coo-
led and dried air, induced from the surface from a special cooling plant.
This was eventually ordered from England (J. & E. Hall Ltd.) and work
began on the “E” station of the Peixe hydro-electric scheme which was
to supply the 700 h.p. necessary for the running of the cooling plant.

The Cooling Plant

The next few years were extremely difficult. England was at war
and the production of the cooling plant was held up. But by 1920 the
equipment had arrived in Brazil and soon the first breath of chilled and
dried air was circulating through the overheated galleries. Any further
delay might have had the most serious consequences. In 1918 and 1919
the mine became increasingly short of labour and recruitment fell short

83
of the required figure even when wagerates were increased by 18 per
cent. The chief reason for this slump in the mine’s fortunes was un-
doubtedly the excessive humidity and temperature of the mine. The
superintendent reported: “The atmospheric conditions at the end of
the ‘H’ - ‘I’ Tunnel to the ‘31’ Winze became so bad that the advisability
of suspending operations in that part of the mine, where the rock tem-
perature was 117.9°F., until the Cooling Plant could be started, received
serious consideration. Due to the heat affecting the motors, innumera-
ble fan troubles occurred and stoppages became frequent.”
But a few months later the position had brightened very marke-
dly. Less than a week after the starting-up of the Cooling Plant applica-
tions for work underground had increased, and very soon the number
of recruits had reached the desirable maximum. Moreover, the effi-
ciency of the underground workers improved greatly, so that output
once again began to climb.
During its first three months of operation the plant resulted in a
progressive cooling and drying of the mine, as the following table sho-
ws.
The average fall in rock temperature for the three months was 0.8°F.,
and in air temperature 5.3°F.
The improvement continued, rock and air temperatures falling
gradually, and in 1922 the superintendent was able to record that there
was no longer grumbling from the men about the heat, who now work

84
 Mean Temp. in Degrees F.
Point of Observation for four Hot Months Comparison
ending
March, 1921 March, 1920
Horizon “8” Rock 81.5 82.9 Fall of 1.4
Level 77.0 85.3 Fall of 8.3
Horizon “16” Rock 94.3 94.9 Fall of 0.6
Level 88.6 92.2 Fall of 3.6
Rock 99.8 100.9 Fall of 1.1
Horizon “20” Level 94.1 96.0 Fall of 1.9
Rock 116.8 116.6 Rise of 0.2
Horizon “22” Level 105.6 109.8 Fall of 4.2

“an atmosphere that compares very favourably with that in which their
comrades work on the surface.”
This is no place (and the writer is not the man) to explore the te-
chnical and chemical details of the Cooling Plant. Cooling plants, even
of this size, are no longer exceptional in industry. There have been
additions to and modifications in the plant and the system of ventila-
tion in recent years - with excellent results. The mine is now ventila-
ted by means of powerful induction fans drawing approximately 3,250
cubic metres (115,000 cubic feet) of air per minute, and the air enters
the mine at a temperature of 43°F.
The importance of the Cooling Plant to the Company’s conti-
nued progress was explained in a typical report from George Chalmers.
“The writer,” he declared, “has no hesitation in saying that, had the
85
cooling plant been further delayed by the war or any other cause, the
most the company could have done would have been to have worked
out its reserves, as it would have been impossible to have carried on
further explorations in depth in a temperature rising above 117°. As
it is the mine has new life given it, and if the lode continues in depth
satisfactorily as regards quantity and quality — and we have at present
no reason to lead us to believe anything to the contrary — the question
of increasing temperature due to depth will not have to receive serious
consideration for a number of years.”
How sound was this judgment can be seen from the fact that
during the last thirty-three years the mine has been increased in depth
to one mile and a half, and that working conditions even in the lowest
horizons are still satisfactory. George Chalmers’ cooling plant, impro-
ved and extended by succeeding engineers and superintendents, is still
going strong.
Dipping at random into recent reports from the superintendent
we find that the long, detailed and anxious statements on “Temperatu-
res and Ventilation” of pre-Cooling Plant days have now been replaced
by routine paragraphs such as this (from W. R. Russell, Manager and
Superintendent from 1948 to 1953): “The volume of the ventilating air
passing through the underground workings has been maintained and
improvements in control and distribution accomplished. The operation
of the Carrier portion of the Cooling Plant was reduced to the extent

86
that it is only utilised during excessively warm, humid weather in the
rainy season. Auxiliary ventilation to the drives and rampas has been
improved and a substantial reduction in the count of dust particles per
cubic centimetre of air has been gained in all underground working
places.”

