AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 167 



The greatest obstacle in the way of the successful prosecution and 

 development of the mining industry of Mexico, as also in the case of 

 manufactures, is the scarcity of fuel and water for the generation and 

 application of mechanical power. The impression which an American 

 visitor to one of the great Mexican silver-mines, or reducing-works, at 

 first receives, is almost always that of surprise at the apparent rude- 

 ness and shiftlessness of the methods of working. But a further 

 acquaintance soon satisfies him that what is done is the result of long 

 experience, and is the best that probably could be under all the cir- 

 cumstances. Thus, for example, for the purpose of extracting the 

 silver from the ore by amalgamation, the rock, ground to a fine pow- 

 der and made into a paste with water, is spread out on the floor of 

 a large court, and then worked up, with certain proportions of com- 

 mon salt, sulphate of iron, and quicksilver into a vast mud-pie, by 

 means of troops of broken-down horses or donkeys, which for two or 

 three weeks in succession tramp round and round in the mass ani- 

 mals and Indian drivers alike sinking leg-deep in the paste at every 

 movement. When the amalgamation is completed, it is brought in 

 vessels or baskets, rather than with wheelbarrows, to washing-tanks, 

 where half -naked men and boys further "puddle" it until the metal 

 falls to the. bottom, and the refuse runs away. The process is hard, 

 and even cruel, for both man and beast, and is not expeditious ; but it 

 is economical (considered in reference to the cost of other methods 

 involving power), and is effective. 



The number of mining properties at present worked in Mexico by 

 American companies is understood to be about forty. 



The popular idea that there are a considerable number of old Span- 

 ish mines in Mexico which were worked to great profit before the revo- 

 lution, and then abandoned when their original proprietors were driven 

 from the country, and are now ready to return great profits to whoever 

 will rediscover and reopen them, has probably very little foundation 

 in fact. Sixty-five years have now elapsed since Mexico achieved her 

 independence, and during all this time the Mexicans, who are good 

 miners, and to whom mining has to a certain extent the attractiveness 

 of lottery ventures, have, we may be sure, shrewdly prospected the 

 whole country and have not concealed any of its business opportunities. 

 Capital, furthermore, has not been wanting to them. For, in the early 

 days of the independence of the republic, the idea that the working of 

 old Spanish mines in Mexico promised great profits, amounted to al- 

 most a "craze" in England; and millions on millions of British capital 

 were poured into the country for such objects ; while the mining dis- 

 tricts of Cornwall were said to have been half depopulated, through 

 the drain on their skilled workmen to serve in the new enterprises. It 

 is sufficient to say that the results were terribly disastrous. 



Silver Monometallism. Until within a very recent period, Mexico 

 has furnished to the world a most curious and interesting example of 



