CHAP. XXV. OF VARIOUS MINES. 235 



mines. Under the denomination of buscones, or 

 searchers, they have never ceased to work ; and 

 although, from the want of method in their ope- 

 rations, they have done the most serious injury to 

 the mines themselves, they have in general con- 

 trived to extract from the upper levels, or from 

 the old workings, neglected in better times for 

 others of greater promise, a very considerable 

 quantity of silver. This desultory system is still 

 pursued in many parts of the country, and at 

 Zirmapan, Zaculapan, el Doctor, and many of 

 the northern districts, a large population is even 

 now maintained by it V 



The silver obtained during the revolutionary 

 convulsions which agitated the country with more 

 or less violence during the whole period we are 

 considering was of very various degrees of fine- 

 ness, as appears by the dollars coined both at 

 the royalist and the insurgent mints. Much of 

 the silver coined in that time in those places was 

 so impure from the mixture of other substances 

 arising from the haste with which it was necessary 

 to convert it into coin, that at the present time it 

 can only pass current at a discount of from fifteen 

 to twenty per cent. ; but, on the other hand, much 

 of the gold contained in the silver, which was 

 considerable in some of the mines, was not sepa- 



1 Ward, vol. ii. p. 24. 



