"
I should like to describe in detail the wonders of this mine, but I have
space for only a few words about it. It was, Edmund learned, the richest
on the planet, and was the exclusive property of the government,
furnishing the larger part of its revenues, which were not comparable
with those of a great terrestrial nation because of the absence of all
the expenditures required by war. No fleets and no armies existed here,
and no tariffs were needed where commerce was free. This great mine was
the Laurium of Venus. The display of gold in the vaults connected with it
exceeded a hundredfold all that the most imaginative historian has ever
written of the treasures of Montezuma and Atahualpa. Henry's eyes fairly
shone as he gazed upon it, and he could not help saying to Edmund:
"You might have had riches equal to this if you had stayed at home and
developed your discovery."
Edmund contemptuously shrugged his shoulders, and turned away without a
word.
We were afterwards conducted to a silver mine, which we also inspected,
and finally to a lead mine in another part of the hills. This was in
reality the goal at which Edmund had been aiming, for he had told us that
uranium was sometimes found in association with lead.
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