GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
157 
their neighbors, the Tutepecs, who had commenced hostilities 
with them because they had submitted to the Spanish crown. 
This tribe inhabited the coast on the South Sea, they added, and 
possessed great quantities of gold, both in the raw material and 
in ornaments." Again : " The cazique (of the Tutepecs) soon 
after arrived with a valuable present in gold, which he repeated 
almost every day, and provided the troops with abundance of 
provisions. When Alvarado found what a quantity of gold the 
inhabitants possessed, he ordered them to make him a pair of 
stirrups of the finest gold, and gave them a couple of his own 
for a pattern ; and indeed those they made turned out very good. 
Notwithstanding all the gold which Alvarado received from 
this cazique, he ordered him to be imprisoned a few days after 
his arrival. Many credible persons have asserted that Alva- 
rado's only motive for ill-using this cazique was, to extort more 
gold from him.. One thing, however, is certain, that he gave 
Alvarado gold to the value of 30,000 pesos, and that he died in 
prison from excessive grief." 
The same writer, in describing the expedition of Alvarado to 
this province in the following year, says : " From this place he 
marched to the large township of Tecuantepec, which is inhab- 
ited by a tribe of the Tzapotecs, where he met with the kindest 
reception, and was even presented with some gold-dust." 
Clavigero, in his history of Mexico, speaking of the abun- 
dance of the precious metals in this country, says : " The Mex- 
icans found gold in the countries of the Cohuixcas, the Mix- 
tecas, Zwpotecos^ and in several others. They gathered this pre- 
cious metal chiefly in grains amongst the sands of the rivers, 
and the above-mentioned people paid a certain quantity in trib- 
ute to the crown of Spain." 
The riches of a country in precious metals does not depend so 
much upon the fact of its rock strata bearing the marks of up- 
heaval, as upon the character of the rocks which have been the 
immediate cause of the alteration of the horizontality of the beds. 
The auriferous localities of California are in the alluvial sands 
and clays, whether they be silicious, aluminous, or basaltic ; 
in granite and primary quartz, and lastly in talcose slate. 
Although the Sierras of Mexico are a more easterly range, yet 