Electrification
In a paper on The Gold-Field of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil,
published (in 1902) in the “Transactions of the American Institute of
Mining Engineers,” H. K. Scott described the Morro Velho mine and
its engineering installations in some detail. The power for driving the
machinery at the mine, he reported, is obtained:
1. By utilising sixty miles of watercourses which bring water
direct to the plant.
2. From semi-portable steam-engines, using wood as fuel, and
only employed when the supply of water fails or runs short.
3. From three electrical transmission-plants, two of which are
continuous-current, transmitting 250 h.p., and one high-tension
three-phase, transmitting about 150 h.p.
The great “C” and “D” shafts had been sunk, as we have seen,
entirely by water power, but George Chalmers had soon realised that
his plans for further development would be held up unless new reserves
of power were made available. Accordingly he prepared his own blue-

87
print for the electrification of the plant. To the south of Nova Lima
lies a hilly country drained by the Rio das Velhas and its tributaries, the
Ribeirao dos Cristaes, the Ribeirao dos Macacos and the Rio do Peixe,
and the Company was able to acquire rights to some of the most useful
and best-watered of these regions.
The account of 1902 refers to the earliest power stations esta-
blished at Retiro, Rezende and Cristaes in 1896, 1898 and 1900 respec-
tively and capable of generating about 360 horse-power all told. These
small stations (the Rezende establishment has been dismantled) were
all located in the immediate neighbourhood of Nova Lima and may be
regarded as the experimental precursors of the great Peixe system of
lakes, reservoirs and stations constructed between 1904 and the present
day. In Minas Gerais the rainfall is markedly seasonal and the need to
conserve water has always been of paramount importance. Moreover,
precipitation is often very irregular in amount, varying considerably
from year to year. The average rainfall at Morro Velho is about 64.5
inches, but annual amounts as high as 90 inches and as low as 40 inches
are not uncommon. It follows from this that successful electrification
and the full utilisation of natural resources required a bold plan of wa-
ter conservation, a plan costly in terms of initial outlay but one almost
certain to prove profitable in the long run.
In Scott’s paper it was stated that the three-phase alternating cur-
rent (of the Cristaes station) had proved much more satisfactory than

88
the continuous current from Retiro and Rezende, and that an additio-
nal high-tension three-phase plant of about 300 h.p. was then (1902)
in process of construction. “It was at one time intended,” he wrote,
“to transmit at low tension; but this had to be abandoned, on account
of the cost of the copper cables. Another more important scheme, to
transmit electrically about 1,500 h.p., has been left in abeyance for the
present, owing to the necessity of having as soon as possible an increa-
se of power to take the place of the steam engines. The superintendent
(George Chalmers), however, is of the opinion that the scheme must
eventually be carried out, if the mine is to be worked to a great depth
economically, and all hand-drilling replaced with power-drills. The cost
per h.p. per day, with wood as fuel, is 2s. 3d., and with water only 3d.”
This example of the economic advantages of electrification may
appear emphatic enough to the present reader — as it did then to the
superintendent — but to the shareholders and directors of the Com-
pany back in London the argument did not seem quite so simple. The
construction of hydro-electric stations is a costly business, calling for
new capital, immediate sacrifice in return for rosy longterm prospects.
And, clearly, such a proposition can be regarded as sound only when su-
fficient demand for power can be predicted for many years. How long
would the new power stations be needed? How long would the mine
last? Opinions differed. The nature of the deposits was such that every
descent to a new and lower horizon was to some extent speculative. The

89
gold content of the rock might not repay extraction; the workings mi-
ght prove inoperable. Remembering the misfortunes of the past — the
fire and collapse of 1867 and the “ crush “ of 1886 — there were some
who viewed the bold new ventures with pessimism.

