Pancorvo, a diflance of fevènteen leagues,- over a continual
chain o f mOuntaius..
The boundaries of Old Caftile aré at Miranda, de
Ebro, three leagues beyond Pancorvo, where there is a
bridge over the Ebro (a) ; on the other fide of which,
the province o f Alaba begins, whofe inhabitants have
Mkewife made a fine road at tkeir own- expence, to the
confines, o f Guypufcoa. The road continues almoft
to Vitoria, bordering -on the river Zadorra, in which
the water filly- grows, plentifully. The hills are of
fmall, and various, coloured calcareous ftone, conglu-
tinated together : the plants are the arbutus uva urfi,.
or perennial leaved ftrawberry tree, box, thorny furze,
thorny reftharrow, the kermes oak, and many forts o f
o-rchis. The firft village in- the province o f Guypufcoa,
is Salinas,, fo called from- its briny fprings, which they
evaporatè with a boiling heat, and. make fait. It is remarkable,
that, fuch fprings in France, and Lorraine,,
are always in. vallies, but in Spain, are oonfiantly found
on the tops of mountains, or in. elevated places.- This-
juft mentioned, is on a- very high hill, with numerous pe-
trefadions of ihells, in a kind of. blueilh, max-ble, veined;
with fpar, which has been ufed in making the road,,
This hill of Salinas is the higheft part of Guypufcoa.
(<?) This bridge, which had been fo much damaged, and part of it'carried away b'yi nun dations,
when Mr. Swinburne pafled th s way, and was obliged to go- over in a ferry, was entirely
repaired when I went oyer it in July, 1778»
From
From hence, it is four leagues to MondragOn, fo famous
For its iron mine in this neighbourhood, of which I
fhall fpeak more particularly hereafter. From Mondra-
gon it is a journey o f fix leagues to Legafpia, paifing by
a forge on the banks o f the river Onate, where; they
mix the ore of two mines, viz- that of Somorroitro in
Bifcay, noted for the flexibility of its xpetal, with ,the
ore o f this neighbourhood, which being more abundant
and hard, takes forty hours in roafting, and is then fufed
once without any caftina (a), getting at each fufion a
quintal of iron, following the fame , method. obferved
with the iron of Somorroitro, as wifi be defcribed in a
fubfequent letter.
Onate is a populous and affluent town ; the church,
the colonade, and ftatues o f the college, are o f fand-
ftone, full of Mica (b) ; the foil of the hills, and vallies, is
a tenacious clay, formed by the total decompofition
o f the fand-ftone, flate, and rotten vegetables. The
(a) Caftina is a hard calcareous ftone, of a whitiih grey, ufed in forges, where iron is fufed,
in order to abforb the fulphureous acid, that mineralizes the iron, and renders it brittle.
{I)) Mica, the glimmer,daze, or glift. SeeCronftedt’s mineralogy,fed.xciii. London, 1772.
Mica, or talk, is an earthy or ftony fubftance, confifting of thin, flexible, Alining plates;
micas have a foft touch, refembling that o f unttuous fubftances. They are not foluble by
acids. They are incapable of eliciting fparks when ftiruck by fteel, as flints do, for which
reafon they are called Apyri, that is, without fire; nor do they form a tenacious tafte with
water, as gypfum does. Mica is therefore neither a calcareous, filiceous, argillaceous, nor
gypfeous earth.-—
R 2 farmers