About the newly found mines on the island Fernandina, also known as Cuba, where a certain vein of gold, silver, and copper metal has been found.

 Translated by Kendal Simmons ’23

In the previous year of 1540, it was published that on the island of Fernandina, alias Cuba, a vein and some new mines were discovered by a nobleman named Vasco Porcallo de la Cerda, native to Medellín, Extremadura, and a neighbor of the town of … [1]. Some say that the vein is such that a quintal of materials yields fifteen pounds of very good copper, twelve ounces of very fine silver, and fifteen pesos of fine gold. The vein yields large quantities of this material from within a mountain, creating great wealth. I will neither confirm nor deny this until time reveals how the situation unfolds. However, seven years have passed since this discovery and the fame of the aforementioned vein has been silenced and forgotten. It has become unreliable, at least much less reliable than what had been said.

[1] In the original text, the name of this town is found blank, and it is now impossible to find due to the little importance of the mine that nobleman Porcallo de la Cerda discovered.