On the northern coast, midway down the island, lie the abandoned gold mines that were the center of Aruba's gold rush during the nineteenth century. In 1824, gold was finally discovered in Aruba, and eventually, the industry produced more than 3 million pounds of gold. These are the ruins of what ones was an oven to melt gold. Now it looks a bit strange, this blackened stone building, in the middle of nowhere.  In 1872 the Aruba Island Gold Mining Company Ltd. built a large smelting works at Bushiribana on the North coast, for the ore that was being mined at Ceru Plat and in its surroundings. This smelting works was in use for only ten years, but its construction was so solid, that ruins thereof at the North coast are still quite impressive.