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Many of them are overflowed with water, which, with proper machinery, might be easily drawn off. The methods adopted for this purpose were ill-directed, and generally ineffectual. Mr Helms saw a drain, which, even at its mouth, was too high to carry off the water, which, at an incredible expence, had been carried two miles, and which, though too low at first, had been made to slope one yard in every 132, so that it could not possibly free any of the pits from the water with which they were overwhelmed. Still greater ignorance was, if possible, displayed in the smelting-houses and refiningworks of Potosi. By their method of amalgamation, they were scarcely able to gain two-thirds of the silver contained in the ore; and for every marc, or eight ounces, of pure ore, frequently two marcs of quicksilver were destroyed. All the operations necessary to separate the metal from the other substances with which it was found combined, were conducted in the most slovenly, wasteful, and unscientific manner. In the Royal Mint at Potosi, where the produce of the mines is coined to the amount, annually, of about 4,800,000 ounces of silver, and about 16,000 ounces of gold, affairs are not better conducted. Every hundred weight of refined copper, used for alloy, in the gold and silver coin, costs £.35, through the gross ignorance of the overseers of the work, who spent a whole month in roasting and calcining it, and, in the end, made it wholly unfit for their purposes. These various evils the German Commissioners, sent over by the King of Spain to inspect the mines, endeavoured to remove. For this purpose, they contrived machinery for draining them of water; and they constructed a new laboratory, according to the most improved model, by which the copper ores used for alloy could be refined in four hours and a half, and for one-twentieth part of the expence incurred by the former process. New amalgamation-works were also erect ed, and suitable instructions given to the persons employed in the mines. "As soon as the water in the pits (Helms observes) can be got under, the mines of Potosi will be in a more flourishing condition than ever. The

total want of timber, however, on the naked ridge of mountains on which Potosi is situated, very much retards the work. The mint of Potosi coined, in 1790, 299,246 piastres of gold, and 3,293,173 of silver, or £.886,620 sterling.

Buenos Ayres trades with Peru, Potosi, and Chili, and is also the great medium of communication with Europe. This consists chiefly in a supply of mules, calculated at 60,000 yearly, with which Peru and Potosi are furnished, for carrying on the work of the mines. These mines being situated on the mountainous regions of the Andes, where nothing is produced for the sustenance of men, must derive supplies of subsistence from the lower and more fruitful regions in their neighbourhood; and the produce thus imported is repaid with the precious metals, the only commodity which is produced in those bleak and barren regions. This gives rise to an extensive trade between Potosi and Peru, and also between the neighbouring provinces of Buenos Ayres, in which gold and silver are exchanged for articles of provision, such as maize, wheat, flour, cotton, oil, pimento, sugar, hides, wax, soap, tallow, articles of clothing, and articles for the use of the mines. There is another article of great importance in the trade of the country, namely, Paraguay tea. So useful is this plant, that the mines would stand still if the owners were to neglect to supply the workmen with it; and every person in Peru, Chili, and Buenos Ayres, consider themselves wretched if not able to procure it, two millions of piastres worth of this herb being sold from the province of Paraguay every year: it is infused and made nearly in the same way as Chinese tea, excepting that the branches are put in with the leaves, and that it is drank out of the vessel it is made in, through a silver or glass pipe, as soon as possible, as, if it stays too long, it is sup posed not to be good. The smell and colour of this drink is nearly as fine as the best Indian teas. The population of the vice-royalty of Bue. nos Ayres is estimated at 1,100,000.

We shall now proceed to give a short account of Mexico, or New

Spain, which generally designates that vast extent of country included within the parallels of the 38th and 10th degrees of latitude, and which, on the west, is bounded by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by the Gulph of Mexico, and on the south-east by the Atlantic Ocean. This vast country is divided into twelve intendancies, to which must be added three other districts, at a great distance from the capital, which have preserved the simple denomination of provinces. 1, The province of Mexico, along the parallel of the Rio del Norte, to the north of the parallel of 31°; 2, The intendancy of New Biscay; 3, The province of New California; 4, The province of Old California; 5, The intendancy of Sonora; 6, San Louis Potosi; 7, Of Zacatecas; 8, Of Guadalaxara ; 9, Of Guanaxuato; 10, Of Valladolid, or Mechoacan; 11, Of Mexico; 12, Of Puebla; 13, Of Vera Cruz; 14, Of Oaxaca; 15, Of Merida.