The Peixe
But not so George Chalmers. He foresaw a wonderful future for
the mine. He believed that there would be no deterioration in the lode,
and that the new methods he was applying would result in a vast impro-
vement in efficiency and profitability. And so he met such opposition
as there was from London with characteristic fortitude and diplomacy.
Even in 1918 (when the last of his great power stations, “E”, was under
erection), we find him dissatisfied with the power available, and politely
critical of the Board’s conservative policy: “The vital importance of
additional power,” he wrote, “has so often been referred to in these
reports, with a description also of the final scheme for developing the
last power of any importance on the Peixe river*, that it is needless to
make any further comment, except that the necessity of the addition
is daily becoming more apparent as we see the mine deepening and no
corresponding addition in power being made or probable in the near
future. Had we now to resort to steam we should find that the entire ab-
sence of coal had greatly raised the price of firewood, due to the large
consumption of the latter on the railway, and in consequence our

90
cost would be enormously increased.”
(*Actually the “E” station wasn’t the last “of any importance”:
the “F” station was completed in 1933 and the “G” scheme was still
under construction when this history was written.).
Mr. A. G. N. Chalmers, who assisted his father as deputy supe-
rintendent from 1919 to 1924 and subsequently — from 1924 to 1930
— served the Company well as superintendent, has given the writer an
amusing account of the methods employed by his father to persuade
the London Office to accept his plans. When the scheme for the deve-
lopment of the Peixe was put forward, George Chalmers made alterna-
tive suggestions — a series of small stations (to be built out of profits),
or a group of larger stations with dams (to be financed out of capi-
tal). He argued the case for the more ambitious plan but without much
hope that it would be accepted and was quite prepared to “ make do
“ with the smaller stations. But the Board’s decision was to turn down
both suggestions. Chalmers received this news with amazement. Lesser
men would have stormed and blustered in a counter-attack: instead he
announced to the Board that he was prepared to form a separate com-
pany, a company having no connection with St. John d’el Rey, to build
power stations and supply electricity to the mining company. He invited
the Board to say what power it would be needing (a nice touch this, for
nobody knew better than the superintendent exactly what the figure
was) and asked for a contract to be drawn up between the two compa-

91
nies the — one in being and the other fictitious — defining the terms
of supply over a number of years.
This stratagem rang the bell: the Board climbed down and the
Rio de Peixe scheme was launched.
The Peixe system consists of six main generating stations,
“A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” “E,” and” F” which were opened in the years
1904,1905,1906, 1912, 1919 and 1933. These stations utilise the water
of the river Peixe and of the lakes impounded by dams at Miguelão,
Codorna and Lagoa Grande. Their combined output is to-day about
56,000,000 kW/h. In 1953 I was able to visit the Peixe district, to travel
over its winding, often precipitous roads, and to marvel at the rugged
grandeur of the scene. The peaceful lakes, the swift-flowing rivers, the
neat dwellings of the scattered inhabitants. . . . The Peixe power system
seems to run itself: few employees are to be seen, only an occasio-
nal maintenance officer or caretaker, but the generators and all other
installations run smoothly and shine as if new. A tour of the Peixe
confirms one’s admiration for the engineers who first visualised this
immense undertaking, and particularly for George Chalmers, whose de-
termination and farseeing wisdom gave St. John d’el Rey the advantage
of hydro-electric energy.
Incidentally, I should mention, that the Peixe watershed is also
used as a holiday resort by the employees-of the Company. Scattered
throughout the catchment area there are hostels and rest-houses built

