stantly at work, night and day. Each malacate was moved by twelve horses, and drew up, by a succession of buckets, seventy-eight arrobas (975 quarts) every nine or ten minutes: 95,000 arrobas, or 31,800 cubic feet of water, might be raised by this means every twenty-four hours. It happened to be a sale day, and in the same court where the malacates were at work, we saw three or four hundred people collected; some exposing the ore to the best advantage, and others examining its quality. This mine is now worked by halves, the workmen receiving one half of the profits, and the owners of the mine the other. The workmen were busily employed in arranging the pieces of ore in parallelograms, composed of small circular heaps of ore. They were very careful to place the richest pieces at top, and the fairest side in sight. When all was prepared, the salesman placed himself at the head of the first parallelogram; and the buyers, after examining the quality of the ore, whispered in his ear the price they were willing to give for it. When all had made their offers, he declared aloud the highest bid and the name of the purchaser. A note was made of the sale, and the whole party moved to the next parcel of ore, and so on, until the whole was disposed of.

"There are two sale days in the week, Wednesday and Saturday; and the weekly sales amount to between 5 and 6,000 dollars.

On the following day, our Traveller set out to visit a hacienda de plata, belonging to the Conde de Valenciana, in the Cañada de Marfil. "It is a spacious building, divided into three large courts; one for preparing the ores (patio pa. beneficiar), and the others for horses and mules. The front is two stories high, very neatly built, and forms an excellent dwellinghouse. From the house, we walked through the first court, where men and mules were treading out masses

of mud, and entered a long range of buildings, where there were thirty-five mills at work grinding the ore.

"This hacienda, in prosperous times, works seventy mills. They resemble bark-mills. A circle of about eleven feet in diameter, is paved with stones set up edgeways, and rubbed down to a smooth surface; in the centre of the circle an upright shaft moves in sockets. From this an axle projects, and passes through the centre of a millstone that rolls on its periphery: to the end of this axle the traces of the mules that turn it are attached. The first process is, separating the ore from the stones and refuse. Women are em

ployed in this work. They throw aside the stones that have no ore, and with a hammer chip off small pieces of ore from those that have a little only on the surface. They perform this operation with great skill and great despatch. The ore is then placed on a thick iron plate, and is pounded by wooden pestles shod with iron, and moved by a horizontal shaft furnished with arms, like the movement of the pestles in our ricemills. Two men, stationed one on each side, draw the ore from under the pestles upon plates that slope down from the top, and are perforated with holes so as to sift the ore as it falls on them. The large pieces are thrown back under the pestles.

"After the ore is broken into very small pieces, it is put into the mill, mixed with water, and ground to an impalpable powder. A small quantity of quicksilver is sometimes mixed with this mass while in the mill. From the mills, the ore, ground to a powder and moistened, is conveyed to the patio pa. beneficiar, the open paved court yard; salt is then added in the proportion of about two pounds to every hundred weight of ore. If the mass, which is left untouched for several days, heats too rapidly, lime is added, which, the superintendant told us, cools it: if, on the contrary, it continues cold, magistral is mixed with it, in order to give it the proper temperature. The magistral is a copper ore, or more properly a mixture

of pyrites of copper and sulphuretted iron, which is roasted in a furnace, cooled gradually, and then reduced to a powder; a small quantity of salt is afterwards mixed with it. A small quantity of the powdered magistral was put into my hand, and water poured upon it. The heat evolved was so great, that I was obliged to throw it away instantly; probably owing to the sulphuric acid acting upon the metals and disengaging heat.

"The next operation is, to add quicksilver to the mass, commonly six times the quantity which it is supposed the mass contains of silver. This mixture of ore, ground to a fine powder and moistened, of quicksilver, muriate of soda, and the sulphates of iron and copper, is made into an amalgam by being trodden by mules, which are driven round for hours together; or by men, who tread the mass with naked feet. We saw both in one mass; twelve mules were trotting round up to their fetlocks in the mixture; and in another, ten men were following each other, and treading up to their ankles in it. The superintendant examines the appearance of the amalgam from time to time, by taking up a little of it in a wooden bowl, and adds either salt, quicksilver, or magistral, as he finds necessary to complete the amalgamation.

