82 



TRUE PERIOD OF ABUNDANCE. 



tions. From the period of the administration of Cortez to the year 

 1552, when the celebrated mines of Zacatecas were just opened, the 

 export from Mexico, rarely reached in value, annually, 100,000 

 pesos de oro, or nearly $1,165,000. But from that date it rose 

 rapidly, and in the years 1569, .1578 and 1587, it was already, 

 respectively — 



931,564 Pesos de oro. ) The Peso de oro? is rated by p resco tt, 



1,111,202 " " \ at $11.65 cents, and by Ramirez, 



1,812,051 " " ) at $2.93 cents. ' 



During the last peaceful epoch of the Spanish domination, Ba- 

 ron Humboldt calculates the annual yield of the mines of Mexico 

 at not more than $23,000,000, or nearly 1,184,000 pounds, avoir- 

 dupois, of silver, and 3,500 pounds, avoirdupois, of gold. From 

 1690 to 1803 — $1,330,772,093 were coined in the only mint of 

 Mexico ; while, from the discovery of New Spain until its inde- 

 pendence, about $2,028,000,000, or two-fifths of all the precious 

 metals which the whole of the New World has supplied during the 

 same period, were furnished by Mexico alone. 2 



It appears from these data that the exhaustion of the mines of 

 Mexico is contradicted by the geognostic facts of the country, and 

 as we shall hereafter show, by the recent issues of Mexican mints. 

 The mint of Zacatecas, alone, during the revolutionary epoch, from 

 1811 to 1833, struck more than $66,332,766, and, in the eleven 

 last years of this period, from four to five millions of dollars were 

 coined by it every year uninterruptedly. 



The general metallic production of the country, — which was of 

 course impeded by the revolutionary state of New Spain between 

 1809 and 1826, — has arisen refreshed from its slumber, so that, 

 according to the best accounts it has ascended to perhaps twen- 

 ty millions annually in total production, in consequence of the 

 prolific yield of the workings at Fresnillo, Chihuahua, and So- 

 nora, independent of the abundant production at Zacatecas. 



1 See M. Ternaux-Compans' Original Memoirs of the discovery of America — (Con- 

 quest of Mexico,p. 451) — Compans publishes in this, for the first time, an official list 

 sent between 1522 and 1587 by the viceroys of New Spain to the mother country. 

 The pesos of gold, must be multiplied by a mean of eleven dollars and sixty-five cents 

 in order to give their value in dollars. See Banker's Magazine, ut antea, p. 594, in 

 note. See Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico, vol. i., 320. Raminez, in 

 his notes on the Spanish translation of Prescott's History of the Conquest rates the peso 

 de oro at two dollars and ninety-three cents. This result is reached by a long finan- 

 cial calculation and course of reasoning. See La Conquista de Mejico, vol. ii., at p. 

 89 of the notes at the end of the volume. 



2 This is Humboldt's estimate in the essay cited in this section. We think it 

 rather too large, yet give it upon such high authority. See our general table of 

 Mexican coinage. 



