AND ITS VICINITY. 439 
An idea may be formed of the extent to which 
- mining operations were formerly carried on here from 
the immense heaps of scoréa and dross which lie about 
the city, and particularly near the bed of the creek, as 
it is approached from the north. So imperfectly has 
the silver been extracted from this ore, that a regular 
business is now carried on in working the scoria over 
again, which is said to pay. . ; 
The high table-land, which forms the larger portion 
of the State, is not adapted to agriculture; but for 
grazing and the rearing of large herds of cattle, horses, 
and sheep, it is unsurpassed. I have heard it stated, 
that a man who settled near the Casas Grandes River 
in 1785, took with him four cows and a bull, from 
Which, in the year 1829 he had become possessor of 
a herd of forty thousand cattle. The vast plains filled 
with such numbers of cattle resemble the prairies with 
their herds of buffaloes. The proprietors of the great 
haciendas used to pride themselves on preserving a 
uniformity in the color of their cattle, much as some 
of the nobility do in England at the present day, 
though on a grander scale; so that one possessed his 
thousands of purely black cattle, another white, and a 
third red. But this is now all done away with: the 
great herds have disappeared, and there is no longer 
any safety in rearing them, although the incentive to 
do so js greater, owing to the demand for the Califor- 
nia market. ; : 
The arable lands are in the valleys leading to the 
gteat Sierra Madre, and along the water-courses. 
They are extremely productive. | 
Among the peculiarities of this place it is proper 