"This process is repeated every other day until a perfect amalgam is made, when it is conveyed into large vats filled with water. In the centre of the vat there is an upright shaft, furnished with arms and turned by mules, so as to stir up the ore and mix it well with the water. It is left to subside, and the water is let off gently, carrying with it a portion of earth, and leaving the amalgam, which is precipitated: this process is repeated until the amalgamation is freed from all extraneous matter. It is then moulded into triangles, which are placed under stout iron recipients of a bell shape, and the mercury is separated by heat,

leaving the silver with a small portion of copper, not enough for the usual alloy.

"One of the grinding-mills, in which quicksilver had been added to the mass, was emptied and cleaned in my presence, in order to get out the amalgam, which is precipitated, and lodges in the interstices of the stones with which these mills are paved. After the floating mass was removed, the stones were scraped, and the crevices emptied. The contents were put into a wooden bowl and washed. This amalgam, besides silver, contains a large portion of gold. The ore of the mine of Valenciana contains some gold, which unites with the quicksilver, and this amalgam, being so much heavier, is more quickly precipitated. The bars of silver made from these cleanings, contain always the largest portion of gold, and are kept apart."

The Sierra of Santa Rosa is the most southern district of that metalliferous tract of country which is by far the richest in Mexico, and abounds more in silver than any other on the face of the globe. This central groupe, extending from lat 21° 0' to 24° 10′ N., and from long 102° 30′ to 105° 15′ W., is situated under the same parallel as Bengal, but in a climate partaking more of the character of the temperate, than of the tropical zone. The mines of Guanaxuato are only 30 leagues distant in a straight line from those of San Luis Potosi: from the latter to Zacatecas, the distance is 34 leagues; from Zacatecas to Catorce 31; and from Catorce to Durango 74 leagues. The mean produce of the mines of New Spain, annually exported from Vera Cruz, is stated to have been two millions and a half of marcs of silver, being two thirds of the silver annually extracted from the whole globe. Of this 2,500,000, not less than 1,300,000 was yielded by Guanaxuato, Catorce, and Zacatecas, or the "central" groupe.

Guanaxuato, however, is not only a mining, but

an agricultural district. "The lands are fertile, and are cultivated to the base of the mountains; and the morals of the inhabitants of the country, who are frugal and industrious, form a strong contrast to those of the miners, who, when the mines were in successful operation, were all wealthy, and lived extravagantly, and many of whom are now in abject poverty."

The inhabitants of the city appeared to this Traveller lively, intelligent, and well-informed: he found them extremely hospitable and friendly. In common, however, with the inhabitants of most mining districts, they are passionately fond of gambling. The commandant of the city was, moreover, a great amateur of cock-fighting; and our Traveller was not a little annoyed, early in the morning, by the continual crowing of more than a hundred cocks, the property of this worthy person, which, tied by one leg, were arranged along the pavement on both sides of the street: they were to be exhibited at the ensuing Christmas. "In all the towns and villages of Mexico," he says, "cock-fighting is the favourite diversion of the people. Rich and poor, men and women, frequent the pits, and stake sometimes all they are worth on the issue of a battle between two cocks armed with slashers."

Guanaxuato is liable to two serious inconveniences from its peculiarity of situation. During the rainy season, it is exposed to injury from the violent torrents that rush from the mountains down the barranca, or ravine, in which the city stands, in their passage to the plain of Celaya. Large sums have been expended on works to restrain these torrents within a channel, notwithstanding which, accidents happen almost every year. On the other hand, the only

water in the city, is that which is contained in the cisterns belonging to the wealthy inhabitants. About two miles from the town, however, there are deep ravines, which, by means of dams, are made to serve