92
for the health and relaxation of the mining population of Morro Velho.
According to the archives the first mention of electricity in con-
nection with Morro Velho was made in 1889 at a time when Chalmers
was engaged upon the task of sinking his” C” and” D” shafts. “ Your
officers,” so the reference runs, “ have also utilised a Dynamo bought
from the Cassel Company on easy terms, by adapting it for electric li-
ghting. By this means the shafts at the surface have been lit by arc lamps
more brilliantly than any number of oil lamps would light them and at
a much cheaper rate, the motive power being water. This is important,
as the work is being actively carried on at night as during the day.”
And to conclude this section we might return to the earliest po-
wer stations of the pre-Peixe period and to the Superintendent’s com-
ments on work in progress:
1894: “Electric lighting. Erected 18 iron posts. Made and fixed
cross pieces and erected four lines of cable. At dynamo house, fixed
large water box, valve and large pipe; built side walls of wheel pit and
laid footings of dynamo house.”
1895: “The dynamo house at Retiro is well under way. It will
provide light, by arc and incandescent lamps, for lighting the Reduction
works, transmission house and engine house. . . . Preparations are being
made for the electric plant which will transmit 75 horse-power, at pre-
sent rate, to the interior of the mine. This additional power will be used
for winding and ventilating and for air compressors when winding and

93
ventilation are not in operation.”
1896: “Additional power will be obtained at comparatively small
expense by’ embanking the stream that carries the waste water of the
Cristais and other regos and constructing a dam between two hills throu-
gh which the river passes, so raising the height of water. By this means a
fall of water will be obtained equal to 100 effective horse-power in the
dry season and 150 in the wet. The fall of water will work a dynamo of
100 unit power and the force this generates will be transmitted to the
requisite motors at the mill and Reduction Plant.”

The Tramway
The Estrada de Ferro Central runs north along the valley of the
Rio das Ve1has to Raposos and beyond and leaves Nova Lima without
direct access to the railway system. Until 1913 this proved a serious di-
sadvantage to the Company: stores and equipment of all kinds had to
be conveyed by bullock-wagon or mule across the difficult road from
Bicalho to Morro Velho, a method of transport that proved costly and
slow and often very damaging to the goods carried. The distance from
Bicalho to Morro Velho is only about eight kilometres (nearly five mi-
les) but goods might take days, even weeks, to get through during the
wet season when the roads are bad.
George Chalmers determined to put an end to this delay and da-
mage and drew up plans for an electric railway or Tramway connecting

94
the mine with the station at Raposos. The scheme is first mentioned as
early as 1896, but it was not until 1911 that work on the Tramway began.
It was a major undertaking: there were many deep cuttings to be made,
a tunnel to be driven, bridges to be built, and special measures had to
be adopted, in an area of tropical rains, to protect the permanent-way
against erosion. . . .
“The Tramway Department had during the year (1912) driven
the main tramway tunnel 293 feet, put in 140 ft. 6 inches of brick lining
and concrete where required . . . 1,561 metres of open cut and 461 of
side cut and 625 metres of embankments have been done on the Tra-
mway, whilst on the widening of the Central Railway to allow sufficient
room for the Tramway to pass, 386 metres of open cut, 810 of side cut,
and 182 of embankments. . . .”
The report shows a very heavy list of surface drains, culverts,
etc., for the Tramway, and excavations for the aerial ropeway from it to
the Raposos Mine.
The Tramway was opened in April, 1913, and a few months later
Chalmers reported that: “So far the number of passengers has slightly
exceeded the estimate, but some are probably riding for the novelty of
the thing.”
The Tramway benefited the town of Nova Lima as much as the
mine, greatly improving the speed and safety of goods delivered from
the Central Railway and saving the people much wearisome travel by