About one half of Mexico is situated under the burning sky of the Tropics, while the other half lies within the Temperate Zone. But such is the general and prodigious elevation of the American continent above the level of the sea, that its climate depends even more on this cause than on its distance from the Equator. In Mexico, the country rises gradually from the ocean towards the interior, and is spread out into vast plains, elevated to the height of from 6000 to 8200 feet above the level of the neighbouring seas. These plains have been usually distinguished, from their uniform elevation, by the denomination of Table-Land, being elevated, in the form of a table, above the surrounding country. On the west, from the Pacific Ocean at Acapulco, the country rises more abruptly than on the east, from the Atlantic Ocean, at Vera Cruz. Taking our direction from Mexico, the capital, which is nearly at an equal distance from both oceans, towards Vera Cruz, the road advances sixty leagues be fore a single valley occurs, of which the bottom is less than 3280 feet above the level of the sea. In the opposite direction from Mexico to Acapulco, towards the Pacific Ocean, the road descends the same space in less than seventeen leagues. The

country is furrowed by four very remarkable oblong valleys, of which the respective heights above the level of the sea are 3217, 1685, 557, and 518 feet. For the space of seventytwo leagues, the distance, in a straight line, from Mexico to Acapulco, there is a continual ascent and descent; and every instant the traveller arrives from a cold climate to regions excessively hot. From this singular construction of the country of Mexico, it happens that the coasts alone possess a warm climate, adapted for all sorts of tropical products, and possessing a climate of which the mean temperature is about 77 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, or about 14 or 16 degrees greater than the mean heat of Naples. These are denominated the Warm Regions; and the climate, especially in populous cities, is exceedingly fatal to Europeans, who are liable to be seized with the yellow fever when they first visit the country. The shores of the Pacific Ocean, from Acapulco to the ports of Colima and San Blas, are very unhealthy. Vera Cruz also, on the Atlantic coast, is visited, periodically, by the yellow fever; and intermittent fevers prevail all along the coast.

The regions to which the natives give the appellation of Temperate, are on the declivity of the Andes, at an elevation of from 4 to 5000 feet above the level of the sea. There reigns here, perpetually, a soft spring temperature, which never varies more than 7 or 9 degrees. The extremes of heat and cold are here equally unknown.

The third region is distinguished by the name of the Cold Region, and comprehends the plains elevated more than 7000 feet above the level of the sea. In the city of Mexico, which is raised above that level, the thermometer has been known to fall several degrees below the freezing point. The plains which are more elevated, namely, those which rise above the height of 8200 feet, possess, even within the Tropics, a rude and disagreeable climate. Under the parallel of Mexico, the limit of perpetual snow is, in January, 12,138 feet, and after the summer heats it recedes to the height of 14,763 feet. The warm regions of Mexico, namely,

those which lie along the sea-coast, yield sugar, coffee, indigo, and, generally, all the articles found in tropical countries; while the Temperate Regions are favourable for all sorts of European grain and fruits. The Mexican wheat is of the very best quality, and always brings a high price.

But Mexico is chiefly remarkable for the enormous value of its metallic produce, which is also received from a small number of mines. The value of the American mines, above all others, arises from the abundance of the ore, and from the facility of working it. The ore itself is remarkable for its poverty, a quintal, or 1600 ounces, affording only three or four ounces of pure silver. The same quantity of mineral ore, in the silver mines of Mamerberg, in Saxony, yields from 10 to 15 ounces. Such, however, is the abundance and facility of working the American ore, that the produce of the mines is only limited by the want of mercury for the extraction of the silver from the substances with which it is found mixed. It is calculated that silver is sent from the ports of Acapulco and Vera Cruz to the amount of 1,500,000 pounds, the greater part of which is produced by a small number of mines. The half of this sum is supplied by the mines of Guanaxuato, Zacatecas, and Catorce. The vein of Guanaxuato supplies more than a fourth part of the whole silver of Mexico. The whole annual produce of the American mines is estimated, by Humboldt, to be equivalent to 43,500,000 dollars, equal to £9,515,625. The quantity of silver annually extracted from the Mexican mines is ten times greater than what is furnished by all the mines of Europe; and, on the other hand, gold is not much more abundant in Mexico than in Europe. From Hungary and Transylvania, gold, to the amount of 3500 pounds, is derived in the course of a year; while the gold delivered into the mint of Mexico only amounts, in common years, to about 4670 pounds. The Mexican gold is, for the most part, extracted from alluvial grounds, by means of washing. Another part of the Mexican gold is extracted from the veins of silver which intersect

