ciana and Rayas, they are exposed, as we have already observed in speaking of the health of the miners*, to a temperature of from 22° to 25°†; and during this time they ascend and descend several thousands of steps in pits of an inclination of 45°. These tenateros carry the minerals in bags (costales) made of the thread of the pité. To prevent their shoulders from being hurt, (for the miners are generally naked to the middle) they place a woollen covering (frisada) under this bag. We meet in the mines with files of fifty or sixty of these porters, among whom there are men above sixty, and boys of ten or twelve years of age. In ascending the stairs they throw the body forwards, and rest on a staff, which is generally not more than three decimetres in length. They walk in a zigzag direction, because they have found from long experience (as they affirm) that their respiration is less impeded when they traverse obliquely the current of air which enters the pits from without. We cannot sufficiently admire the muscular strength of the Indian and Mestizoe tenateros * Vol. i. p. 125. At Paris the porters called Forts de la Halle, are generally loaded with bags of flour, which weigh 325 pounds. (350 lb. avoird. Trans.) To be received in their corporation, a man must carry for 25 minutes, a weight of 850 pounds, (916lb. avoird. + From 71° to 77° Fahren. About a foot. Trans. Trans.) of Guanaxuato, especially when we feel ourselves oppressed with fatigue in ascending from the bottom of the mine of Valenciana without carrying the smallest weight. The tenateros cost the proprietors of Valenciana more than 15,000 livres Tournois weekly *; and they reckon that three men destined to carry the ores to the places of assemblage are for one employed workman (barenador) who blows up the gangue by means of powder. These enormous expences of transportation would be perhaps diminished more than two thirds, if the works communicated with one another by interior shafts (rollschächte), or by galleries adapted. for conveyance by wheel-barrows and dogs. Well contrived operations would facilitate the extraction of minerals and the circulation of air, and would render this great number of tenateros unnecessary, whose strength might be employed in a manner more advantageous to society, and less hurtful to the health of the individual. Interior pits communicating from one gallery to another, and serving for the extraction of ores, might be provided with cranes (haspel) to be wrought by men, or baritels, to be moved by cattle. For a long time (and this arrangement undoubtedly deserves the attention of the European miner) mules have been employed in *£624 Sterling. Trans. the interior of the mines of Mexico. At Rayas these animals descend every morning without guides and in the dark, the steps of a pit of an inclination from 42° to 46°. The mules distribute themselves of their own accord in the different places where the machines for drawing up the water are placed, and their step is so sure, that a lame miner was accustomed several years ago, to enter and leave the mine on one of their backs. In the district of the mines of Peregrino, at the Rosa de Castilla, the mules sleep in subterraneous stables, like the horses which I saw in the famous rock salt mines of Wieliczka in Gallicia. The smelting and amalgamation works of Guanaxuato and Real del Monte, are so placed that two navigable galleries with their openings near Marfil and Omitlan might serve for the carriage of ores, and render every sort of draught above the level of the galleries superfluous. Besides the descents from Valenciana to Guanaxuato, and from Real del Monte to Regla are so rapid, that they would admit of the making of railways, on which waggons loaded with the ores destined for amalgamation might be easily rolled along. We have already spoken of the truly barbarous custom of drawing off the water from the deepest mines, not by means of pump apparatus, but by means of bags attached to ropes which roll on the drum of a horse baritel. The same bags are used in drawing up the water, and the ores: they rub against the walls of the shafts, and it is very expensive to keep them in repair. At the Real del Monte, for example, these bags only last seven or eight days; and they commonly cost six and sometimes eight or ten francs a piece. A bag full of water, suspended to the drum of a baritel with eight horses (malacate doble) weighs 1250 pounds: it is made of two hides sowed together. The bags used for the baritels called simple, those, with four horses (malacates sencillos) are only the half of the size, and are made of one hide. In general the construction of the baritels is extremely imperfect, and they have besides, the bad custom of forcing the horses, by which they are moved to run with by far too great a speed. I found this speed at the shafts of San Ramon, at Real del Monte, no less than ten feet and a half per second *; at Guanaxuato in the mine of Valenciana from thirteen to fourteen feet; and every where else I found it more than eight feet. Don Salvador Šein, professor of Natural Philo *The water being drawn from a depth of eighty metres, (262 feet. Trans.) The malacate doble had four arms, the extremity of each arm, has a kind of axle tree, to which two horses are yoked. The diameter of the circle described by the horses was seventeen varas and a half (about 47 feet. Trans). The diameter of the drum was twelve (32 feet. Trans.) The horses are changed every four hours. sophy at Mexico, has proved, in a very excellent paper on the rotatory motion of machines, that notwithstanding the extreme lightness of the Mexican horses, they produce only the maximum of effect on the baritels when, exerting a force of 175 pounds, they walk at a pace of from five to six feet in the second. It is to be hoped that they will introduce at last in the mines of New Spain, pump apparatus, moved either by horse baritels of a better construction, or by hydraulic wheels, or by machines a colonne d'eau. As wood is very scarce on the ridge of the Cordilleras, and coal has only yet been discovered in New Mexico, they are unfortunately precluded from employing the steam engine, the use of which would be of such service in the inundated mines of Bolaños as well as in those of Rayas and Mellado. It is in the draining the mines of the water that we particularly feel the indispensable necessity of having plans drawn up by subterraneous surveyors (geometres). Instead of stopping the course of the water, and bringing it by the shortest road to the pit where the machines are placed, they frequently direct it to the bottom of the mine*, to be afterwards drawn off at a * At Rayas, for example, where they draw off from a depth of 338 varas, water, which might be collected towards the south-east, in a drain at the depth of 780 varas. |