her the Rio del Norte and Pecos, are some oe —_ lakes, 
inas,” from which all the salt (muriate of soda) used in New 
ico is procured. Large caravans go there every year aeeiae 
lange, generally, one bushel of salt for one of Indian oe 
or sell it for one and even two dollars.a bushel.—pp. 24, 2 
Of the state of Chihuahua he observes :— 
s many and rich silver mines have been celebrated for several cen- 
2S. 
throughout the length of the Sierra Madre, and in a mean brea of 
thirty | leagues. The silver ores occur generally as sulphurets, with iron 
or lead, sometimes as native silver and muriate of silver, and are found 
either entirely i in porphyritic rocks, or in stratified rocks, (limestone,) 
passing at greater depth into igneous rocks. They are worked either 
zy ayes ge Be or.by fire in rg furnaces. For the latter pro- 
Lidvet mines, rich mines also of co er, and some of gold, lead, iron, 
and tin, are found. The most he mines of the state, of older and 
more va date, are the following: 
es of Santa Eulalia, neur Chihuahua, have during the last 
century vealhooed immense masses of silver, as the following Tact may 
prove. The cathedral in Chihuahua, a most splendid building, was 
within the last century erected from a fund created from the proceeds 
of the Santa Eulalia mines, by a grant of ane real (123 cents) on every 
mare of silver (worth $8 25) obtained from the mines. ‘This fun 
was created in 1717, and in 1789 the cathedral was finished, at an eX- 
pense of 800,000. The amount of silver taken in these seventy-two 
years frorn the mines would, therefore, be $52,800,000. ‘The abund- 
ance of lead found in Santa Eulalia, makes the smelting of the silver 
ore very convenient. The mines are not yet exhausted; but from in- 
trusion of water, want of capital, and the attraction. of new mines, they 
are but little worked. 
mines of Parral (Hidalgo) are the oldest of the state, and have 
also been extremely productive in silver; but for want of regular min- 
pi most a them, though not exhausted, are made inaccessible and 
mines of Santa Barbara, dautivared in 1547, ef renowned 
for both silver and. gold ores, but are now entirely abandod 
_ The mines of Batopilas were celebrated for the large pe ge of na- 
pn silver, and the unusual richness of the ore 
South of Batopilas lies the rich mine of Moret discovered in 1826, 
where one mass of native silver was found weighing two hundred and 
thirty mares. 
_ The mine of Sierra Rica, west of the old Predilic de San cus, 
was begun to be worked by a company in 1829. The prospects at first 
were most flattering: the superficial layers of the silver ore produced 
_ from one to a hundred mares in the carga, sometimes one hundred and 
fifty, and ‘in one instance even three hundred and twenty-seven mares 5 ; 
They are found principally in the western part of the state, _ 