VOL. XIV.

the primitive rock. Gold is to be found, either pure, or mixed with silver ore, in the greatest number of veins which have been wrought in Mexico; and there is scarcely a single silver mine which does not also contain gold. The principal vein in the mine of Santa Cruz was found intersected by a great number of rotten veins of exceeding richness. The argillaceous slime, with which those small veins are filled, contains so great a quantity of gold, disseminated in impalpable parcels, that the miners are compelled, when they leave the mine, nearly in a state of nakedness, to bathe themselves in large vessels, to prevent any of the auriferous clay from being carried off by them on their bodies.

From a general view of the beds in which the metals are deposited in Mexico, it appears that the Andes contain veins in a great variety of rocks, and that those rocks which, at present, furnish almost the whole silver annually exported from Vera Cruz, are the primitive slate and Alpine limestone, intersected by the veins of Guanaxuato, Zacatecas, and Cotorce. Those mines contain generally one principal vein. That of Guanaxuato, from which there has been extracted, during the course of the last 10 years, more than 3,937,889 pounds of silver, is from 131 to 147 feet in breadth, and it has been traced from Santa Isabella to Buena Vista, a length of more than 41,635 feet, or about eight miles. The district of Guanaxuato also contains the remarkable mine of Valenciana, which reaches to the enormous depth of 1640 feet, and extends horizontally about eight English miles; in consequence of which, there are about 980 miners employed as beasts of burden, under ground, to carry the minerals to the most convenient point for raising them out of the pit; and to save this expence, they have begun to pierce, in the solid rock, a new pit in the centre of the works, which is to terminate at the bottom of the mine. The mine of Valenciana employs about 3100 persons, of whom 1800 work under ground. For these forty years it has yielded a profit of from 80 to above £.120,000 per annum. There have been years in which the net profit amounted to

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£.250,000 sterling. In the working of this mine they expend above £.180,000 sterling per annum in wages and in materials, such as powder, tallow, wood, leather, steel. The annual expence for gunpowder is above £.16,000.

A company has been formed, on an extensive scale, in Great Britain, for working the Mexican mines; and, with the advantage of an abundant capital, and of improved science, there is no doubt that the undertaking will make a fair return of profit. The Mexican mines, though they are no doubt under better management than those in Peru, might still be made to yield a greater produce. There are many defects that might be remedied. The theory of mining has made but little progress in Mexico, and the machinery in use, for the extraction of water from the pits, is very imperfect. Some mines, indeed, such as those of Animas and Valenciana, are entirely dry; and here the workmen are annoyed by the dust and extreme heat. It is singular, that, in most mines, the heat increases in proportion as the mine descends into the earth. In several of the Swedish mines, the miners are forced, by the extreme heat, to work almost naked; the heat is also very great in some of the deepest of the Cornish mines; and in the mine of Valenciana, the thermometer indicates from 71 to 77 degrees. Many of the mines, in consequence of the imperfection of their works, either remain under inundation, or the water is drawn off by such an inconvenient and expensive process, as greatly to reduce the profit of the mine. The British proprietors, who subscribe capital for this new undertaking of working the Mexican mines, having like wise a managing committee, to superintend their administration, will no doubt introduce a proper system of machinery, in place of the present imperfect contrivances in use, for clearing the mines of water; and there is reason to believe, that many, which are at present abandoned, may again be wrought; and that of those which are wrought, the profits will be greatly increased. These improvements become the more necessary, and they may be

