390 METALS OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS. 
CHAPTER XXVL 
Mines of New Spain. 
Mining Districts—Metalliferous Veins and Beds—Geological Re- 
lations of the Ores—Produce of the Mines—Recapitulation. 
Tue mines of Mexico have of late years engaged 
the attention and excited the enterprise of the 
English in a more than ordinary degree. ‘The sub- 
ject is therefore one of much interest ; but as later 
information may be obtained in several works, and 
especially in Ward’s “ Mexico in 1827,” it is un- 
necessary to follow our author in all his details. 
Long before the voyage of Columbus, the na- 
tives of Mexico were acquainted with the uses of 
several metals, and had made considerable profi- 
ciency in the various operations necessary for ob- 
taining them in a pure state. Cortes, in the his- 
torical account of his expedition, states that gold, 
silver, copper, lead, and tin, were publicly sold in 
the great market of Tenochtitlan. In all the large 
towns of Anahuac gold and silver vessels were 
manufactured, and the foreigners, on their first ad- 
vance to Tenochtitlan, could not refrain from admir- 
ing the ingenuity of the Mexican goldsmiths. The 
Aztec tribes extracted lead and tin from the veins of 
Tlacheo, and obtained cinnabar from the mines of 
Chilapan. From copper, found in the mountains 
of Zacotollan and Cohuixco, they manufactured 
