Smelting. 26.  Monday, May twenty-six, a third assay was made by refining or smelting, by feeding the dust that was left from one quintal of ore, obtained at a depth of fourteen or more estados from the first vein and hole which, I have said, was opened in the said new mine.  Having consumed twenty-five libras of lead, upon which the metal melted, a grain resulted that resembles silver, and weighs one and one-half reals. [63]

The said tests or assays having been made and finished, the lay of the land, and its natives and mines, having been examined, and having obtained a quantity of ore from all the mines, I left the said presidio and fort of Santiago well fortified with a garrison of fifty-six Spaniards and fifty Indians—­twenty-five from the province of Pangasinan and twenty-five from that of Ylocos—­eleven galley negroes, and one armorer, with food and all other things necessary for more than fifteen months.  Then, with the said last division of the said five hundred Indians, who, as I have made mention, were to be sent me by a lieutenant by the twenty-fourth of May, I set about my descent, carrying with me, by the end of the said month, one hundred quintals of the said ore; this I am sending to the city of Manila in four hundred small rice-baskets, each numbered with the mine whence it was taken, so that proof may be made there of the efforts mentioned above; since it is the self-same ore, the governor and captain-general, the royal Audiencia, and the royal officials can confirm it anew and make the tests again, so that, understanding the said mines fully, they may report to his Majesty, and resolve upon the measures that they deem fitting in regard to the holding of the said presidio in a land of so little or no profit as is that land.

Alonzo Martin Quirante

Act.  In the camp of new mines and the fort of Santiago of the Ygolotes, on the twenty-ninth day of the month of March, one thousand six hundred and twenty-four, Captain and Sargento-mayor Alonso Martin Quirante, chief magistrate of the province of Pangasinan and military commandant of that province and of that of Ylocos, in whose charge is the conquest or pacification of the Ygolote Indians, and the discovery, working, and opening of their mines, declared that inasmuch as he was ordered by Governor and Captain-general Don Alonso Fajardo de Tenca, he has come for the said purpose of the said conquest, pacification, and discovery of the said mines.  And inasmuch as he had been informed by experienced men that the productive mines, to which the said natives are giving most attention at the present time, are the new ones among them called Galan, he has located and planted upon them the said camp and fort of Santiago, so that, having made a fort among them and placed in safety his men, food supply, and other military stores, he might make expeditions and explore the other mines of which he has or may have information that the said Ygolotes have profitably