154 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
the large rich veins throughout the country, and worked 
them to a very considerable extent. 
The government exacted from the miner five per cent. of 
the gross produce of his mine; and gave him military protec- 
tion in return. But the Spaniard, although the Indian popu- 
tion afforded him abundance of labour to work the mines, had 
neither machinery to use when the water-level had been 
reached, nor the knowledge necessary for reducing the rich 
sulphurets which he was pretty sure to encounter at that 
point. 
The system of reduction known as the “patio” worked 
well in the reduction of the free ores which had been 
oxidised above the water-level; but other systems of reduc- 
tion being there unknown, the mine was generally abandoned 
when the water-level had been reached. Even the necessity 
of abandoning the mine before it was half worked out 
naturally led to the discovery of a greater number of veins 
and a more thorough investigation of the mineral resources of 
the district; and thus the whole country was thoroughly 
prospected. No capital was used to develop the mine, no 
tunnel was bored to drain it; but still, with the croppings 
alone to represent the capital, and the Indian slaves, the 
labour and machinery, the production was far greater than 
it has ever been since, or probably will be for many years to 
come. This was the state of the mining interest up to 1827, 
when all the energy, ability, and capacity for organization 
was suddenly withdrawn from the country when the 
Spaniards were banished by the new-born Mexican Republic. 
When the mushroom creole aristocracy sought in the 
mines for the wealth which had made their Spanish masters’ 
so enviable, knowing nothing in most cases of mining, they 
left the management of it to others, squandered the proceeds 
