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cajón

In Spanish, one meaning of cajón is “large box or case”.

1

In Venezuela , 20ᵗʰ century, a unit of capacity used for grains and vegetables, equal to the volume enclosing a mass of 18 to 40 kilograms (approximately 40 - 88 pounds av).

United Nations, 1966.

2

In Bolivia, ? – 20ᵗʰ century, various units of mass:

In the town of Vallegrande in the department of Santa Cruz, a unit of mass used for fruit, = 23 kilograms.

In the town of Omasuyos in the department of La Paz, a unit of mass for potatoes and similar produce, = 138 kilograms. Also called an aym.

Bolivia] Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Colonizacion. Dirección General de Economia Rural.
Resumen General de Medidas típicas de la República de Bolivia.
Corrected and revised by the Departamento de Muestreos y Padrones.
[La Paz]: Departamento de Muestreos y Padrones, 1956.

Pages 15 and 38. (Page numbering is not continuous.)

3

In Bolivia, ? – 20ᵗʰ century, in the town of Salinas de G. Mendoza, in the department of Oruro, a unit of land area, = 500 square meters.

Resumen General de Medidas típicas de la República de Bolivia.

Page 36.

4

In Argentina, a unit of mass used for the gross weight of ores, about 50 to 60 quintales.

Juan Alvarez.
Temas de Historia Economica Argentina.
Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1929.

Page 173. Quoting from Balbín.

5

In the northern provinces of Nicaragua, a unit of capacity for grain.

Cristina Maria van der Gulden.
Vocabulario Nicaragüense.
Managua: Editorial UCA, 1995.

Page 62. May be citing Alfonso Valle Candia's Diccionario, page 54.

6

From a rather confused discussion by Bresson: In Bolivia and Chile, a unit of mass that played a role in a system for expressing the quality of ore. In concept 1 cajon was the mass of a volume of 1 cubic vara of ore (0.584 cubic meters), conventionally set at 6400 livra = 12,800 marcos (2,944 kilograms). The quality of the ore was expressed as the number of marcos of precious metal in this cajon of ore, divided by 12,800.

André Bresson.
Bolivia. Sept Années d'Explorations, de Voyages et de Séjours dans L'Amérique Australe.
Paris: Challamel Ainé, Éditeur, 1886.
Page 617.

A map showing the location of Venezuela.

Where is Venezuela?