ported by no convincing proof. Cold amalgamation was found so profitable in Mexico, that in 1562, five years after the first discovery of the process of Medina, there were already 35 works at Zacatecas* in which minerals were treated with mercury, notwithstanding Zacatecas is three times further from Pachuca, than the old mines of Tasco, Zultepeque, and Tlapujahua. The Mexican miners do not appear to follow any very fixed principle, in the selection of the minerals submitted to smelting or amalgamation; for we see them smelt in one district of mines, the same mineral substances which in another they believe can only be managed with mercury. The minerals which contain muriate of silver, for example, are sometimes smelted with carbonate of soda (tequesquite), and sometimes destined to the processes of hot and cold amalgamation; and it is frequently only the abundance of mercury, and the facility in procuring it, which determine the miner in the choice of his method. In general they find it necessary to smelt the very rich meagre minerals, those which contain from ten to twelve marcs of silver per quintal, argentiferous sulfuretted lead, and the mixed minerals of blende and vitreous copper. On the other hand, they Descripcion de la ciudad de Zacatecas, por el Conde de Santiago de la Laguna, p. 42. find it profitable to amalgamate the pacos or colorados, destitute of metallick lustre; vitreous red black and horned native silver; fahlore rich in silver; and all the meagre ores which are disseminated in very small parcels in the gangue. The minerals destined for amalgamation must be triturated, or reduced to a very fine powder, to present the greatest possible contact to the mercury. This trituration under the arastras or mills, of which we have already spoken, is of all the metallurgical operations that which is executed in the greatest perfection, in the most part of the Mexican works. In no part of Europe have I ever seen mineral flour or schlich so fine, and of so equal à grain, as in the great haciendas de plata of Guanaxuato, belonging to Count de la Valenciana, Colonel Rul, and Count Perez Galvez. When the minerals are very pyritous, they are burnt (quema) in the open air in heaps, on beds of wood, as at Sombrerete, or in schlich in reverberating furnaces (comalillos). The latter I found at Tehuilotepec: they are 12 metres in length, * Alvaro Alonzo Barba, el arte de beneficiar metales, 1639, Lib. ii. c. iv. Felipe de la Torre Barrio y Lima, minero de San Jnan de Lucanas, tratado de azogueria (Lima 1738). Juan de Ordoñez, Cartilla sobre el beneficio de azogue (Mexico 1758). Francisco Xavier de Soria, Ensayo de metalurgia (Mexico 1784). +38 feet. Trans. they are without chimneys, but managed by two fires of which the flames traverse the laboratory. The chemical preparation of the minerals is however very rare in general; the greatness of the volume of substances to be amalgamated, and the want of combustibles on the table land of New Spain, render the process equally difficult and expensive. The dry braying is done by mazos, eight of which work together, kept in motion by hydraulical wheels or by mules. The brayed mineral (granza) passes through a hide pierced with holes; and it is reduced to a very fine flour under the arastras or tahonas, which are called sencillas or de marco, according as they are furnished with two or four blocks of porphyry or basalt (piedras voladoras), which revolve in a circle from 9 to 12 metres in circumference*. From 12 to 15 of these arastras or mills, are generally ranged in a row under one shed; and they are moved by water, or mules which are relieved every eight hours. One of these machines brays in the space of 24 hours, from three to four hundred kilogrammes† of minerals. The humid schlich (lama) which leaves the arastras, is sometimes washed again in ditches (estanques de deslamar), the construction of which in the districtof mines of Zacatecas, VOL. III. * From 29 to 38 feet. Trans. From 662 to 882 lb. avoird. Trans. has been recently carried to perfection by M. Garces. When the minerals are very rich, as in the mine of Rayas at Guanaxuato, they are only reduced under the stones of the mills to the size of gravel (xalsonte), and they separate, by washing, the richest metallick grains (polvillos), which are destined for smelting. This very economical operation is called apartar polvillos. I have been assured, that in destining for amalgamation silver minerals which are very poor in gold, they pour mercury into the vessel or trough, on the bottom of which the stones of the arastras turn; and the auriferous amalgamation goes on then in proportion as the mineral is reduced to powder, the giratory motion of the piedras voladeras being favourable to the combination of the metals. I had no opportunity of seeing this operation, which is not practised at Guanaxuato. In some great amalgamation works of New Spain, the arastras are still unknown; they are contented with the braying of the mazos; and the schlich which comes from under them is passed through sieves (cedazos and tolvas). This preparation of the flour is very imperfect; for a powder of an unequal and coarse grain amalgamates very ill; and the health of the workmen suffer greatly, in a place where a cloud of metallick dust is perpetually flying about, The moistened schlich is carried from the mills or arastras, into the court of amalgamation, (patio or galera) which is generally paved with flags. The flour is ranged in piles (montones) which contain from 15 to 35 quintals. Forty or fifty of these montones form a torta, by which name they call a heap of humid schlich, which they leave exposed to the open air, and which is frequently from 20 to 30 metres in breadth,* by five or six decimetrest in thickness. They use for amalgamation in a paved court, (en patio) which is the most generally used process in America, the following materials; muriate, of soda, (sal blanca) sulphate of iron and copper, (magistral) lime and vegetable ashes. The salt used in New Spain is of very unequal purity, according as it comes from the salt marshes which surround the port of Colima on the shores of the South Sea, or the famous laguna del peñon blanco, between San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas. This lake was visited by M. Sonneschmidt. It is situated at the foot of a granite rock, on the slope of the Cordilleras; and it dries up every year in the month of December. It furnishes annually to the revenue nearly 250 thousand fanegas of impure or earthy salt, (sal tierra) which is |