378 MINES OF JESUS MARIA. Book II. 
their best customers, and they have always a good day 
when a conducta from the villa arrives to make purchases. 
But here, as elsewhere, the facile but precarious acquire- 
ment of wealth by mining exercises an injurious influence 
on the morals of the place. Its inhabitants are the most 
determined gamblers in the whole State ; and as in other 
places a man's credit depends upon his good or bad specu- 
lations, as far as they may be known, so here it is influenced 
by the results at the gaming-table. " Will Don N. N. 
pay me ?" asks one man of business, in confidence, of 
another. " Yes, I think he will ; he won 5000 pesos 
yesterday," is the kind of answer. 
I will here state some particulars I learned from good 
authority respecting the celebrated mines of Jesus Maria. 
These mines, which yield auriferous silver ore, lie near 
the source of the Rio Mayo, in the very heart of the 
mountains. Some are worked exclusively for gold, as the 
Mina del Rosario, which occasionally has yielded 10,000 
dollars' worth of gold in a week. Still silver is the chief 
produce, but, on account of its constant admixture with 
gold, a marc of the silver of Jesus Maria is worth 10 
dollars at the mint of the country, while pure silver is 
worth only 8J. Among the many mines of this locality, 
that of Santa Ludubigen has been worked since the expul- 
sion of the Spaniards ; and in six months, from May to 
October, 1839, yielded a clear profit of 400,000 dollars. 
But the principal mine at Jesus Maria is the Santa 
Juliana. It has not been worked since the expulsion of 
the Spaniards, and is now full of water. According to 
competent judges, it would require 200,000 dollars to 
empty it and resume the works. The ores of this mine 
have never been found to contain less than 3 marcs, or 24 
ounces of silver, in a carga or 300 lbs. of ore, and have even 