95
road. The storekeepers of the town paid the same rate per ton for
transport of their goods as the Company, and the passenger fare at one
cruzeiro per head has, I believe, remained unaltered from 1913 to the
present day.
At a very safe speed the cars of the Tramway covered the dis-
tance between the two termini in about half an hour and the cost of
transport was less than half what it had been in the days of the bullock-
-cart and mule. The rolling stock has been bought, at various times,
from Germany, the U.S.A., and Britain, but much has also been made at
the mine. In 1953 the writer travelled very comfortably in a passenger-
-car made by the craftsmen of Morro Velho. It reminded me somewhat
of the gondolas used on the switchback railways of Blackpool and el-
sewhere, though the ride itself is smooth and without physical excite-
ment. It was pay-day when I used the Morro Velho-Raposos Tramway
and whenever the car stopped workers would appear alongside to draw
their wages from a payclerk. Some of them, I noticed, gave their receipt
for the money with a thumb-print signature.
The sleepers of the track are made from aroeira timber, one of
Brazil’s most common trees in the old days, now becoming rare through
constant felling.
George Chalmers was of course delighted by the success of this
venture and in later years he never failed to draw attention to its econo-
mic and commercial value. In his report for the year 1917, for example,

96
he had this to say: “The benefit the company derives from the Tramway
is almost incalculable, and it is difficult to realise how we struggled
through with our transport in early days with only bullock-cart and
mule transport over this rough mountainous country. After machinery
has arrived at Raposos delays are now unknown, the material or ma-
chinery being promptly delivered either at the Mine, Store, Reduction
Works, or at whatever point it is required on the level of the line. . . .”
“The Tramway has not only enabled us to place the Edward’s
furnace at Gallo at a suitable distance from the works, but it also brings
in from that point to the establishment all the building sand we reqUIre.
It has made our waste scrub lands valuable, offering as it does a means
for the removal of timber from a very large area; in other words, it
has made that country through which it passes available for eucalyp-
tus planting, and has actually helped in the planting by affording some
4,400 passages to workpeople engaged on same. But the Company pays
exactly the same price for passengers and goods as the outsiders, and
yet obtains delivery at less than half the price it used to cost when the
work was done by bullocks and mules.”
Mention was made above of “the aerial ropeway,” and some fur-
ther explanation is perhaps needed. The Espírito Santo Mine lies some
4,000 metres from Morro Velho and is highly productive. To avoid du-
plication of the stamping and reduction plant the ore from Espirito
Santo is treated at Morro Velho. It is first broken down to pieces of

97
approximately 2 cm. and then conveyed by the overhead ropeway to
the Morro Velho mill. The ropeway delivers 120 buckets an hour, each
carrying some 470 kilos of ore.

98
Chapter VII

Reductio ad Absurdum

There is neither space nor talent enough here to describe in detail
the surface installations of the mine, the magnificent machinery (much
of it made on the spot), the foundry, the workshops, the immaculate
stores, the hospital, church, schools and dwellings; but some mention
must be made of the processes by which the uninteresting rock from
the depths or bowels of the earth is reduced to bricks of gold.
The gold of Morro Velho is not normally present in the ore in
sufficient quantity to be discernible to the naked eye, though the rock
often contains bright veins of pyrites or “fool’s gold.” No, this gold
would never attract the gold-digger of fiction, for only by the most
precise technical and chemical processes can the precious metal be ex-
tracted. The ore consists of a mixture of various sulphide minerals, of
which mispickel and pyrrhotite are the most important together with
certain carbonates and silicates, and the gold is distributed throughout
these materials in very finely divided particles. The ore of the Espirito
Santo mine which is also treated at the Morro Velho reduction plant is
of a similar composition, though it contains fewer sulphides.
From the mine the ore is drawn in waggons up an inclined track
by endless chain haulage to a crusher which breaks down the rock in-
99
to pieces of about 10 cm., or four inches in length. Each waggon holds
about 1,200 kilos or roughly one ton of rock and yields about 9 gram-
mes of gold, enough to fill one small coffee-spoon. The waggons or
cars move up the inclined track at the rate of forty to forty-five an hour.
The ore leaves the crusher and passes to a revolving screen whi-
ch removes the finest material, and then falls to a turntable where the
barren rock is rejected. What is left is crushed again to about 5 cm. and
is then carried by conveyor belts to the storage bins.
Now the rock is pulverised by the great hammers of the stamps.
Each unit of the battery of 150 Californian stamps weighs about 550
kilos (1,100 lb.) and smacks down on the ore ninety-five times a minute.
This is an impressive sight (and sound): one hundred and fifty gigantic
robot blacksmiths hammering for dear life. And the result is a powder
fine enough to pass through a mesh screen containing 140 holes per
square centimetre. It is pumped over a series of strange trays or tables
which are in constant motion, shaking or vibrating like a man suffering
from ague. The result of this treatment is that the ore is divided out into
three main concentrates — free gold and heavy sulphides, a “middling”
product and a tailing — which are trapped in the longitudinal grooves
or “riffies” which cover the tables.
These three groups of materials now pass through further pro-
cesses until all the gold recoverable by mechanical means has been ex-
tracted and is ready for smelting. The “middling” products contain mis

