to know that the information contained in this volume comes from one on whose judgement the most entire reliance may be placed. I must also add, that these Selections from his works have been made with his knowledge and approbation. I am conscious that it is a liberty I ought not to have taken but from the consideration that the abridgement may now be useful to numbers who could not have availed themselves of the works at large. Valuable as M. de Humboldt's writings are, he Es never made them a source of profit to himself, and it may truly be said that public utility is with him the leading object. Actuated by this disinterested feeling, he has constantly refused the most advantageous offers to engage himself in any concerns connected with Mexico, that his mind might remain unbiassed by any consideration of personal interest. I have said thus much, that those who are inclined to attach weight to any statements which I may lay before them, may know the respectability of my authority for many things which wear so flattering an aspect, as to excite a suspicion that they

iv

INTRODUCTION.

have been brought forward to serve a parti

cular purpose.

I have also to acknowledge the liberality of Messrs. Longman and Co., for permitting the free use of Mr. Black's translation of M. de Humboldt's Essai politique, from which most of the following sheets are compiled. This has enabled me to lay the work before the public much sooner than I could otherwise have done. I have adapted the technical language more to the comprehension of my English mining readers, than that of the translation would be found to be. In doing this, constant reference has been made to the original; and the figures and measurements have been reduced to those denominations which are most in use among us. My own engagements not leaving me time sufficient for the task of selection and arrangement, it has in a great measure fallen upon a friend who undertook it for me; and I am conscious that the public will be gainers by this circumstance. My attention is not now drawn to the mines years of Mexico for the first time: several ago I studied some of these very works; which

I was led to do by the desire of comparing the lodes or veins in that country with those which had come under my own observation.

I was then struck with their size or width, with the great productiveness of particular parts, with the similarity of many circumstances with those which miners every where think favourable symptoms, and above all with the greatness of the profits under a system of management of the worst kind. I observed that little or no machinery was employed, and that what there was, seemed to be of the rudest description, that no attempt was made to abridge labour, or to save expense, and that under the old government, obstacles to improvement of the most formidable kind existed. Attempts were indeed sometimes made: but when it is considered that all these were likely to interfere with the profit of Viceroys, or provincial Governors, who, under the court of Spain, enjoyed the privilege of making the people pay at the highest rate for articles of the greatest necessity, it is not surprising that these attempts were stifled and rendered abortive. With the

richest mines in the world, with a splendid 'college for instructing miners, and with a code of laws which pretended to encourage them, Mexico made no advances in the science of working its mineral treasures; while England, with only metals of inferior value, without any public institution for instruction of this sort, and even without books upon the subject, has within a few years raised the art of mining to a perfection heretofore unknown, and has carried it on in spite of difficulties not to be met with elsewhere.

I long ago formed the opinion which I now entertain, that if the skill and experience in mining which we possess, and the use of our engines, could ever be applied to the mines of Mexico, the result would be that of extraordinary profit.

At that time the Old Government still held its sway over this interesting country: no hope, therefore, existed in my mind of ever seeing the attempt made; in later years the country has been struggling with its former masters, and it now seems likely that, having emancipated itself from their yoke, it will con

.

solidate a government more adapted to the wants and interests of the people ;—how far it may succeed, and with what measure of wisdom and moderation, I do not pretend to foresee. A failure in produce, similar to that experienced in the mines of Cornwall 60 or 80 years ago, before the application of the steamengine, had already given a considerable check to the prosperity of the mines; and in the year 1810, at the commencement of the civil commotions in Mexico, they experienced a fatal blow by the interruption to industry produced by internal war. The proprietors no longer received their usual revenues, and the mines becoming full of water, the whole country was impoverished, and at the return of better times the necessary capital for renewing the works did not exist. This is the cause of the application to other countries on the part of the Mexican proprietor, and the reason of his willingness to alienate a part of his interest in a mine for the sake of that assistance which he bargains for in return.

The state of affairs is then changed since M. de Humboldt wrote; and it might be ex