Braden (d44232c6-d147-4b6f-abaa-566b5f8d928b)

BETWEEN the third and twentieth days of November, 1903, six intensely interesting letters were mailed from Santiago, Chile, addressed to "Mr. William Braden, Consulting Mining Engineer, 71 Broadway, New York City." The subject of these communications, referred to as the "Rancagua mines," was a copper property situated in the high. Andes; and the writer was Marco Chiapponi, an Italian mining engineer. Many a letter has been written about potential mines and prospects, good and bad, situated in all parts of the world; but few of them combine the shrewdness, sincerity, naïveté, and salesmanship that appear in these fascinating letters by Chiapponi. In 1894, Mr. Braden, as a young man twenty-three years old, had gone to Santiago to look after the erection and operation of some mining machinery that was to be exhibited at the International Mining Exposition. Not the least important of his purposes was to get acquainted at first hand with the mines and mining men of Chile, which ranked at the time (as it does today) second to the United States as a copper-producing country. It happened that a dispute arose regarding charges for certain construction work done in connection with young Braden's exhibit. Finally, arbitration was agreed upon and the Chilean exposition officials proposed Se[n]or Marco Chiapponi as a fair-minded neutral to decide the question. This he did in a manner satisfactory to both sides, and subsequently he and Mr. Braden became good friends. Nine years later Braden wrote to Chiapponi inquiring as to certain matters connected with the Corocoro copper mines in Bolivia. It was to this letter that Chiapponi refers in his letter of November 3, from which the following are some extracts,