100
pickel which is valuable for its gold and its arsenic. By fine grinding in a
short tube mill charged with small steel balls the material is powdered,
in which state it is again passed over shaking tables. Its liberated gold is
collected and the residue, containing arsenic and a little gold, reserved
for chemical treatment.
This residue is thickened in tanks fitted with rakes and then as
a slurry is agitated with lime, sodium cyanide and lead nitrate while
compressed air is blown in. The sodium cyanide, assisted by the oxy-
gen contained in the compressed air, dissolves the gold, and the gold-
-bearing solution is recovered by vacuum filtration. What is left, the
filter cake, still contains a little gold and a high percentage of arsenic
minerals. By means of the flotation process, which is too complicated
to be described here, even in outline, the gold and arsenic minerals are
reduced to a small bulk, separated from the waste. The concentrate is
sent to furnaces for roasting; the arsenic is driven off as fumes which
are condensed, collected and marketed, while the roasted sand is retur-
ned to the cyanide plant for further treatment to recover the very small
fraction of gold it carries.
The tailings are treated in a similar manner — agitated with lime,
sodium cyanide and lead nitrate under the influence of compressed air
— and yield up their gold in a solution of sodium cyanide.
These gold-bearing solutions are next treated by the Merrill-Cro-
we process. Very finely-divided zinc powder is introduced into a stream

101
of solution and the gold is precipitated.
Free gold from the mill and gold recovered by the Merrill-Crowe
process from the “middling” and “tailing” solutions is now collected in
the Melting House. It is smelted with suitable fluxes in producer-gas-
-fired furnaces and the result is a bullion containing about 80 per cent.
gold, 17 per cent. silver and 3 per cent. of base metals. The bullion is
refined in a series of electrolytic cells which yield gold 960 over 1,000
parts fine and what is virtually pure silver. The gold is melted into bars
weighing about 10 kilos each (22 lb.). The Melting House is a romantic
corner of the works, for here the end-product of vast labours is finally
made tangible, and no newcomer can look upon the little bricks of
gold without experiencing awe and wonder. Here is the goal of much
striving, of one hundred and twenty-five years of prodigious labour, of
Herring, Chalmers and others, of Brazilians and Britons. And it seems
so very little.
I watched the gold bricks being packed into their wooden boxes.
Once a week they are carried to the railway and placed in a safe in the
guards van for their journey to Rio de Janeiro.

Labour Problems
In 1924, after forty years’ service, George Chalmers retired from
the position of Superintendent and was succeeded by his son, A. G. N.
Chalmers, a talented engineer. It was a very difficult moment to assume

