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QUANTITY OF PRECIOUS METALS.

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quainted with the use of several metals. They did nct content themselves with those which were found in their native state on the surface of the earth, and particularly in the beds of rivers and the ravines formed by the torrrents; they applied themselves to subterraneous operations in the working of veins ; they cut galleries and dug pits of communication and ventilation; and they had instruments adapted for cutting the rock. Cortez informs us in the historical account of his expedition, that gold, silver, copper, lead, and tin, were publicly sold in the great market of Tenochtitlan.

We must however refrain from going into the historical part of this subject; since, however entertaining it may be, it would lead us into details wholly unimportant for our present purpose.

We shall proceed to lay before our readers all the information concerning the produce of the mines which a residence in the country and access to the registers of the mints of Mexico, Lima, Santa Fé, and Popayan, have enabled us to collect. We believe it will be found more full and exact than any hitherto published.

The quantity of silver annually extracted from the mines of New Spain, does not depend so much on the abundance and intrinsic riches of the ores, as on the facility with which the miners procure the mercury necessary for amalgamation. We are not therefore to be surprised that the number of ounces of silver converted into piastres, at the mint of

Mexico, varies very irregularly. When, from the effect of a maritime war or from any other accident, the mercury fails for a year, and the following year it arrives in abundance, a very considerable produce of silver succeeds to a very limited fabrication of money.

In Saxony, where the small quantity of mercury which is wanted for the process of amalgamation, is procured with sufficient facility, the produce of the mines of Freiberg is so admirably equal, that from 1793 to 1799 it was never below 29,800lbs. troy, and never above 31,300lbs. troy of silver. In that country, the great droughts, which stop the working of the hydraulic wheels, and prevent the water from being drawn off, have the same influence on the quantity of silver delivered into the mint, as the scarcity of mercury in America.

From 1777 to 1803, the quantity of silver annually extracted from the Mexican ores has almost constantly been above 1,231,000lbs. troy of silver, and from 1796 to 1799 it was 1,662,000lbs. troy; while from 1800 to 1802 it remained below 1,294,900lbs. troy. But we cannot by any means infer from these data, that the mining operations in Mexico have not been so flourishing latterly. In 1801 the gold and silver obtained amounted only to 3,480,0007.; while in 1803 the coinage again amounted, on account of the abundance of mercury, to 4,865,000/.

Abstracting the influence of accidental causes, we find that the mines and stream works of New

INCREASED PRODUCE OF MINES.

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Spain actually produce on an average 4,322lbs. troy of gold, and 1,543,837lbs. troy of silver, of which the mean value amounts altogether to 4,620,0007.

About twenty years ago, this produce was only from 2,170,000l. to 3,467,000/., and thirty years ago from 2,380,000l. to 2,400,0007. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the quantity of gold and silver coined at Mexico was only from 1,085,000l. to 1,200,000. The enormous increase in the produce of the mines observable in latter years is to be attributed to a great number of causes, all acting at the same time; among which the first place must be assigned to the increase of population on the table-land of Mexico, the progress of knowledge and national industry, the freedom of trade conceded to America in 1778, the facility of procuring at a cheaper rate the iron and steel necessary for the mines, the fall in the price of mercury, the discovery of the mines of Catorce and Valenciana, and the establishment of the Tribunal de Mineria.

The two years in which the produce of gold and silver attained its maximum, were 1796 and 1797. In the former there were coined at the mint of Mexico, 25,644,000 piastres; and in the latter, 23,080,000 piastres. To judge of the effect produced by the freedom of trade, or rather from the cessation of the monopoly of the galleons, we have merely to remember that the value of the gold and silver coined at Mexico was, from 1766 to 1778,

191,589,179 piastres; and from 1779 to 1791, 252,525,412 piastres; so that from 1778, the increase has been more than a fourth part of the total produce.

The mines of New Spain have produced from 1690 to 1800, the enormous sum of 92,229,256 lbs. troy; and from 1690 to 1803, gold and silver to the value of 284,224,9247. sterling.

For a hundred and thirteen years, the produce of the mines has been constantly on the increase, if we except the single period frm 1760 to 1767. This increase becomes manifest, when we compare, every ten years, the quantity of the precious metals given in to the mint of Mexico, as is done in the following tables, of which the one indicates the value of the gold and silver in pounds sterling, and the other, the quantity of silver in pounds troy.

PRODUCE OF MINES.

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Progress of the mining operations of Mexico.

Table I. Gold and Silver.

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