MINES FAVOURABLK TO CULTUUE. 321 



ing as might be expected from its natural resources, chap.xxv 

 although considerable improvement has been effected of Effg^'^f 

 late years. The depressed state of cultivation, it is working 

 true, has been attributed to the existence of numerous "^'"^*' 

 rich mines ; but Humboldt, on the contrary, maintains 

 that the working of these ores has been beneficial ir 

 causing many places to be improved which would 

 otherwise have remained steril. When a vein is opened 

 on the barren ridge of the cordilleras, the new colonists 

 can only draw the means of subsistence from a great 

 distance. Want soon excites to industry, and farms stimnius to 

 begin to be established in the neighbourhood. The high industry. 

 price of provisions indemnifies the cultivator for the 

 hard life to which he is exposed, and the ravines and 

 valleys become gradually covered with food. When 

 the mineral treasures are exhausted, the workmen no 

 doubt emigrate, so that the population is diminished ; 

 but the settlers are retained by their attachment to the 

 spot in which they have passed their childhood. The 

 Indians, moreover, prefer living in the solitudes of the 

 mountains remote from the whites, and this circumstance 

 tends to increase the number of inhabitants in such 

 districts. 



In describing the vegetable productions of New Spain, vegetable 

 our author begins with those which form the principal production. 

 support of the people, then treats of the class which 

 affords materials for manufacture, and ends with such 

 as constitute objects of commerce. 



The banana (Musa paradisiaca) is to the inhabitants Banana. 

 of the torrid zone what the cereal grasses, — wheat, 

 barley, and rye, — are to Western Asia and Europe, and 

 what the numerous varieties of rice are to the natives ot 

 India and China. Forster and other naturalists have 

 maintained, that it did not exist in America previous to 

 the arrival of the Spaniards, but that it was imported 

 from the Canary Islands in the beginning of the 16th 

 century ; and in support of this opinion may be adduced 

 the silence of Columbus, Alonzo Negro, Pinzon, Ves- 

 pucci, and Cortes, with respect to it. This circumstance, 