102
control of the mine, for work was severely handicapped by shortage
of labour. In Brazil prices were rising and food was scarce, and many
workers became infected with new, half-assimilated political and social
ideas. Underground workers left the mine to grow maize and other
crops, or moved to take up jobs where rates of pay were increasing at
inflationary speed.
As a result the amount of ore crushed fell considerably and in
1925 profits were so small that no dividend could be paid to Ordina-
ry shareholders. Attempts to overcome the labour shortage by impor-
ting miners from England and the Continent proved costly and largely
unsuccessful. Many of the men deserted before seeing the mine, and
others left the Company’s service after only a short stay at Morro Velho.
Out of 215 men shipped during 1925 only 30 remained at work in the
mine at the end of the year. The labour shortage reduced the amount
of work done on the new Horizon “23” and held up the exploratory
work on Horizon” 24.”
Eventually conditions became more stable, recruitment impro-
ved and the mine returned to its normal state of efficiency and pros-
perity. The lode at Horizon “24” and “25” proved as rich as ever and
exploratory work at the Espírito Santo site revealed lodes of promising
quality. In 1928, George Chalmers died, and at the Ordinary General
Meeting held at Winchester House, Old Broad Street, on 19th April,
1928, the Chairman (Sir Henry P. Harris, K.B.E.) paid this tribute to

103
his memory: “By his ability, energy and perseverance he gradually cre-
ated in the mountains of Minas Gerais an undertaking of which any
company might be proud. To appreciate fully what he achieved you
must visit Morro Velho. A fine monument to his memory is to be found
there. . . .”

Exploration
During A. G. N. Chalmers’ term of office considerable impro-
vements’ were made in mining methods and in ventilation. And great
activity in the field of exploration increased the estimated reserves (by
1929) to 1,455,000 tons of ore. He retired in 1930 after serving the
Company for eleven years, as assistant to his father from 1919 to 1924
and then as superintendent. Mr. Chalmers retired to manage the family
estate in Brazil. He is a painter of talent and we are fortunate to be able
to reproduce one of his oils in this book.
He was succeeded by A. H. Millett, who immediately had to con-
tend with a revolution and a world slump. The revolution was a national
affair though it manifested itself in Morro Velho in only minor skirmi-
shes. The vigilance of the Company’s officers and the Minas Govern-
ment were such that the harm and injury done were slight. Neverthe-
less, for the British population it was an anxious, nerve-racking period.
The slump had a silver lining so far as the Company was concer-
ned. Under conditions of growing unemployment men were eager to

104
tobtain work at the mine and the labour force grew rapidly. This ena-
bled the management to push ahead with much work of an ancillary
nature, the exploration of new Horizons, preparatory work at Espírito
Santo,* the construction of a new overhead ropeway and extensions to
the Peixe hydro-electric scheme capable of increasing the power availa-
ble by some 2,000 horse-power. (The Espírito Santo estate was acquired
in 1899 from an English company, primarily with the object of safe-
guarding the future of the Morro Velho workings which are adjacent to
the Fazenda of Raposos and Espirito Santo. During the term of office
of A. G. N. Chalmers much exploratory and development work was
done on the estate, and the lodes were tackled seriously and producti-
vely in the nineteen-thirties.) By 1935 the Morro Ve1ho reserves were
estimated at 2,046,472 tons, and this in spite of some evidence that the
main lode tended to become more broken and tenuous at the deepest
horizons. Work was now concentrated on new “White” lodes discove-
red in the upper horizons, and for the time being it was decided that it
would not be profitable to sink deeper into the old lode. The Codorna
dam was completed in 1936 and the Miguelão dam in 1937. Several
additions to the reduction plant were made, and the extraction of the
gold content of the ore was greatly improved. Meanwhile the newly-
-opened Espírito Santo mine showed promising results. By 1938 the re-
serves of the two mines were estimated at 4,838,000 tons and 2,590,000
tons respectively. The labour position, too, was satisfactory. In 1938 the

