Paul Isnard
Paul Isnard is a mining concession in French Guiana, named after a gold miner.
History
The name of the company until 1987 was CMPI. Two sites were exploited: Citron & Paul Islard.
During the penitentiary era, many former prisoners had to serve the same amount of time as free men as their original sentence (called "doublage", "double up" in French) but were forbidden to leave French Guiana. Many went to the rain forest to find gold. They worked manually using mercury.
At the end of the 19th century Paul Island and other share holders brought a huge engine system to the mine as spare parts on horseback and foot. This machine is still there in the jungle between Citron and the former air strip.
Mercury became ubiquitous and reached higher concentrations in ore than needed to make "amalgam" (mix of gold and mercury), a sign of intense activity in the past. Ore concentrations declined to a few grams per metric.