Extracts from an Itinerary of a Journey in Spain. 21 
fuel; and there is no doubt that these will soon arrive in the harbors 
of the Garonne, the Charente and the Loire, and that the mines of 
Aviles are destined to a high state of prosperity. In another part 
of Spain, the little coal fields of Villa-Nueva-del-Rio, situated eigh- 
teen leagues above Seville, are wrought with increasing activity, and 
furnish a good combustible for the steamboats, which now perform 
the route from Seville to Cadiz in twelve hours. 
One could not expect to find in Madrid, those scientific institu- 
tions and fine collections, which in the other capitals of Europe, enable 
the naturalist to take a general survey of the productions of the va- 
rious provinces. ‘There is nevertheless, a cabinet of natural history 
in which the mineral kingdom is represented by specimens of great 
richness, and derived both from the Spanish mines and from the South 
American Colonies. Unhappily, this collection is in the state in 
which the science of Charles ILI. placed it. Latterly, the govern- 
ment has created at Madrid a school of Mines, several parts of which 
have been furnished in a very sumptucus manner. ‘The direction 
of the mines, however, has not yet realized the hopes which had 
been expected by the erection of this school. It is difficult to bring 
young men together who are sufficiently conversant with the ele- 
mentary branches of science. ‘The pupils are besides, deprived of 
the very indispensable means of instruction both of a good library 
and of collections of ores and machines: in these respects, every 
thing is yet to be done. 
The large village of Almaden, situated on the crest of those rich 
veins, which have rendered this country classical to every miner, re- 
minded me of the villages of Zellerfeld and Clausthall in the Hartz, 
identified like those in the mineral beds which gave rise to their erec- 
tion. Almaden resembles the Hartz also in the German manners 
of its inhabitants, gradually introduced at various periods :—thus, 
after wandering for a month in the midst of a civilization which I 
could scarcely comprehend, | found myself happy in meeting on the 
confines of La Mancha, among the miners of Almaden, the same 
fraternal feelings which revived the agreeable recollections of a 
journey, which I had made three years before, in the north of Ger- 
many. 
The mines of Almaden, situated in the province of La Mancha, 
near the frontier of Estremadura and the kingdom of Cordova, ex- 
hibit as great activity and industry as the most celebrated of the 
Hartz, of Saxony and of Hungary. 
