AMERICAN MINES. CHAP. xxr. 



In a country like Mexico, where the population, 

 though much extended, was numerous, as the 

 capital to set labour in a state of active operation 

 was augmented, it was natural that the chief ob- 

 ject to which that labour was applied should be- 

 come more and more productive. 



Mexico, in the age under consideration, yielded 

 gold as well as silver. It was found sometimes 

 alone, but more commonly in the silver and other 

 ores, and when so found was separated by a sub- 

 sequent process. Without entering more minutely 

 into a subject where all the ancient documents 

 are obscure, we may safely conclude with Hum- 

 boldt that the whole of the precious metals pro- 

 duced in Mexico had so increased between 1600 

 and 1700, that, in the last ten years of the cen- 

 tury, the mines delivered to the mints, in gold 

 and silver, to the amount of more than five 

 millions of piastres. Upon a review of what is 

 recorded of Peru, Columbia, Chili, and Buenos 

 Ayres, as it has since been called, we conclude 

 that the quantity supplied by them in the same 

 century was somewhat larger. Taking these toge- 

 ther, we average them at ten million five hundred 

 thousand dollars or piastres. Besides what was 

 supplied to the mints, and paid the duty to the 

 crown, the same accurate writer calculates that 

 one-fifth part of both metals was conveyed away 

 by contraband means a calculation by no means 

 unreasonable when the high duty is considered, 