executed with the greater success, as the mine descends deeper into the earth, and as the expence of working it becomes greater. There is another great defect in the management of the Mexican mines, which admits of being remedied, namely, that great inconvenience and expence arises from the want of proper communications established between different parts of the works. The interior economy of the mine frequently resembles an ill-constructed building, when, to pass from one adjoining room to another, we must make the circuit of the whole house. In the mine of Valenciana, for example, which is so justly admired on account of its wealth, the magnificence of its walling, and the facility with which it is entered by spacious and commodious stairs, there is a union of small works without system, and without any lateral communication. Nor is there any plan of the works executed; and hence it may happen, that, in that labyrinth of cross galleries and interior pits, two works may happen to be near one another, without the possibility of perceiving it. The inconvenience of such an arrangement, in this, and indeed in all the Mexican mines, is particularly felt, because the mineral ore being poor, and being, in consequence, very bulky in proportion to its value, is of very expensive carriage. The distances also being unavoidably great, it becomes the more necessary to shorten them as much as possible, and to avoid all circuitous roads, and all unnecessary carriage, of an article which is so bulky, and the expence of transporting, which detracts so materially from the annual profits of the mine. The weekly expence of the carriers, who labour in the mine of Valenciana, amounts to £.624. These enormous expences of transportation would be diminished more than two-thirds, if the works communicated with one another by interior pits, or by galleries adapted for conveyance by wheel-barrows. Well-contrived operations would facilitate the extraction of minerals and the circulation of air, and would render unnecessary this great number of unproductive labourers.

It appears, according to all accounts,

which have been collected by Humboldt chiefly, that the produce of the Mexican mines has been increasing for these last forty years. The average amount, from 1750 to 1759, was above sixteen millions of dollars; from 1771 to 1803, it appears to have been above nineteen millions of dollars. Great improvements might be made in Mexican, as in all the other American mines, in extracting the silver from the ore. It is well known that it is by means of quicksilver that this is effected, and in this operation there is a great waste, by the imperfect modes of extraction now in use. The quantity required annually for Mexico was about 16,000 quintals, of 16,000 ounces each; and for the whole of America, about 25,000 quintals were required. A great part of this supply was imported from Europe, and during the late wars, when the intercourse between Spain and her colonies was interrupted by the vigilance of the British cruisers, the working of the Mexican mines was frequently interrupted for want of this necessary article. There was another great abuse, while the colonies remained under the government of the mother country, namely, that the sale of quicksilver was a royal monopoly, and its distribution a source of favour and influence, which produced the grossest abuses.

The population of Mexico consists of various races, of which they reckon about seven. 1st, There are the whites born in Europe; 2d, The Spanish Creoles, or whites of European extraction, born in America; 3d, The Mestizoes, or descendants of whites and Indians: the remaining races consist of the Indians and negroes, or of crosses of these original breeds with each other, and with the whites. The population, in 1793, was estimated at 4,483,529. This enumeration was, however, imperfect in many respects; and after several necessary corrections, it is raised by

Humboldt to 5,200,000. Since this period, the improvement of the country has been visible and rapid. The augmentation of tithes, and of the produce of the Indian capitation tax, the progress of agriculture and of civilization, the aspect of the country, covered with newly-constructed houses, announce a rapid increase in every part of the kingdom. On these grounds, Humboldt calculated the population, in 1808, at 6,500,000.

Mexico contains a number of populous and wealthy cities. The chief of these is Mexico, the capital, about four miles square, containing 136,500 inhabitants, and situated in the high Table Land in the middle of the continent, about half-way between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Zacatecas, the capital of the intendency of that name; 240 miles northwest of Mexico.

Gaudalaxara, 19,500 inhabitants; 280 miles north-west of Mexico.

Guanaxuato, capital of the intendancy of the same name; 70,600 inhabitants.

Valladolid, 18,000 inhabitants; 120 miles west of Mexico.

Puebla de los Angelos, 67,000 inhabitants; 70 miles E. S. E. of Mexico.

Vera Cruz, the grand sea-port of Mexico, 16,000 inhabitants; 150 miles E.S.E. of Puebla.

Oaxaca, 24,000 inhabitants; 250 miles south of Mexico.

Merida, 10,000 inhabitants; 70 miles north-east of Campeachy.

Acapulco, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with an excellent harbour; 4000 inhabitants, mostly people of colour, which are increased to 9000, by the resort of strangers to the annual fair.

Durango, 170 leagues north-west of Mexico; 12,000 inhabitants.

Sonora, 75 miles south of Arispe; 6400 inhabitants.

San Luis Potosi, situated on the eastern declivity of the Table Land, 12,000 inhabitants.

CLASSICAL REVERIES.

No.

DID you ever run your head, cautious and courteous reader, against a wall, without the smallest apprehension that there was any serious obstacle in your way? In lining your course over a fine level country, and in navi

III.

gating your travel by some city spire, or well-known land-mark, have you ever come unexpectedly, and most inopportunely, upon the banks of a broad and deep river, which fairly set all further advance, in that direc

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