improvement, are objects every way worthy of attention. There are few countries in which a more considerable number of large pieces of wrought plate, vases, and church ornaments, are annually executed than in Mexico. The smallest towns have gold- and silver-smiths, in whose shops workmen of all castes, Whites, Mestizoes, and Indians, are employed. The academy of fine arts, and the schools for drawing in Mexico and Xalapa, have very much contributed to diffuse a taste for beautiful antique forms. Services of plate, to the value of from six to eight thousand pounds, have been lately manufactured at Mexico, which for elegance of workmanship may rival the finest works of the kind ever executed in the most civilized parts of Europe. The quantity of precious metals which between 1798 and 1802 was converted into plate at Mexico, amounted on an average to 180lbs. of gold, and 12,564 lbs. of silver per an

num.

The Mint of Mexico, which is the largest and richest in the whole world, is a building of very simple architecture, belonging to the palace of the viceroys. This establishment contains little or nothing remarkable with respect to the improvement of the machinery or chemical processes; but it well deserves to engage the attention of travellers, from the order, activity and economy which prevail in all the operations of coining. This interest is enhanced by other considerations which are even

those who do not turn their attention to speculations of political administration. In fact, it is impossible to go over this small building without recollecting that more than 416,000,0007. sterling, has issued from it in less than three hundred years, and without reflecting on the powerful influence of these treasures on the destinies of the nations of Europe.

The mint of Mexico was established fourteen years after the destruction of old Tenochtitlan under the first viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, by a royal cedula of the 11th May 1535.

The number of workmen employed in this mint amounts to 350 or 400; and the number of machines is so great, that it is possible to coin in the space of a year, without displaying an extraordinary activity, more than thirty millions of dollars, that is to say, nearly three times as much as is generally performed in the sixteen mints which exist in France.

The works of the mint of Mexico contain ten rollers (laminoirs), moved by sixty mules, fifty-two cutters (coupoirs), nine adjusting tables (bancs d'ajustage), twenty machines for marking the edges (à creneler), twenty stamping presses (balanciers), and five mills for amalgamating the washings and filings called mermas. As one stamping press can strike in ten hours more than 15,000 dollars, we are not to be astonished that with so great a number of machines they are able to manufacture daily from six to eight thousand pounds weight of silver.

M

The ordinary work, however, does not exceed from five thousand to five thousand six hundred pounds. From these data, which are founded on official papers, it appears that the silver produced in all the mines of Europe together would not suffice to employ the mint of Mexico more than fifteen days.

The parting house (casa del apartado), in which is carried on the separation of the gold and silver proceeding from the ingots of auriferous silver, formerly belonged to the family of the Marquis de Fagoaga. This important establishment was only annexed to the Crown in 1779. The building very small and very old.

is

The casa del apartado contains three sorts of works, which are destined, 1st, to the manufacture of glass; 2nd, to the preparation of nitrous acid; and 3rd, to the separation of the gold and silver. The processes used in these different works, are as imperfect as the construction of the glasswork furnaces used for the manufacture of retorts and the distillation of aqua-fortis.

It is surprising that none of the pupils of the School of Mines are employed either in the mint or in the casa del apartado; and yet these great establishments might expect useful reforms, from availing themselves of mechanical and chemical knowledge. The mint is also situated in a quarter of the town where running water might be easily procured to put in motion hydraulic wheels. The machinery is yet very far from the perfection which

MANUFACTURES.

83

it has recently attained in England and in France. The improvements will be the more important, as the manufacture embraces a prodigious quantity of gold and silver; for the dollars coined at Mexico may be considered as the matter which maintains the activity of the greatest number of the mints of Europe.

Not only has the working of gold and silver been improved in Mexico, but very considerable progress has also been made in other branches of industry dependent on luxury and wealth. Chandeliers, and other ornaments of great value, were recently executed in gilt bronze, for the new cathedral of Puebla, the bishop of which possesses an income of nearly 23,9007. Although the most elegant carriages driven through the streets of Mexico and Santa Fe de Bogota, at from 9,000 to 11,000 feet above the surface of the ocean, come from London, very handsome ones are also made in New Spain. The cabinet-makers execute articles of furniture, remarkable for their form, and for the colour and polish of the wood, which is procured from the equinoctial region adjoining the coast, especially from the forests of Orizaba, San Blas, and Colima. It is impossible to read without interest in the Gazette of Mexico, that even in the provincias internas, for example at Durango, 600 miles north of the capital, harpsichords and piano-fortes are manufactured. The Indians display indefatigable patience in the manufacture of small toys, in wood,

bone, and wax. In a country where the vegetation affords the most precious productions, and where the workman may choose at will the accidents of colour and form among the roots, the medullary prolongations of the wood, and the kernels of fruits, these toys of the Indians may one day become an important article of exportation for Europe. We know what large sums of money this species of industry brings to the inhabitants of Nuremberg, and to the mountaineers of Berchtolsgaden and the Tyrol, who however can only use in the manufacture of boxes, spoons, and children's toys, pine, cherry, and walnut-tree wood. The Americans of the United States send to the island of Cuba, and the other West India Islands, large cargoes of furniture, for which they get the wood chiefly from the Spanish colonies. This branch of industry will pass into the hands of the Mexicans, whenever they shall begin to derive advantage from the productions of their own soil.

Having given a general view of the state of agriculture, and of the manufactures, it remains for us to speak of the exchanges which are carried on with the interior, the mother country, and with other parts of the New Continent. We shall not repeat the just complaints respecting the restrictions on commerce, and the prohibitory system, which

* Swietenia Cedrela and Casalpinia wood; trunks of Desmanthus and Mimosa, of which the heart is a red approaching to black.