WALLER, William.

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An essay on the value of mines, late of Sir Carbery Price. First edition of this privately published appeal, written by mine manager William Waller, to convince the company's partners of the imminent success of the Welsh Potosi mines, named after the famously rich silver mines in Bolivia. Bound for presentation, presumably to be given to one of the partners, it features two striking plates of the mines and includes Waller's famous estimate of the profits.In the 1680s a vein of lead ore was discovered on the estate of Sir Carbery Pryse of Gogerddan (d. 1694) in Cardiganshire. Challenging the royal monopoly, "Pryse refused to surrender his mines, and eventually the case was tried before the House of Lords. Samples of the ore were assayed, and whereas that brought by Shepherd was rich in silver, the specimen submitted by Pryse himself was not. Moses Stringer, a noted mineralogist, believed that the sample came from Derbyshire and was provided by William Waller, Pryse's notorious mine manager, in a deliberate attempt to mislead the court. However, many members of parliament, as landowners themselves, were sympathetic to Pryse's case and the verdict was finally delivered in his favour" (ODNB).The present work was printed "to demonstrate to the partners that more capital was needed. It is in this Essay that Waller first compares Esgair Hir with the Potosi silver mines in Bolivia. His map of Potosi includes a small hill, called Young Potosi, which is intended to represent Bwlch-yr-E

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