105
In 1938 the average daily attendance at the mines was 2,044. The chief
reason for this improvement was undoubtedly the increased rate of
building workers’ houses of good quality and with attractive amenities.
More than one thousand such dwellings had been erected in ten years.
A. H. Millett resigned in 1940 after an eventful and highly suc-
cessful term of office and E. Davies, assistant superintendent for sixte-
en years, was appointed head of Morro Velho.
In 1941 we find that the London Offices of the St. John d’el
Rey Mining Company had been transferred to Esher. The war caused
many changes and produced immense problems. Many of the British
population left for home to join the Forces, and labour in Brazil became
increasingly scarce. Moreover, costs and wages rose at a fantastic rate.
Employing few men, many of them completely unskilled, and gravely
hampered by the shortage of tools and equipment, it is not surprising
that the tonnage of ore raised and crushed showed some decrease; but
by 1941 the Chairman, Sir Henry P. Harris, was able to announce: “The
reserves of mineral are large, and have, indeed, outrun the Company’s
capacity to deal with them. This is not surprising, having regard to the
size and value of the new ore bodies which have been discovered in
recent years. Of these the most notable, namely the so-called ‘X’ orebo-
dy, now makes the excellent showing of 1,128,300 tons of an indicated
grade of 16.4 grams per ton, and 876,900 tons of 13 grams per ton.”
But with the end of the war the bright hopes were dimmed so-

106
mewhat by the complex economic situation. In Brazil inflation conti-
nued and wages and material costs soared. In 1947 there were disputes
and according to the superintendent “the men became increasingly res-
tive and hostile to the Company.” Brazil was experiencing (and still is)
a new social revolution and the Company was squeezed uncomfortably
tight by a programme of new decrees and economic sanctions.
In 1948, E. Davies relinquished the post of superintendent after
eight years of office under most trying conditions, and was succeeded
by W. R. Russell. The record of the last six years has been good, but
industrial relations are still far from satisfactory. While the labour force
at the mine is loyal and hard-working it is at times goaded by outside
influences into making demands which the Company is unable, physi-
cally and economically, to concede. These difficulties must, of course,
be seen in perspective, as an element in a world-wide and post-war state
of unrest, and no doubt they will in time be ironed out satisfactorily.

The Present
Meanwhile the mine continues to make good progress. In 1953
the estimated reserves were 5,161,000 tons at Morro Velho and 1,530,000
tons at Espírito Santo. The labour force consisted of 4,821 men and the
amount of gold extracted from the orebodies was 3,296,071 grams fine.
The tonnages of ore raised from 1924 (see page 82) to the present are
as follows:

107
Morro Velho Mine
1924 ... 142,668 tons 1940 ... 244,762 tons
1925 ... 117,389 " 1941 ... 230,060 "
1926 ... 143,492 " 1942 ... 225,501 "
1927 ... 153,187 " 1943 ... 215,251 "
1928 ... 157,237 " 1944 ... 223,322 "
1929 ... 169,454 " 1945 ... 222,769 "
1930 ... 210,579 " 1946 ... 215,110 "
1931 ... 230,572 " 1947 ... 221,027 "
1932 ... 246,963 " 1948 ... 212,158 "
1933 ... 241,902 " 1949 ... 223,657 "
1934 ... 251,458 " 1950 ... 234,233 "
1935 ... 253,023 " 1951 ... 245,336 "
1936 ... 243,178 " 1952 ... 235,538 "
1937 ... 248,089 " 1953 ... 201,514 "
1938 ... 263,874 " 1954 ... 209,773 "
1939 ... 252,279 " "
Espírito Santo Mine
1935 ... 42,492 tons 1945 ... 145,897 tons
1936 ... 50,755 " 1946 ... 129,881 "
1937 ... 127,244 " 1947 ... 119,270 "
1938 ... 111,015 " 1948 ... 107,941 "
1939 ... 155,449 " 1949 ... 106,420 "
1940 ... 193,824 " 1950 ... 138,437 "
1941 ... 210,598 " 1951 ... 154,875 "
1942 ... 246,490 " 1952 ... 146,008 "
1943 ... 176,146 " 1953 ... 110,473 "
1944 ... 168,038 " 1954 ... 107,000 "

108
109
 THE CODORNA DAM AND LAKE
A painting in oils by A. G. N. Chalmers, a former superintendent of Morro Velho.
Mr. Chalmers, who liveds in Brazil and is an artist of distinction, painted this picture spe-
cially for this book. The dam was constructed in the nineteen-thirties, and the lake forms
110

part of the water reserve from which the Company derives its hydro-electris power.
111