occasioned the reduction of duties granted by the Spanish Cortes, and confirmed by the Provincial Junta, a reduction that has unexpectedly preserved the mines at this time, and which may greatly contribute to re-establish them.

We may flatter ourselves that we shall speedily see them once more in a flourishing condition. Several foreign capitalists are ready to invest large funds in draining and working the principal mines, which, from the disastrous consequences of the war, have been overflowed and not regularly worked. The steam engines, which it is intended to introduce, and of which two are now erecting, the one in Temascaltepec and the other in Real de Catorce, will powerfully contribute to so important a result. The former Sovereign Congress, with the intention of facilitating contracts of supply with opulent foreigners, with whom some have already been concluded, abolished the laws and articles of the ordinance which prohibited them from acquiring property in mines, although it wisely limited the power which it granted to them for that purpose to those mines only which they may supply, without being able to denounce others, or to attempt to discover new ones. This measure will be a new stimulus to the introduction of funds for the supply of this branch, which it so much needs, and which it cannot procure by other means.

The "Tribunal of Mines," which, according to the terms of its constitution ought to have been a

MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS.

xxxiii

bank of supply, by creating for this important object under its direction, a fund out of the duty of one rial mark of silver, cannot at the present per time afford any assistance to the miners, and which they so imperatively stand in need of, as from causes which the limits I am obliged to prescribe to this memorial do not allow me to dilate upon. Such a fund not only does not exist, but, on the contrary, this body is loaded with a debt, the interest of which cannot be paid out of the produce of the aforesaid duty.

Another of the means of encouragement which it would be proper to grant to this important branch, so soon as circumstances shall permit, is the establishment of exchange houses, which formerly existed, and the creation of new ones on these points where it may be most expedient.-They facilitate the activity of the circulation, and thereby the frequent employment of the same capital, which may be said to multiply itself by being repeatedly invested, thus avoiding the necessity of increasing the number of mint houses, the quantity of which must greatly augment the expenses of coinage.

ERRATA.

Running title, p. 101, for roads read road.

p. 165, for exported read extracted.

p. 198, for mines read miners.

Note 1, p. 226, for influence read inference.

Page 228, table, col. 4, for leagues read miles. Col. 5, for league

read mile; for 695 read 65.